Millicent Ficken spent her career studying bird behavior and communication. The first woman to earn a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cornell in 1960, Ficken authored over 100 scientific papers. She discovered that male hummingbirds have a whole repertoire of songs rather than…

Mair Marsiglio is an avid birder, and they are also a psychologist with a background in trauma therapy. A few years ago Dr. Marsiglio worked with the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory to facilitate mindfulness birding walks for veterans in a trauma treatment program. The walks helped…

Alison Vilag has worked for half a decade as a fall and spring waterbird counter at remote migration hotspots around Lake Superior. For weeks, every day from sunrise to nearly sunset, Alison is outside in frigid and volatile weather, identifying species from afar and tallying them with a…

The alpine forests of Australia’s southeast are home to an iconic pint-sized gray parrot with a bright red mohawk, and a call that’s been described as a “flying creaky gate”. The Gang-gang Cockatoo has seen significant habitat loss in recent years, especially after the 2020 wildfires. It’s…

Team Nuthatch competed in the 2022 World Series of Birding. The team was organized by Birdability, a group that promotes accessibility in birding, and consisted of people with different disabilities. Despite challenging weather, the team persevered and won an award in the competition. Team…

Ranger Evan Smith of New Zealand’s Fiordland National Park is, according to one visitor, “a bit of a legend.” Since 2011, Ranger Smith has raised money to help protect native birds from stoats, a kind of weasel introduced from Europe. When he began working on the Routeburn Track hiking…