Indholdsfortegnelse for Summer 2022 i Audubon Magazine

Double-crested Cormorants are survivors. Once in steep decline due largely to the effects of DDT, the sleek diving birds have rebounded mightily since a 1972 ban on the insecticide. But instead of celebration, their success has brought conflict. Cormorants are prodigious piscivores, earning them the scorn of commercial and recreational fishers. For years they’ve been the target of government culling programs aimed at easing tensions, which run high around the Columbia River estuary. Since moving to Astoria, Oregon, in 2017, conservation photographer Morgan Heim has been engrossed by the cormorant conundrum. She aims to both document the birds’ complicated relationship with humans and capture their beauty and intelligence. “I want people to be challenged,” Heim says. “How can we wonder at them and have empathy for them, even if they…

OVER THE PAST FEW ISSUES I have shared some of the ways that birds tell us things. They tell us what is happening to the air and water and land that we all need to survive. They tell us about a changing climate—or the arrival of spring. At Audubon we listen to what birds are telling us. When night-migrating warblers tell us, with their fragile bodies littering the sidewalks, that light pollution is deadly and needs to be fixed, our network comes together to press for Lights Out proclamations or ordinances in cities such as Asheville, North Carolina. When hungry Atlantic Puffin chicks tell us that forage fish stocks are low or hard to find, our Coasts and Conservation Policy teams have pushed to make sure that fisheries are managed…

ON THE RIGHT SPRING morning you might see Liza Grotelueschen walk the edge of a blackened grassland, stamping out any lingering embers. But don’t mistake the retired educator for an enemy of fire. Quite the opposite: She’s a staunch believer in its power to rejuvenate the Nebraska prairie she loves. Grotelueschen is a member of the Loess Canyons Rangeland Alliance (LCRA), a cooperative burn association made up of 75 landowners who share time and equipment to save their disappearing grasslands. Over the past 16 springs, she has helped to burn vast swaths of prairie, including 600 acres she and her husband lease to ranchers. “I didn’t necessarily picture myself working on fires at 73 years old,” she says. “But it certainly is rewarding.” Long before her time, Nebraska’s grasslands burned…

People who love Big Basin Redwoods State Park remember it as a refuge. A place cool and damp and dark, crowned with frequent fog and layered branches of redwood, Douglas fir, oak, and madrone. But now there’s little shelter to be found here. On a 90-plus-degree day in July 2021, Portia Halbert steers her Prius into the park through a tunnel of dense forest. The reprieve is brief: When we enter the burn zone, it’s as if someone has peeled off the roof. The ambient temperature rises, and verdant understory gives way to burnished copper. Halbert parks at a high overlook and leans out the window. From ridgetop to ridgetop, the view is mostly skeletal black trunks. “How many trees do you see that have greenery in their canopy?” Halbert…

A birder’s guide to the beach, featuring dog politics, sand safety, and page-turners. Plus: the air-conditioning conundrum. THE JOB OF PROTECTING vulnerable beach birds starts early. By 7 A.M. one morning in late April, Shelby Casas is almost out the door. The shorebird biologist with Audubon New York checks the weather to confirm no dangerous storms are forecast; she also looked at it before bed last night. “I check the weather a lot,” she says, laughing. Her bag is packed with the essentials—bug spray, sunscreen, and a field notebook—and she tosses in fresh fruit and water bottles. After feeding her pets, Casas grabs her favorite car breakfast (granola bar and thermos of coffee) and climbs into her Subaru Outback. She may spend hours driving between sites all day. On long trips,…

JESSICA MAFFIA HAS SPENT A LOT of time walking through parks in northern Manhattan, listening and looking. At first, early in the pandemic, the artist wasn’t seeking inspiration. Nor was she creating new works. “I was just coming and getting to know who the more-than-human neighbors are,” she says. But in those moments, inspiration found her. The birds and birdsong became her muse; the materials found along the path, her medium. Several states away, Steve Jessmore was having a similar experience. With work dried up, he hopped into a kayak for the first time and paddled into a nearby marsh he never knew existed, watching ducks he had never before considered. He began venturing out to observe birds regularly, then channeled his decades of expertise as a community photojournalist into…

