Bird Calls Blog

Bird Calls brings birds to life on the page with a stream of bird-related stories, tips, perspectives, and more.

Keeping Up with Swallow-tailed Kites
The Swallow-tailed Kite is instantly recognizable in the summertime skies of the Southeastern United States. Capable aerial acrobats, they cut a sleek and elegant figure as they glide through the air, the white of their bodies punctuated by the black edges along their wings and namesake forked tail. With a flick of its rudder-like tail, … Read More>>
Temperate Forests: Conserving Vital Bird Habitat in Any Season
This is part two in a series of explorations of different kinds of forest biomes found throughout the Western Hemisphere – and how American Bird Conservancy works to conserve them as vital bird habitats. Click here to read about tropical forests. Life in temperate forests, located midway between the equator and the North or South … Read More>>
Five Women Making Bird Conservation Happen at ABC
Conservation works best when we all get involved. At American Bird Conservancy (ABC), every person, whether they are doing fieldwork or paperwork, plays a part in our ongoing efforts to protect birds and their habitats in the Western Hemisphere. There are a lot of bird conservation heroes working behind the scenes at ABC — and … Read More>>
Tropical Forests: Hot and Humid Powerhouses for Biodiversity
The forested habitats that cover the Western Hemisphere are as varied as the birds that frequent them, and every bit as vital, from the towering conifers near the North Pole to the lush and steamy rainforests spanning the equator. Three major forest biomes — tropical, temperate, and boreal — are defined latitudinally, or by their … Read More>>
ABC Birding: Barba Azul Nature Reserve, Bolivia
Lay of the Land Barba Azul Nature Reserve is located in northern Bolivia, in the northern part of a rich and remote region called the Beni Savanna. Habitats within the reserve include seasonally flooded grasslands, gallery forest, palm islands, marshes, and riverside wetlands. “Barba azul” is Spanish for “blue beard,” which is the local name … Read More>>
Saltmarsh Sparrow, Betty Rizzotti
A Tale of Two Marsh Birds
Imagine keeping your eye on birds across 1,500 miles, from the mangroves of Puerto Rico to Maine marshes. That's the purview of the Atlantic Coast Joint Venture (ACJV), a partnership formed in 1988 that coordinates marsh-bird conservation along the entire U.S. East Coast and beyond. The ACJV brings together dozens of partner groups, including American … Read More>>
Working the Land to Work for Birds
How the Farm Bill helps landowners across the United States make a real difference for struggling bird populations. For more than 20 years, Bill and Betty Perkis could barely use their 40-acre woodland property in Michigan's Upper Peninsula — it was too densely overgrown with a tangled thicket of Speckled Alder (a shrub also known … Read More>>
Growing Coffee in Partnership with Nature and Community
During a trip to the Central Andean region of Caldas, Colombia, Erica J. Sánchez Vázquez, ABC's Multimedia Producer, learned how resident and migratory bird species benefit from habitat improvements on local coffee farms. This is Part 2 of her report on the work of Paisajes Sostenibles (PaSos), a multi-partner sustainability initiative supported by American Bird … Read More>>
Coffee, Birds, and Forests in the Colombian Andes
It's a chilly November morning on Marino Cifuentes's coffee farm in the Central Andean region of Caldas, Colombia. His home is one of our stops on a three-day tour of coffee farms that are being transformed into places where birds can thrive. Rocío Espinosa and Andrés López are leading the tour – two agroforestry and … Read More>>
Sword-billed Hummingbird. Photo by Mike Parr.
Birds Mean Business in Ecuador's Andes
How winged creatures provide wonder, inspiration, and prosperity in one of the world's birdiest regions. Straddling the Andes and equator in northern Ecuador, Pichincha Province resembles a jagged swift gliding east across the map. In an area smaller than Connecticut, the province hosts over 850 bird species — more than recorded across either of the … Read More>>

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Kirtland's Warbler sitting on a small pine tree branch

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