The Bearded Reedling is a wetland songbird that’s enjoying a boom in both population and popularity. Barely larger than a chickadee, the male reedlings are often photographed with their feathers puffed out to near spherical proportions, earning them the nickname of “the roundest bird in…

No human dreams of relaxing on the shores of Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean that’s best known as a Soviet testing site for nuclear weapons. Yet a growing flock of Pink-footed Geese have begun to make this militarized zone their summer home. Though this region was once…

Kererū, green-blue pigeons native to New Zealand, like to sun themselves after dining on fruit. But in warm summer months, the bird’s sunbathing has a surprising side-effect. A part of their digestive system called the crop stores their latest snack – where it begins to ferment, eventually…

In August 2008, Kasatochi Island erupted in the middle of auklet breeding season, burying tens of thousands of chicks in hot ash. At first, the auklets’ future on the island appeared bleak. But in just a few years, the birds had returned in force. Thousands nested within the innumerable…

The Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon, a landscape dotted with a thousand concrete bunkers, may not look like an ideal haven for birds. But the site has taken on a new life — as a luxury subdivision for Burrowing Owls. That’s thanks in part to David H. Johnson, the founder of the Global…