The common eider nests in colonies on islands of the St. Lawrence estuary. The down that the female duck takes to fill her nest has exceptional insulating properties.
Yao honey-hunters harvesting a honeybee nest in Niassa Special.
Reserve, Mozambique, where human-honeyguide cooperation still thrives.
Photo by Jessica van der Wal
Cooperating with honeyguides has been found to increase food security. It facilitates cultural traditions and enables income or trade.
The chestnut-collared longspur spends the winter in Mexico and the southern United States; the Canadian prairies are its breeding grounds.
(Jeremy Price)
Noise created by the oil industry impacts songbirds. Research found that constant noises, like those produced by oil wells, are less disruptive than the shorter bursts of noise produced by drilling.
Exposure to hot and dry conditions can damage the DNA of nestling birds in their first few days of life – meaning they age earlier and produce less offspring.
Southern Yellow-billed Hornbills struggled to breed at high temperatures.
Nicholas B. Pattinson
Somehow, female birds manage to hold their families together despite predators, harsh conditions and sometimes, a less-than-attentive partner.
Tourists cross a hanging bridge in the treetops of Costa Rica’s Monteverde cloud forest.
Matthew Williams-Ellis/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
Tourism revenues account for almost 10% of Costa Rica’s gross domestic product. New research shows that charismatic wildlife is necessary but not sufficient to attract ecotourists.
Ospreys spend summer in the UK.
Vlad G/shutterstock
A new study shows that when free-ranging cats are more than a few blocks from forested areas in cities, such as parks, they’re more likely to prey on rats than on native wildlife.
Green headed tanager in Ubatuba, Brazil
Lars Falkdalen Lindahl, CC BY-SA 3.0.
These coordinated movements of a flock of starlings follow no plan or leader. Scientists used to think the animals must communicate via ESP to create these fast-moving blobs.
There’s plenty of aggression in the bird world, but little armed violence.
Velvet Shearer, USFWS/Flickr
Birds will shriek and dive at each other over food, territory or mates, but only a small number of species sport actual weapons. The reason: Flying matters more for their survival than fighting.
Colorized version of a 1935 photo of a male ivory-billed woodpecker, now believed to be extinct. Photographed by Arthur A. Allen.
Forestry Images/Wikipedia
These are poignant cries of a disappearing landscape – the creaking calls of gang-gangs, buzzing bowerbirds and the mournful cry of the far eastern curlew.
The critically endangered regent honeyeater.
Friends of Chiltern
New research finds the last 250 years has seen more than 100 million hectares of bird habitat destroyed on mainland Australia – that’s 15% of Australia’s landmass.
The only species of Australian bird which remains unphotographed. This is one of the most accurate illustrations of the species.
John Keulemans published in Gregory Mathews ‘The Birds of Australia’ 1911