Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2022 i Audubon Magazine

The death toll was like nothing Stephen Maciejewski had ever seen. Early on October 2, 2020, the Audubon Mid-Atlantic volunteer began scooping up bird carcasses on Philadelphia streets, collecting 400 at a single site. It was peak migration, and the victims, attracted by nighttime lights, had collided with buildings. Thousands of birds died that day, making them among the estimated hundreds of millions that are killed in collisions in the United States annually. The tragedy inspired local groups to create Bird Safe Philly in 2021. Their biggest win so far: Starting a program to dim the city’s skies during migration’s most hazardous hours.…

Ana González’s migration started where birds finish theirs. Although born and raised in the Colombian Andes, where many birds winter, she didn’t know much about the travelers until joining a course on the island of San Andrés as a college biology student in 2005. She marveled when she saw birds occupying every blue inch above her: “I felt like I could just take them if I extended my hand.” Holding tiny Palm and Chestnut-sided Warblers to band them, she blew aside their feathers to see how much fat they had left underneath. “They were a sharp thing. Those birds were dry,” she says. “They’d burned everything they had to get there.” Right then, she made it a goal to go where birds started their odysseys, to understand what compelled their…

It’s Showtime Spring migration is birding’s best ambassador: blooming blossoms, warmer weather, and wave upon wave of winged visitors in their most dazzling finery. It’s the perfect time to fall in love with birds—and to take action to keep them safe on their epic seasonal journeys.…

PHOTOGRAPHER KELLEY LUIKEY hasn’t always focused on birds; initially, she was drawn to landscapes. But in 2013, while taking photos of Barred Owls, Prothonotary Warblers, and other species at South Carolina’s Francis Beidler Forest Audubon Center and Sanctuary, she “got the bird buzz.” Beidler’s virgin cypress-tupelo swamp—some of whose trees have stood for more than a millennium—was also among the first places Luikey witnessed a photographer using playback: the use of recorded sounds of a bird species or its predator to draw the bird out for a look. It’s a practice photographers and birders should avoid because it can distract birds from survival tasks. It’s especially harmful during nesting season, when doing so can draw birds away from their nests, causing them to waste precious energy and leave their young…

MUCH OF WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT migration comes from the tiny aluminum anklets many birds wear on their travels. At stations around the world, scientists briefly capture birds in delicate mesh nets, measure them, and then outfit each with a band sporting a unique ID that helps researchers track its movements. For bird lovers, visiting or volunteering at a banding station can provide up-close avian encounters and a chance to contribute to valuable science. Some 80 million birds, representing 1,000 species, have been banded in North America since the federal government began coordinating banding efforts in 1920. “Think of the band as a name tag,” says Zach Hutchinson, a community science coordinator with Audubon Rockies. Researchers, birders, and others who recapture or find a banded bird can report it to…

FLYING GARDENS OF MAYBE BY ANDREW S. YANG IN 2012 ANDREW S. YANG WAS CHATTING WITH A COLLEAGUE ABOUT CHARLES DARWIN, MARVELING AT HOW the famed naturalist once gathered seeds from mud caked onto a bird and grew 82 plants representing five species. It got him thinking about the seeds modern birds carry. Yang, a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is also a research associate at the Field Museum of Natural History, where scientists preserve birds for its permanent collection. Many of those birds died colliding into buildings. Each bird-strike death is a tragedy, but Yang sees a secondary disaster in their demise: a dead end for the seeds they consumed—what he calls the “ecology of interruption.” Now a decade in the making, his project…

IT’S MID-MARCH IN NEW YORK CITY, a time we at Audubon fondly refer to as “timberdoodle season.” American Woodcocks are among the many spring migrants beginning to move through, sending us into parks and cemeteries to peer under bushes for the skulky little birds. Colleagues post exuberant sightings to our workplace Slack—plus one video of a bird bobbing to the tune of “Tequila.” At the same time, another migration is playing out across the globe, where some 3 million people have fled Ukraine in less than three weeks. Those migrants, mostly women and children, took flight for neighboring countries to escape a horrific war. They are among the more than 82 million people worldwide who, according to the United Nations, have been forcibly displaced from their homes. As María Paula…

