Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2024 i Audubon Magazine

In fall 2023, in the wake of a devastating outbreak of avian influenza among wild California Condors, we reported a sign of hope: After a female succumbed to the illness, conservationists rescued her egg, concerned that her surviving mate couldn’t incubate it alone without risking his own health. We tracked the egg recovery expedition, the chick hatching, and her placement with foster parents at The Peregrine Fund’s breeding facility in Boise, Idaho. But when we left the young bird more than a year ago, no one knew whether she would ever live in the wild. This past September we watched as the condor known as Milagra—Spanish for “miracle”—returned to her flock on the same red rock cliffs in Arizona where her parents nested.…

Busy Bees Down an unmarked road in Maryland’s Patuxent Research Refuge sits a government research facility once used for breeding Whooping Cranes. Here, at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Native Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab, scientists spend their days studying the country’s roughly 4,000 species of native bees. Key to this work are the acres of surrounding native flowers planted to attract the pollinators—which also draw plenty of birds. More than just a research operation, the lab regularly hosts volunteers and helps partners bring native plants to their own communities. Learn about the lab’s work and see some beautiful bee photos at audubon.org/bees. RE: “Disappearing Act” Our Fall 2024 story exploring the mysterious decline of Common Grackles resonated with readers on Facebook. “I’ve really noticed this living in eastern Iowa most…

STOP AND LISTEN ALONG the Niobrara National Scenic River in Nebraska and you might tune in to trickling waterfalls, croaking bullfrogs, or calling Green Herons. “It’s exploding with wildlife,” says park superintendent Susan Cook. What you’re unlikely to hear is noise from cars, airplanes, and recreational vehicles, says Nick McMahan, director of quiet trails for Quiet Parks International. Based on observations he and his colleagues made while paddling the river, in late 2023 the nonprofit declared the route its first quiet trail in the United States—one of several awards it offers to spotlight sanctuaries from the world’s motorized din. Just as wildlife thrive in quieter environments, so do people. But finding calming places is increasingly difficult. Nearly all U.S. residents hear some aviation, rail, or road noise in their daily…

BINOCULARS GLUED TO HER FACE, CARRIE Gray yells “Bear!” from the roof of a two-room plywood cabin perched on the edge of Ontario’s Hudson Bay. I drop my tent poles mid-setup and rush up a rickety ladder. From the vantage above the stunted spruce and willows, we spot the polar bear on a beach ridge a quarter-mile away. I take a grainy phone photo as it ambles across the sulfuric mudflats that emerge from the ebb tide. On the horizon, the ocean glitters like a mirage. Our visiting group has just arrived after a day and a half of traveling across Canada’s boreal forest via car, air, boat, and amphibious all-terrain vehicle. I’m thrilled and terrified to see one of the massive predators, but Sam Hunter, the Weenusk First Nation…

Now with new prizes and a hemispheric wingspan! TAKE YOUR BEST SHOT! Enter the Audubon Photography Awards. You could win cash prizes and see your photo published in Audubon magazine. CONTEST ENTRY DATES January 15–March 5, 2025 PRIZE CATEGORIES Grand, Youth, Birds in Landscapes, Plants for Birds, Female Bird, Video, Birds Without Borders, and more. AWARDS INCLUDE Up to $5,000, a feature in Audubon magazine, and a special youth trip to Hog Island Audubon Camp. NEW FOR 2025 Additional chances for your photos to shine! We’re putting migratory species and conservation in focus. Plus, the contest will be migrating south to Chile and Colombia, where residents can win prizes for showcasing birdlife in essential ecosystems across the Americas. AUDUBONPHOTOAWARDS.ORG NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Contest begins 01/15/25 and ends 03/05/25. Must be…

Become a Great Egret Society member! We only have to look to the charming Great Egret. This species, once on the brink of extinction, continues to be a symbol of hope and what we can accomplish when we work together to protect the birds we love. Become a member of the Great Egret Society and help safeguard our beloved feathered friends. Birds bring so much joy to our lives every day. Help ensure their beautiful songs continue to delight for generations to come by joining the Great Egret Society. Your gift of $500 or more will help advance Audubon-backed science, advocacy, and on-the-ground conservation that birds need to survive. As a member of the Great Egret Society, you will also receive insider updates, invitations to events, members-only content, and a…

ON A CLOUDY SEPTEMBER morning in Prospect Park, a massive swath of greenery amid Brooklyn’s concrete sprawl, the fall migrants are flying fast and furious. A group of birders spin excitedly in a clearing, calling out as new species appear. “What a hotspot,” says Valentina Alaasam as she scribbles down each name in rapid succession: American Redstart, Scarlet Tanager, Black-and-white Warbler. Alaasam will add the morning’s counts to a biodiversity database that she and her colleagues at New York University have been compiling for more than a year. The goal: to figure out whether parks in richer areas are also richer in wildlife. “I’ve always been really interested in this concept of luxury effects, where neighborhoods that are wealthier tend to get more investment from the city, and more trees,…

MATT MAIER WAS HAPPY TO leave behind the constant chores of a family farm to study business, not agriculture, in college. But a couple of decades later, when Maier had children of his own, a dream of raising them on the land took root. So he bought 120 acres of degraded land beside his parents’ Minnesota parcel and, in 2003, began grazing cattle. Since he’d left, however, “things had changed quite dramatically,” he says. Other small livestock farms were gone, replaced by corn and soy. The fireflies Maier remembered bottling on summer nights had vanished. So it goes across the heartland. In the United States and Canada, growers plow up around 2 million acres of prairie each year to plant row crops. Birds have vanished, too. With less nesting habitat,…

