Birds make many amazing sounds, from trills and warbles to screeches, hoots, and quacks. While not exactly considered the virtuosos of the bird world, woodpeckers do make many incredible noises, vocal and otherwise. Understanding the sounds woodpeckers make can give birders interesting insights into these beautiful birds and how they… Read more >>

For birdwatchers, identity is everything. From feathered creatures’ reptilian origin to current taxonomy, we go to extremes to know, understand, and label the things we see. Attaching names is critical. Even as some of those names come into question because of associations with racists or other ne’er-do-well human beings, our… Read more >>

In this Q&A, ABC’s Hawai‘i Program Director Chris Farmer explains why Hawaiian honeycreepers are in such dire straits, and how ABC and partners’ urgent initiative aims to save them using Wolbachia — a tested tool in the fight to protect human health. Why is Hawai‘i sometimes called “the bird extinction… Read more >>

Smack in the middle of bustling Washington, D.C., near the highest elevation of the city’s Rock Creek Park, lies a clearing that’s proven to be a prime spot to see migratory birds. At dawn every spring morning, some of the country’s best birders sit here, along a stone wall, sharing… Read more >>

Owls are quintessential creatures of the night (with a few exceptions mentioned below). Beautiful and formidable predators, they inspire admiration, fear, and a sense of mystery. There are more than 200 species of owls around the world. They are divided into two families, Tytonidae (Barn Owls) and Strigidae, which includes… Read more >>

Karolina Araya Sandoval grew up in the northern Chilean town of Arica, nicknamed “the City of Eternal Spring” for its Mediterranean climate and rich alluvial soil. After studying veterinary medicine in the country’s south, Karolina returned home, helping with the annual monitoring program for Chile’s smallest bird, the Critically Endangered… Read more >>

Visitors come from around the world to watch birds and enjoy nature at reserves managed by ABC partners. In these wild places, they enjoy the spectacular show nature provides daily — mixed flocks of colorful tanagers flitting among epiphytic orchids in the emerald tree canopy, iridescent hummingbirds sipping nectar, curious… Read more >>

A rapidly advancing conservation tool, bioacoustics brings science and sound study together, greatly expanding efforts to monitor and conserve birds.… Read more >>

Last month, thousands of birds died across New Mexico. At the White Sands Missile Range, where researchers normally encounter one or two dead birds each week during fall migration, there were suddenly hundreds. In northern New Mexico, people reported large numbers of “small, yellow birds,” mostly migratory Wilson’s and MacGillivray’s… Read more >>

There is something special about watching birds in flight along the Gulf Coast in the early morning sun — listening to a Wilson’s Plover’s rattle as it defends its territory, or the low bark of a Black Skimmer as it flies somewhere between rays of light reflecting off the water.… Read more >>