Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2023 i Audubon Magazine

Bearded Vultures are among the world’s more unusual birds: An adult’s diet consists mostly of bones (above), which they often drop from on high to break up into smaller pieces before consuming. For centuries, these birds were greatly misunderstood. Europeans falsely believed them to be predators that terrorized livestock and people, leading to their widespread persecution. In the Alps, the last of these scavengers was killed in 1913. Now, thanks to a reintroduction effort, the alpine species’ majestic silhouette is again soaring over the region’s snowy granite peaks. “It’s one of the most successful conservation projects in Europe,” says Vulture Conservation Foundation (VCF) director José Tavares. As new threats emerge, though, this population’s recovery is far from guaranteed.…

Monumental Work At 88 years old, Lowell Young, a former Audubon chapter leader, has continued his decades of advocacy on behalf of birds and habitats by diving into perhaps his most personal cause yet: a campaign to create the Range of Light National Monument in California’s Sierra Nevada. To that end, Young, who is known as much for his tenacity as his playful nature, most recently teamed up with Audubon California to create an Important Bird Area in support of the proposed monument. Learn more about Young and his vital work at audubon.org/lowellyoung. RE: “Shedding Light on Whippoor-wills” “Thank you for the excellent story on these elusive and wonderful birds,” writes DIANE YOUNG about our coverage of new research looking into the decline of the Eastern Whip-poor-will and other species…

IN JANUARY, A TWIN-ENGINE CESSNA LANDED ON Mexico’s Guadalupe Island with a most unusual collection of passengers: 36 fertile Black-footed Albatross eggs, all destined to be raised by foster parents at a Laysan Albatross colony on this remote volcanic island. Scientists had ferried them from Midway Atoll, located on the far northwestern edge of the Hawaiian archipelago, to Guadalupe, more than 3,500 miles away. Yet the last 12 miles of their journey would be the most grueling. The lone road on Guadalupe is a bumpy, double track pocked by washouts and boulders—the kind of terrain that scrambles even the most swaddled of eggs. To give them their best chance at surviving the long trip, the scientists had nestled the eggs into foam cutouts designed to fit each one’s shape exactly,…

BUCKET LIST Go Find a Short-eared Owl This Winter Across the country, this striking species is relatively easy to locate and beguiling to watch. WINTER BIRDING HAS A REPUTATION for being slow and frigid (gulls, anyone?), but it doesn’t have to be. Consider the Short-eared Owl, a charismatic species best seen during the depths of winter that, mercifully, can also be spied from the comfort of your car. Hauntingly beautiful, with long, graceful wings and keen yellow eyes set in a distinct facial disc, Short-ears are not shy about showing off their good looks. They’re active in daylight and gravitate to open areas, where they hunt voles, lemmings, and other rodents, making them much easier to spot than more secretive owls that hunker in deep woods and come out only…

ON A SUNNY SEPTEMBER DAY IN New Mexico, officials celebrated what developers call the country’s largest-ever renewable energy project. The groundbreaking for SunZia’s twin 550-mile electric transmission lines was a milestone in the national effort to bring more carbon-free power online. But the photo op—17 years after the project was first proposed—indicated how challenging that transition will be. To pursue his goal of a decarbonized electric grid by 2035, President Joe Biden signed legislation that is expected to cut emissions by 40 percent this decade. There’s a catch, though: Up to 200,000 more miles of high-voltage transmission lines are needed to carry power from wind and solar farms to cities and towns. Developers must more than double the current rate of construction, or 80 percent of the Inflation Reduction Act’s…

I ’VE KNOWN THE AUTHOR AND CONSERVATIONIST Carl Safina for nearly two decades now. I’ve studied the dogged way he challenged destructive U.S. fisheries practices and earned one of the nation’s most prestigious fellowships in the process. I’ve read drafts of his books-in-progress and seen the way he transforms hours of meticulous field study into lyrical, heartrending (and best-selling) narratives about everything from albatrosses to orcas. These works helped make him, according to Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s former director John Fitzpatrick, “among the most inspiring and forward-thinking naturalists, conservation activists, and writers in our generation.” I’ve observed the push-pull in Carl’s heart that alternately drives him to document tragic environmental losses in the world’s far-flung corners or retreat to his private woodland just to be quiet with a small, local…

MIGRATION ISN’T FOR EVERYONE. For birds that skip the trip south each fall, staying warm and energized is key to surviving cold and snowy weather. Fortunately, thanks to evolution, birds have developed various adaptations and strategies to persevere amid such harsh conditions. Here’s a look at some of the tactics you might observe out your window or in the field this winter. FLUFFING UP A puffed-up Northern Cardinal is a familiar sight when the mercury plummets, but how exactly does that help keep a bird warm? When birds fluff up, they create hundreds of air pockets between their feathers that help trap heat, maximizing their natural insulation. DONNING LAYERS Bird feathers are remarkable for many reasons, but it’s their ability to repel water that helps birds stay dry in addition…

