Innholdsfortegnelse for Spring 2023 i Audubon Magazine

Added together, the swaths of sagebrush habitat that the West has lost since 2001 would cover half of Utah. This embattled ecosystem’s decline is an old story, but new evidence of the scale and pace of its destruction has conservationists questioning how much longer it can function as habitat for more than 350 plant and animal species. A multi-agency study from 2022—the fullest health assessment to date for the largest biome in the contiguous United States—found that 1.3 million acres of sagebrush are vanishing each year. At that rate, the remaining healthy habitat will be gone around midcentury. “The most recent science has shown us what a serious situation we’re in,” says Daly Edmunds, policy and outreach director for Audubon Rockies. “We’re really at a critical point in determining what…

Robert Armanini opened his birdseed store, Feed the Birds! in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, in 2010. He’d moved out of New York City 18 years prior, and a new home closer to nature sparked an interest in feeding wild birds, leading him to eventually start his own business. Feed the Birds! sells birdbaths, birdhouses, a multitude of bird feeders, and premium seed mixes that include a proprietary blend of Armanini’s own design containing black oil sunflower seeds, peanuts, safflower, and sunflower hearts—a calorie-packed product that’s richer in energy than a basic birdseed mix. For the first 10 years, business was good. Armanini’s bread-and-butter customers have always been upper-middle-class people in their 50s, and there are plenty of them in the area, which has only one other specialty retailer offering high-quality seeds…

IN THE SMALL SEASIDE village of Basima, a hunter leans forward and taps a card showing an illustration of a bird. He’s seen that species, the Metallic Starling, known locally as Bune wiwi, here on Fergusson Island in eastern Papua New Guinea. Carefully he taps another card, the Goldie’s Bird-of-Paradise, or Siai, which is found only on this archipelago. And another, and another. Children peek at our group of strangers, who’d arrived yesterday and set up a makeshift camp. There are 25 cards, each showing a different bird. Some obviously don’t live here, like the Northern Cassowary, a flightless, fivefoot-tall avian giant. Others are common residents that inhabit the village’s periphery or the forests where Fergusson Islanders hunt for food and harvest housing material. There are also more challenging cards—look-alikes of local…

SONGBIRD MIGRATION LOOKS different in the West. So say data from California’s Palomarin Field Station, operated since 1966 by the nonprofit Point Blue Conservation Science. The banding station, which records some 3,000 birds a year, is situated on the coast just north of San Francisco specifically to study songbird migration: Many species follow the shoreline as they travel north from wintering grounds. As early as January, plants start greening, and birders begin hearing Allen’s Hummingbird’s distinct wing whistle. But it’s not a starting bell for a massive influx of birds, as in Ohio. Here, spring migrants arrive in two distinct bursts, says avian ecologist Mark Dettling, a Palomarin banding supervisor. In mid-March bug catchers, such as Tree Swallow and Orange-crowned Warbler, arrive for the insect hatch. Then, in mid-April, berry and…

Happy Herping! This spring, consider expanding your ID skills beyond birds—by looking down, not up. Lizards, snakes, turtles, and their cold-blooded brethren are likewise all around us to observe and appreciate. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many birders already share an interest in seeking out reptiles and amphibians, known as field herpetology, or herping for short, while enjoying nature. Learn how you can pick up this pursuit, best practices from seasoned veterans, and tips for sharpening your herping sixth sense at audubon.org/herping. RE: “Flight of the Spoonbills” How could anyone look into the eyes of the Roseate Spoonbill on your Winter cover and not listen to its message? May this finally be the year we act on behalf of spoonbills and all other birds. I’m keeping this beautiful photo on my desk so…

MOST DOCTORS IN TRAINING don’t begin a new semester expecting to learn about birds. But after her first year studying at Harvard Medical School, Lynn Hur was hooked. “It’s become one of my favorite activities,” she says. Hur came to the hobby courtesy of associate professor Rose H. Goldman, who incorporates bird identification into her Practice of Medicine class to help sharpen students’ clinical diagnostic skills. In lecture, for example, Goldman asks students to differentiate between a Great Egret and Snowy Egret by homing in on details such as size, beak shape, and foot color that distinguish the slender, white birds. Until classes went virtual during the pandemic, Goldman, an avid birder, also led students on birding outings. At first blush, it might not seem like cardinals and carcinomas have…

