The last Passenger Pigeon in the world died on September 1, 1914. What happened to these lovely long-tailed doves? Huge flocks offered easy shooting, and the birds were hunted to extinction. We now have the awareness and tools to make sure that over-harvest and loss of habitat don't happen…

Charles Darwin's insights during his travels on the HMS Beagle in the 1830s revolutionized the natural sciences. And his personal accounts of the journey, such as his encounters with Magellanic Penguins, tell captivating stories. As an experiment, Darwin stood between a penguin and the sea…

Black-headed Grosbeaks and Evening Grosbeaks belong to entirely different families of birds. Both groups evolved oversized bills for opening tough seeds. The Black-headed Grosbeak is closely related to the cardinal, while the Evening Grosbeak is close kin to the goldfinch. The common name…

No song epitomizes the open spaces of the American West like that of the Western Meadowlark. Indeed, the song of the Western Meadowlark can be rightly acclaimed the essential musical theme of much of the West. It's a bird of grass - and sage-lands, fields and pastures, meadows and prairies…

African Penguins stand just over two feet tall and weigh up to nine pounds. They nest in burrows six feet deep. The African Penguin now faces severe challenges. But even today, at Boulders Beach near Cape Town, it's possible to walk the beach among these charming birds and hear their…

Roughly 99% of a swallow's diet is flying insects. They gulp down millions of flies, mosquitoes, and agricultural pests, in the course of feeding themselves and their young. The world population of Barn Swallows is estimated to be 190 million. If each ate just 350 insects per day, that…

A Pigeon Guillemot, a sprightly seabird, is considered an "indicator species," meaning a species that "indicates" the health of an environment. A large group of Whidbey Island Audubon volunteers in Washington State has been studying the 1,000 or so guillemots that breed on the island. In…

Studies have shown that many songbirds use stars to help guide them, and will fly the wrong way when they are disoriented. Imagine flying thousands of miles without map or compass, in the dark of night. Throughout April, songbirds are traveling north on their annual spring migration. Visit…

The male Bufflehead performs his extravagant courtship display often. He swims toward the female, bobbing his head up and down at a speed that makes you fear for his neck. He takes off and flies over her with head held low. Then he lifts his head, raises his bushy crest, and skis back on…

As the first rays of sunlight fill the trees on a spring morning, a symphony of birdsong erupts. As early morning light extinguishes the stars, male birds begin to belt out their songs. One of the magical gifts of observing birds is to hear the dawn song in spring. Early in the morning…