High in the mountains, a Clark's Nutcracker buries a cache of whitebark pine seeds. This will be nearly its sole source of food until the next summer. But some of those cached seeds will germinate, spawning a small grove of pines. Whitebark pines are one of more than 20 species of pines…

In many birds, plumage is often the easiest way to tell males from females. But in raptors, size is often the best indicator of sex. In many bird and mammal species, males are larger than females. But in birds of prey, including Ospreys, hawks, falcons and eagles, the rule is reversed. It…

There are more than two dozen species of gulls living in North America. Some people might dismiss them as just “seagulls.” But not the people of Port Orchard, a small town on Washington State’s Puget Sound. Each year, hundreds of people gather at the town’s waterfront in late May for the…

As an old story from Germany goes, workers building the world’s tallest church were preparing to install an immensely long beam, but they couldn’t get it through the city gate. Preparing to dismantle the city wall to clear a path to the construction site, workers saw a House Sparrow carry…

It’s October in Yosemite. Acorn Woodpeckers, Clark’s Nutcrackers, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and Mountain Chickadees like this one know it’s time to stock the larder! For us, there’s still time to enjoy a hike b efore the harshness of winter. As John Muir put it: “Climb the mountains and get…

Coast to coast and border to border, Birding Trails offer great opportunities to find birds. On a summer trip in New England, along the Connecticut River between Vermont and New Hampshire, you can hear the vividly colored Blackburnian Warbler. Texas birding trails offer birds that can't be…

If you’re ever lucky enough to see a Red-necked Phalarope, keep an eye out for its delightful method of feeding. The birds twirl on the surface like little ballerinas, spinning and pecking, again and again. As they spin, the phalaropes force water away from the surface, causing an upward…

Vaux’s Swifts are perfectly adapted to lives spent in the air. They mate on the wing, and their feet and legs are so small they can’t even walk. But they can hang. So at dusk they collect along the inner walls of giant chimneys, at places like Chapman Elementary School in Portland, Oregon…

California Scrub-Jays are moving north up the Pacific coast of North America. The crafty birds join a number of other corvids, the crow- and jay-like birds, that already call the Pacific Northwest home. As climate and weather change and human development continues, birds everywhere are on…

Today you’ll find Snowy Egrets in the south and central United States and in remnant wetlands along the Atlantic coast. But once, they were rare. During the late 1800s, millions of birds – including Snowy Egrets – were killed annually to adorn the hats of fashionable ladies. Outraged…