I’D NEVER SEEN A PILEATED WOOD-pecker eat out of a person’s hand until 2002, when Carrie Griffis, a reader of my long-running nature blog, sent me photos taken on her back deck. My first question was: “What are you feeding them?!” Carrie had made a homemade concoction she called peanut butter suet dough. I bought the ingredients and whomped together my first batch that week. The birds immediately took notice. More than 20 years later, I’m still serving a version of the recipe to a stunning array of species in my Ohio yard. With this dough, I’ve developed years-long relationships with a pair of Chipping Sparrows, a Yellow-throated Warbler, a pair of Pine Warblers, and any number of woodpeckers. Nuthatches, chickadees, titmice, Blue Jays, and Brown Thrashers all clamor for…

IN EARLY NOVEMBER, I WAS fortunate to spend time with leaders from community and campus chapters and partners at Audubon’s 2023 Leadership Conference. Surrounded by our flock under the impressive peaks of Rocky Mountain National Park, I was reminded of the inspiring strength that Audubon represents. United by a common vision of a future where birds thrive, our powerful and diverse force for conservation is gaining momentum. The theme of the meeting says it all: Local Action. Hemispheric Impact. We have set our new strategic direction and tied our success to the fate of birds. The challenges we face require us to think more boldly and push ourselves toward new ways of working. In August, for example, we released Birds and Transmission: Building the Grid Birds Need, a report that…

EACH SUMMER AND FALL, AS orange-tinged smoke fills skies around Los Angeles, questions of concern flood Olivia Sanderfoot’s inbox: Why are birds so quiet? Do they need birdbaths? How can I help? An ecologist at UCLA’s La Kretz Center for California Conservation Science, Sanderfoot specializes in studying how wildfire smoke and air pollution affect birds. But even she doesn’t have great answers: Scientists know surprisingly little about how birds behave in extreme haze. In 2023, Sanderfoot started Project Phoenix to empower people to help researchers dig into these questions. During peak fire season from August through October, more than 300 volunteers conducted 10-minute weekly surveys in California, logging birds they saw or heard in their neighborhoods. “Although 10 minutes might not seem like a lot, if we pool everybody’s observations…

Eaglets Henry and Agnes hatched at a time when their species seemed doomed. In 1976 only about 400 Bald Eagle pairs survived in the contiguous United States. As part of a last-ditch effort to save the national bird, scientists tucked the weeks-old chicks into a 40-foot tower in upstate New York. If the experiment worked, they would grow up, fly into the wild, and produce babies of their own, helping to expand the species’ dwindling territory. Biologists leading the rescue effort had never done anything like it before. They knew it was a long shot, but the conditions were ripe to try. Three years earlier, on December 29, 1973, President Richard Nixon had signed the Endangered Species Act (ESA), arguably one of the most powerful environmental laws in U.S. history.…

ON A CLOUDY MARCH MORNing in the Cascade Mountains of central Washington State, Taza Schaming has gotten her hopes up once again. She flew in late last night from her home in upstate New York and woke early to drive two hours to a trailhead outside the town of Wenatchee, but she’s upbeat as she straps her snowshoes to her pack. Her goal sounds simple enough: capture six Clark’s Nutcrackers and fit them with satellite tracking tags. But Schaming, a wildlife ecologist with the nonprofit Northern Rockies Conservation Cooperative, has failed twice to trap the sleek gray corvids on these rocky slopes. The first time, in March 2020, pandemic shutdowns forced her to turn around before she made it to Washington. In 2022 she spent days trekking to remote bait…

Explore other artwork from The Aviary series at audubon.org/the-aviary. AS AN ART STUDENT, PHYLLIS SHAFER HAD BEEN TOLD THAT PAINTING OUTDOORS, OR EN PLEIN AIR, wasn’t for real artists; only hobbyists set up an easel pondside on a Sunday afternoon. So she stayed inside for years, conjuring fantasy landscapes, until a show by plein-air artists inspired her to capture real habitats outside and then return to the studio to add her characteristic whimsy. “I’d rather start from life than from a photograph,” Shafer says. It’s how she cultivates her passion for ecosystems and wildlife: “Loving and engaging in nature is the first step toward stewardship.” Flitting birds, however, proved tricky subjects. New possibilities opened when Shafer discovered a trove of taxidermic native birds at the Galena Creek Visitor Center in…