The Trump administration wants to step up logging, saying it will benefit wildlife by reducing forest fire risks. But wildfires create habitat for threatened Spotted Owls and many other species.
Effective conservation of migratory songbirds requires an understanding of how populations are connected between seasons. The challenge is being able to track individuals throughout the entire year.
In our increasingly noisy world, how do you make sure that your voice is heard? If you’re a bird, that depends on the type of noise and what you’re trying to say.
Is birdsong simply a hard-wired, functional, primitive sound – or could we call it ‘music’? Australia’s pied butcherbirds show there are surprising overlaps between birds’ and humans’ musical abilities.
The European goldfinch, with its wonderful coloration and melodic singing, is a favoured pet for people living in the western Maghreb. But continued poaching is putting the species in danger.
Being blue is risky for superb fairy-wrens: males become more cautious when their plumage turns blue, and other wrens take advantage by using them as colourful decoys.
Archer Larned, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and Sarah Luttrell, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
During bird irruptions, hundreds or thousands of a single species show up outside their normal territory. Most of what we know about irruptions comes from data collected by citizen scientists.
Victorian attitudes influenced what scientists thought they were observing about sexual behaviors in the animal world. But modern techniques reveal the myth for what it is.
Many argue avian movements are too simple or repetitive to be classed as dance. But George the lyrebird puts on quite a show – as do a number of other bird species.
It is unusual for songbirds migrating from Europe to Africa to sing. A new hypothesis suggests an interesting reason for why such singing sometimes happens.
Robin Kelley, University of California, Los Angeles
It took ages for one of African jazz’s hidden masterpieces to be reissued. Still today, four decades later, 1976’s ‘African Songbird’ tells volumes about the politics of the time.