IN THE KEEN EVENING LIGHT, A BALD Eagle skirted the rushing current, dropped down within inches, and reached in for a fish. “It’s dinnertime,” said Preston Cook, watching from the patio of his condominium in Wabasha, Minnesota. It was early September 2020. Cook and I sat sipping bourbon as the Mississippi River sprinted past just feet away. On the Wisconsin side, a protected floodplain sheltered favorite Bald Eagle nesting trees—cottonwoods with sturdy, lookout-high branches. The river never froze here and the fishing was always good. Eagles remained active year-round in sizable numbers, although some would begin migrating in a couple of months. Cook would leave, too. The eagles would fly south to Missouri or beyond to the Gulf Coast. Cook would drive west to San Francisco, where he and his…

PHOTOGRAPHER SCOTT SURIANO IS always hoping for one last snow. In the mercurial transition from winter to spring, he sees a chance to capture an unusual scene: Wood Ducks in a flurry of snowflakes. His window of opportunity each year is brief, as the ducks return to the pond near his home in northern Maryland only in late February or early March. Once they’ve arrived, he checks the forecast each night, hoping for inclement weather. On the morning he photographed this female, Suriano woke before dawn to falling snow. “It was coming down pretty heavy,” he says, “so I thought I’d give it a shot.” Rather than lying prone on the pond’s edge, which grows uncomfortable, Suriano prefers to get into the water. An icy dip is no problem for…

ACROSS 1. Like the compounds in table salt 6. Vegan gelatin alternative 10. Film effect that can show a hummingbird’s wings beating 11. Not accepting customers 13. Green, Gray, or Little Blue wader 14. Makes it to the big leagues 15. One might point toward a pole 17. Bird that migrates without a set route 18. Guthrie who sings “Little Bird” 19. Inflate, as a bike tire 20. Foil-wrapped Hanukkah treat 21. Service offered by Amtrak’s Acela 25. Suggestion 26. Setting for a chicken or ostrich 28. Bird that went extinct in the 1600s 29. The Wind in the Willows protagonist 31. Admit to a bird ID mistake, e.g. 34. Cruz known as the “Queen of Salsa” 35. Droop 36. 2024 Dune film subtitle 38. Call a Herring Gull a…

AS PRESIDENT TRUMP RETURNS to office, we are reminded that while political outcomes shift, Audubon’s mission to protect birds and the places they need does not. Whether in the United States or across the hemisphere, our commitment to our mission is unwavering. This election brings a new set of challenges, but it also reaffirms something we have always known: Birds have the power to unite us across borders. In this moment, that unity is critical for driving the conservation and climate action that birds and people everywhere depend upon. At Audubon, we take pride in our role as a nonpartisan convener across the Americas. While the distinctive hues of the Red Knot and Blue-winged Warbler recall the colors of different political parties in the United States, their migrations remind us…

FOR HIKERS, BIKERS, AND DOG walkers, the proposed Skyline Trail was a no-brainer—another way to clear their heads and enjoy views of the Grand Tetons near Jackson, Wyoming. But as the U.S. Forest Service gathered public input on its plan in 2011, wildlife advocates argued that the fast-developing region didn’t need another trail, let alone one that would pulse more people through increasingly rare intact habitat where mule deer calved and American Goshawks nested. The supporters ultimately prevailed, but the debate wasn’t over or confined to Jackson. Around the country, land management agencies are building more trails for a public that wants to get outside. The pandemic sent more people into the woods: National forests hosted 18 million more visits in 2020 than in 2019, a 12 percent increase. Visitation…

THE DARK PROFILES OF THE ROCKY Mountains loom against a star-studded sky. Amy Seglund, a species conservation program manager for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, hikes up a steep trail inlaid with rocks stacked like stairs into a high-elevation basin. As she climbs, her headlamp beam falls on smaller and smaller pines and spruces, then willow thickets, and eventually clumped grasses and plants with leaves and petals smaller than buttons. In the dim blue light of dawn, Seglund strides onto the alpine tundra, holds up a boombox-like machine, and blasts the raucous, chattering cry of a male Southern White-tailed Ptarmigan. The birds are masters of camouflage—finding one just by looking is unlikely to impossible—so scientists use this device to call them in. During breeding season, males of this grouse species will…

FOR SHAWNA HOTCH, IT’S NO MYSTERY WHY Alaska’s Chilkat River Valley hosts around 4,000 Bald Eagles each fall. The birds are drawn to the same unparalleled natural wealth—copious salmon, lush spruce forests, pristine glacier water—that has supported her family for countless generations. “Our way of life is directly tied to this land and all that it provides,” says Hotch, a resident and an enrolled member of the Chilkat Indian Village of Klukwan. “It’s abundant.” The immense eagle congregation inspired Audubon to help establish the Chilkat Bald Eagle Preserve in 1982, and an analysis by Audubon scientists last year found that the Chilkat is a globally significant region for 17 more bird species. All contribute to the deeply interconnected web of life that defines the valley, one of the most bio-diverse…

BY THE TIME DAVID PERSONIUS WAS GROWING UP IN THE 1950S, CARVED WOODEN BIRD DECOYS were largely a thing of the past—collector’s items for folk art aficionados like his dad. Personius is part of the small cadre of modern artists keeping the tradition alive. Here, he replicates the Bartailed Godwit, a shorebird that breeds in the Arctic, west of his home in Fairbanks, Alaska. First, he traced an outline onto a couple of hunks of wood, sawed off the excess, and carved the detailed shape with a knife. Then he painted acrylic dots to create the illusion of feathers. Glass eyes, copper wing tips, and custom-wrought iron bill and legs add depth and realism. Personius speaks with infectious enthusiasm about the real godwits, which “get absolutely, grotesquely huge” to fuel…