How do birds prepare their bodies for flight? Migrating is a major physical challenge. To get ready for the trip, birds can make huge changes to their bodies in a matter of days. Birds rely on fat to fuel flight, in contrast to humans, who burn a lot of carbohydrates and sugars during exercise. Some will double their body weight beforehand by gorging on berries, insects, or mollusks. Others pump up the size of their flight muscles, increase their metabolism, and even grow or shrink their digestive organs to pack on or shed weight. In a study of Gray Catbirds, for example, University of Rhode Island physiologist and ecologist Kristen DeMoranville found the birds’ flight muscles were larger during fall migration than in summer. And while the birds wintered and…

If climate change is disturbing the timing of seasons and migrations, what can we do about it? The obvious answer—address the root causes of climate change, namely gaseous emissions from combusted fossil fuels, so we can reverse the planet’s fever—is also the hardest. But research into the links between phenology, migration, and avian ecology provides additional avenues for action. Bolstering supplies of native food is one approach. Community ecologist Amanda Gallinat, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, studied invasive shrubs that fruit in late autumn, which have taken over much of the habitat used by migratory thrushes, catbirds, and other fruit eaters in New England. At the same time, warming has caused native plants like dogwood and viburnum to flower earlier in spring and, thus, ripen earlier…

Many Saturdays when Francis Taroc was a kid, his father woke him and his brother while his mom, a nurse, slept off her night shift. They would quietly put on their boots and take a trip to Wilderness Park near Los Angeles. Crossing its creek felt like fording the Amazon River; walking down the trail, like venturing into the unknown. Since then, Taroc’s understanding of what moving through landscapes means for all creatures has guided his work. In the 1970s Taroc’s parents left the Philippines and moved to suburban California. They were part of a wave of immigration: In the decades since World War II, Filipino medical staff—trained in schools built by the United States during its colonial occupation of the archipelago—have moved to America to seek opportunity and fill…

Walking among foggy oak and pine forests in Guatemala, where she works as a park ranger, brings up memories for Vilma Karelia Marín Laguna. Although only 420 miles away from her hometown in León, Nicaragua, returning is unthinkable. As a recent refugee, she doesn’t know whether Guatemala will be a temporary sanctuary or a permanent home. In 2006 Nicaragua elected Daniel Ortega, one of the guerrilla leaders who had overthrown a corrupt, United States–backed dictatorship in the 1970s. Viewed as a hero then, slowly Ortega became what he’d fought, co-opting political institutions to concentrate power and making his wife vice president. I LIVED WITH CONSTANT FEAR OF BEING KIDNAPPED. The situation reached a boiling point in 2018. A fire razed about 12,000 acres in an important protected forest, partly thanks…

THERE’S NO BETTER WAY TO IMMERSE yourself in spring migration than by attending a birding festival. Just ask Lillian Armstrong: Her experiences at festivals in Cape May, New Jersey, and other hotspots encouraged her to make a career change to bird conservation after 18 years in corporate communications. “It’s amazing what you go home with, in terms of that increased passion for this wonderful hobby and your knowledge that you can share with others,” says Armstrong, special events director with New Jersey Audubon (unaffiliated with the National Audubon Society) and organizer of the Cape May Spring Festival. Though the pandemic canceled some of these cherished events and shifted others online, many festivals plan to once again welcome birders from around the world this spring to celebrate birds on the move.…

The 3.7-ounce PATAGONIA HOUDINI JACKET ($99), made from 100% recycled nylon with a weather-resistant finish, all but disappears into any bag. When the breeze picks up or the sun beats down, slip it on and it’ll reveal its might. For binoculars you can bird with for life, look no further than NIKON MONARCH 5 8X42 ($280). They are light and comfortable, offer good clarity and brightness, and have an excellent warranty. Bird all day with the sleek GREGORY ARRIO BACKPACK (starting at $90; available in 18L, 22L, 24L, and plus sizes), which offers ample storage. A ventilated panel prevents a sweaty back, and adjustable straps deliver a snug fit. Don’t let its compact size fool you. The SIBLEY FIELD GUIDE TO BIRDS ($20), which easily fits into most pockets, is…

