Geese honk loudly and point their bills toward the sky when they’re ready to start the migration. Here’s how they know it’s time, how they navigate and how they conserve energy on the grueling trip.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Birds
Displaying 181 - 200 of 511 articles
Pardalotes are quintessentially Australian birds, industrious, beautiful and strange. They have adapted to our environment but we are corroding the places in which they live.
Birds found along the Gulf Coast have evolved to ride out hurricanes and tropical storms. But with development degrading the marshes where they live, it’s getting harder for them to bounce back.
Paleontologists have discovered fossil remains belonging to an enormous ‘toothed’ bird that lived for a period of about 60 million years after dinosaurs.
Today’s birds evolved from feathered dinosaurs.
Breeding pairs spend a great deal of time roosting together and the male often gently strokes the female with his beak.
Because the forecast for rainfall in the Rift Valley basin is a rising trend, the lake levels look set to rise even more in the future.
For decades, scientists believed that only male birds sang. Then women entered the field and showed what their predecessors had missed.
Black turbine blades seem to reduce bird collisions, but it’s important to know why.
The Superb Lyrebird is famous for its song and dance, but what is less known is their extraordinary role as world-class ecosystem engineers.
The moment a chick hatches from its egg, maggots burrow into its skin to drink its blood, usually killing it. But scientists have found a way to stop the blood-sucking parasites.
Birdwatchers have long known that to conserve nature, we need not only the intellectual expertise of science but also an emotional affinity with the living things around us.
Framing cats as responsible for declines in biodiversity is based on faulty scientific logic and fails to account for the real culprit – human activity.
Human genes are one of the main reasons we can’t grow wings. And even if humans did have wings, they wouldn’t necessarily allow us to fly.
One bird we tagged flew for 172km without a single flap.
Scientists and bureaucrats moved logistical mountains to rescue the eastern bristlebird from bushfires this year. As climate change worsens, wildlife evacuations will become more common.
The steep decline in biodiversity is worrying, especially as wild species are important for pollination and pest control.
My research into Britain’s birds found 77% of species varied in abundance around roads.
Noise pollution can cause long-term stress and harm to wildlife.
The mosque is where men and women and children go to pray. But, according to art historian Christiane Gruber, some make room for other, non-human creatures too.
Top contributors
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Professor of Avian Behavioural Ecology, Macquarie University
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Professor of Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University
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Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England
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Postdoctoral Fellow, Australian National University
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Professor of Conservation Biology, Charles Darwin University
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Researcher, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University
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Professor in Evolutionary Biology (jointly appointed with South Australian Museum), Flinders University
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Professor of Environmental Management, The University of Queensland
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Adjunct Lecturer/ Ecologist, University of New England
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Associate Professor, Vertebrate Palaeontology Group, Flinders University
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Professor, The University of Queensland
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Professor of Evolutionary and Conservation Biology, Australian National University
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Professor, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University
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Research Director and Curator, Australian National Wildlife Collection, CSIRO, Canberra, CSIRO
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Senior Lecturer in Conservation Biology, Manchester Metropolitan University