No one knows exactly what’s driving kestrel losses or where the birds are running into trouble—making it difficult to figure out how to stop or reverse the trend. ON A CHILLY, OVERCAST DECEMBER MORNING in North Texas, a car prowls a pitted dirt road. The occupants are straining forward, looking intently at the sky. “Kestrel!” says Maddy Kaleta from the passenger seat, pointing to a tiny black blob on a power line ahead. She whips out binoculars and confirms the bird isn’t banded. “Let’s go,” says her advisor, University of North Texas ecologist Jim Bednarz. Kaleta grabs a ring-shaped wire mesh cage the size of a small throw pillow with two oblivious mice scampering inside. She opens the car door, leans out, and, as the car rolls to a stop,…

SOW Farmers plant crops in the spring, accounting for seeds they have in storage and estimates for domestic and global market demands. The numbers are staggering: In 2022, roughly 1.5 million acres of black oil sunflower were planted, and typically 20 percent of a harvest—equivalent to 225,000 football fields—goes to bird food. HARVEST Depending on the crop, harvesting happens from late summer well into the winter. While millet is harvested in August, sunflowers—the workhorse of the birdseed industry—are hardy and can stay in the ground until November or even longer. CLEAN Seeds are first treated on a shaker, and then a tilted platform called a gravity table removes sticks, weeds, and unwanted grains down to 2 percent or less of the material. Moist grains may also be treated with heat…

THIS WILL BE A HISTORIC YEAR: 2023 will be remembered in Audubon’s story as the year we launched a new strategic direction, fully entered the global conservation arena, and positioned ourselves as an important conservation innovator for the decades ahead. I will cover each of these pivotal milestones in columns throughout the coming year. As this issue goes to press, the Audubon Board of Directors has just endorsed a strategic plan that reflects the knowledge, passion, and courage of our staff, board, members, and network of chapters. Thank you to everyone who voiced their hopes for the future of birds and the places they need to thrive. Our new strategic vision brings forward the importance of birds in the lives of people. Birds need the same healthy environments and conditions…

THE NARROWS SURROUNDING Maine’s Hog Island have been populated with lobster boats and recreational craft for well over a century. But last autumn, a very different vessel appeared there: a 40-foot barge carrying several tons of timber, stone, and hydraulic equipment, all in service of an ambitious project to save one of Audubon’s most historic structures, a building called the Queen Mary. Like many of Maine’s 142 coastal communities, Hog Island is confronting sea-level rise, projected to increase substantially in the coming years. Over the past few decades, winter storm surges have started flooding the Queen Mary up to its floor joists, damaging the building and impeding access. A few times water has even risen above the floor. The threat has raised tough questions for those who live and work…

PROFESSIONAL BIRD GUIDE Gabriel Lugo was looking forward to another busy season of tours when Hurricane Maria slammed into Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017. The Category 4 storm—the fourth costliest on record to hit the United States—caused more than 70,000 landslides, flattened homes, and plunged much of the island into nearly a year of blackouts. Immediately, all seven groups who were booked with Lugo canceled. As weeks turned into months, Lugo picked up work in construction. Birding was starting to feel like a calling from a past life when he received a message that gave him hope: Two sisters from Brooklyn wanted to move forward with a January trip they'd planned months earlier. Would there be anything for them to see? Lugo launched into action, visiting favorite spots to…

One common birdseed ingredient is conspicuously capitalized and tagged with the registered trademark symbol: Nyjer, or Guizotia abyssinica. What gives? Nyjer, a small, thin seed highly popular with finches, first arrived at U.S. feeders in the early 1960s as “niger”—pronounced like the nation of Nigeria—a foreign wonder seed that was 30 to 40 percent oil (on par with black oil sunflower seeds). Nyjer has often been misleadingly sold as thistle to associate it with the North American plant that finches frequent; to avoid any confusion, the Wild Bird Feeding Institute trademarked the seed as Nyjer in 1998. Today it is the only major birdseed ingredient primarily imported from outside North America—mainly from India and Ethiopia, where it’s grown for oil and medicinal uses—and it risks carrying a noxious weed known…

AFTER BIRDING SEVERAL SPRING migrations on the East Coast, you might notice patterns. Species don’t show up in April and May all mixed up in an avian potpourri; instead, they tend to pass through in a predictable order year after year. No one knows this better than banders at Ohio’s Black Swamp Bird Observatory (BSBO). Situated on Erie’s lakeshore, BSBO is one of the last places migrants can rest before crossing the Great Lakes for breeding grounds in Canada. When they alight to refuel, some hit mist nets. Trained experts remove birds, take measurements, band ankles, and send them on their way. “It’s a whirlwind,” says lead bander Ryan Jacob, who has worked these nets since 2009 when he began as a volunteer. “People’s memories are terrible,” he says, so it’s…