UNLIKE BIRDS IN BARE WINTER trees, spring migrants always seem to hide among new leaves. Trickier still, warblers seem to spend most of their time flitting about treetops, showing us only their butts. The key to identifying warblers that give you a bad look is to use what you can see, clue by clue. The front of the bird is often out of sight, so let’s start at the vent—the area between the legs. Cape Mays (pictured) show a yellowish vent. Black-throated Greens have yellow patches just behind the legs. Yellow Warblers are simple: Everything is yellow below. Continuing backward we reach the triangle of feathers just before the tail called the undertail coverts. Black-and-white Warblers and Worm-eating Warblers each have small, arrow-shaped spots lining their coverts: The Worm-eating’s are…

BILL DELUCA CAN’T QUITE BELIEVE HIS eyes. The Audubon migration ecologist has spent years studying Blackpoll Warblers on their breeding grounds in remote boreal forests in the United States and Canada. On this morning in late winter 2020, he’s standing in an orange grove in Villavicencio, Colombia, where the Andes Mountains meet the vast Llanos savanna and cattle ranches abound. He’d always pictured Blackpolls overwintering in towering old-growth tropical forests, not in the low canopy of neatly ordered citrus trees. But a sharp chip tells him there are indeed Blackpolls in this manicured landscape. “This is weird,” he says. “So weird.” Yet the greenish-yellow warblers seem right at home, hunting for insects amid the bustling locals. Blue-gray Tanagers, Russet-throated Puffbirds, and Bananaquits inhabit the low canopy, while Bare-faced Ibis forage…

Sherry Williams was at home one day when every car alarm on the block began screeching. Was there a crash? she wondered. She found the answer next door, in a vacant lot she’d cleaned up and filled with birdfeeders: a good 200 parrots, screaming in unison. Their voices were reverberating against the walls, setting off the alarms. Her feeders had received a visit from Chicago’s colony of Monk Parakeets, a nonnative species that arrived in the city in the 1970s and gained the right to stay in 1987, after neighbors battled officials to save the parrots’ massive nests. The uncommon birds had made themselves a home—a story that Williams says parallels her own. Her grandparents moved to Chicago from Mississippi, escaping poverty and racial abuse during a period known as…

AUDUBON BIRD GUIDE This free app has all you need to start birding, including a tool that helps sort through more than 800 species by appearance and region to nail down an ID. It also uses eBird data to highlight nearby hotspots. MERLIN Like Audubon’s, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s free app features audio recordings to help confirm a species. What’s more, Merlin’s recently added Sound ID function—think Shazam for birds—has drawn rave reviews for its accuracy. LARKWIRE Merlin’s ability to ID birds by sound is impressive, but knowing birdsong yourself is even more rewarding. Larkwire can help you get there, and its gamified approach to learning means you’ll have fun along the way.…

RECORD Your smartphone’s microphone and voice recording app are enough to get started: Just place the phone on your roof, windowsill, or fire escape on a clear night with the mic pointed toward the stars. (Resting it in a bowl covered in plastic wrap will help keep moisture out.) Simply plug the phone into a power brick and press Record. Remember to save the file in the morning. Another option is a portable recorder like the Zoom H1n ($120), which can pick up birds at higher altitudes and with fainter calls. REVIEW In NFC birding, you identify a species not by its appearance but by how its flight calls look in a graph called a spectrogram. The easiest way to convert your audio recording to a spectrogram is with Audacity,…

For birders and researchers alike, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird has been a game changer. Not only can its crowdsourced data help you locate rare birds and hotspots, but its collection of more than 1 billion records contributed over the past 20 years has also proven a vital resource for science and conservation. As powerful as eBird is, though, submitting sightings can intimidate rookies. Let these tips put you at ease. NAME CHECK Record all the species you were able to confidently identify, visually or by ear. Not sure if you saw a Red-tailed or Red-shouldered Hawk? Use the “Hawk sp.” or “Buteo sp.” options, which indicate that it’s a hawk species or, more precisely, a member of the Buteo genus. Sharing photos—especially encouraged for a rare bird—helps eBird…