birds

Webinar: Protecting Pollinators

The birds and the bees need our help. Pollinators help to feed us and make our world more beautiful, but their habitats need protecting. Backyard gardeners to big companies alike know this and some are creating strategies to safeguard these precious creatures.  This webinar shows how you can protect pollinating bees, wasps, bats, and birds on various scales. You'll hear strategies that are being implemented in small to large scale gardens. You'll be informed of best practices and inspired by the work that's being done. 
Photo Courtesy of Cheryl Dykstra

Urban Raptors: More Notes from the Field

Our first nest of the day is a little farther out from town than most, and on a large lot next to an equestrian training center. To us, the immediate habitat looks more suitable for a red-tailed hawk than a red-shouldered hawk, but we’re not hawks, and we’ve often been surprised by the adaptability of the red-shoulders.
A high-tech taxidermy owl with a detachable head. Photo Courtesy of Cheryl Dykstra

Urban Raptors: Notes from the Field, Part 2

Field notes by Cheryl Dykstra, co-editor of Urban Raptors Monday, May 14, 2018 Cincinnati, Ohio So happy our grad student Ania is back from Texas, having just finished her spring semester. Today is her second day, and the first day with our new undergrad intern Madison, a sophomore studying Environmental Biology.

Nature's Faithful Lovers

For Valentine's Day, I couldn't resist writing about nature's faithful lovers. 

A Day for the Birds

We revel in the glory of the African elephant, giant panda or Galapagos tortoise—the charismatic megafauna that gets most of attention, whether on television or at the zoo. But I think the group that deserves the award as the world’s number one animal group—perhaps we should call it the charismatic omnifauna—is the bird.
Washburn

Bird Therapy

Few things in the world have as much immediate ability to shift me into a different mood, into a different and more positive outlook, than birds—seeing them, hearing them, watching their often frenetic but joyful movements and machinations. Birds, and animals more generally, don’t receive the attention they deserve among urban designers and planners. They are so profoundly a part of the quality of life, and so important to the positive mental health of urban residents, that they ought to be given more attention in planning.

The Count: Tracking a Formerly Endangered Species

They went into the muslin bags easily as we freed them one by one from under the heavy net. Some were stunned, frozen, immobile; others struggled between the strands, exploding with powerful wings when handled. I was a tag-along, a newbie, an invited guest to this fall ritual of trapping, counting, banding, and collaring Aleutian cackling geese (Branta hutchinsii leucopareia), an annual joint venture between the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW).

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