BIRDS, AS THE SAYING GOES, are what they eat. And knowing exactly what they eat can help conservationists protect critical food sources and track environmental change. But until recently, sussing out birds’ grocery lists was cumbersome, requiring close observation to determine which type of berry a songbird snatched up or what kind of fish dangled from a seabird’s bill. Biologists are increasingly turning to genetic tools to eliminate the guesswork of figuring out avian fare. They’re building upon methods that scientists have employed for the past decade to solve other ecological unknowns, such as which animals use a specific environment. You might not see a rare frog in a pond, for instance, but sampling the water for pieces of DNA the amphibian sheds confirms that it was there. Analyzing human…

THERE IS SOMETHING REMARKABLE ABOUT LOOKING for birds at last light. When pandemic lockdowns began, I took daily walks around a placid lagoon in a park in downtown Santa Cruz, California. The verdant reeds and towering silver-barked trees glowed in the hours just before sunset. I didn’t know what these plants were called, but I carefully and meticulously learned the names of all the birds I saw and heard. Songbirds and waterfowl seemed at home in a world awash in gold and I felt more attuned to their rhythms when we basked together in the last sliver of summer sunlight. If I was lucky, a little bird would appear among the thickets long enough for me to count its field marks—nimble flight, yellow-green feathers, a perfect black oval on its…

Enjoying a day on the sand, you see a beachgoer walking a dog off leash—despite signs stating that dogs must be leashed to protect birds. Do you speak up? “There’s many things a person can do, depending on their comfort level,” says John MacDonald, a corporal at the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, which handles dozens of cases involving humans, dogs, and shorebirds every year. Since game wardens can’t patrol beaches 24/7, he encourages birders to share their knowledge of sensitive birds nesting there. If you go this route, tone is important. “Give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they have good intentions,” says Laura Zitske, the coastal birds project director at Maine Audubon. The dog walker may be genuinely unfamiliar with a beach’s leash policy.…

1 BOREAL WARBLERS Birders excitedly wake at dawn each spring to catch colorful warblers as they migrate north. In summer, these sprites can be found on breeding grounds in North America’s boreal forest. The biome’s southern edge dips into the United States in a few places, including New England, New York, and Minnesota. Most species nest in June and July; by late summer and fall they’re traveling back to the tropics. Where to go: In the Northeast, visit Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument and Baxter State Park in north-central Maine, where many species, including Cape May, Bay-breasted, Mourning, Tennessee, and Wilson’s Warblers, nest. In the Midwest, head to Minnesota’s Sax-Zim Bog to see Golden-wingeds, Connecticuts, Blackburnians, Canadas, and more. 2 MONSOON HUMMINGBIRDS See up to 15 hummingbird species in southeast Arizona amid…

What’s in a Bird Name? Bewick’s Wren. Forster’s Tern. Gambel’s Quail. Henslow’s Sparrow. Say’s Phoebe. Wilson’s Phalarope. What do these birds have in common? They’re all named for people. There’s growing support among birders and professional ornithologists alike for removing these honorific titles—and instead bestowing new monikers that better reflect the animals themselves. In “A Bird by Any Other Name” (page 44), we asked experts to dream up names for some species. Now it’s your turn. Learn about what makes each bird listed above unique, and submit your suggested new names at audubon.org/birdnames. RE: The Spring Issue What an absolutely beautiful, interesting publication! I read every word and lingered over each photo! I just had one little math question: In the article detailing different migration paths (“It’s the Journey, Not…

LIKE A LAYER OF THIN SKIN, Panama Bay’s mangroves separate the continent from the Pacific Ocean, sheltering Panama City and 86 miles of rural coast from storms. The rich ecosystem, which includes enormous tidal mudflats, also feeds Panamanians and up to two million migrating shorebirds. This year biogeochemist Jorge Hoyos-Santillán and a six-person team got personal with these trees, snuggling trunks with a measuring tape, bending to collect leaves from the muddy ground, and coring samples of soft earth until hitting soil so old it held no traces of decaying living material. “I tease the team a lot,” he says, “because we’re going into the field to literally hug trees.” Their work here, as well as in Panama’s Parita Bay, is aimed at measuring a less visible service these ecosystems…

With stunning looks and captivating behaviors, birds enthrall us when they cross our path. We may spend hours or years seeking them out—or stumble upon them in a stroke of luck. Often we simply stop to appreciate an everyday scene with fresh eyes. Regardless of the effort invested, all meaningful experiences with birds require a common ingredient: our attention. Through their sharp eyes and lenses, the photographers and videographers who submitted nearly 10,000 entries to this year’s contest shared the fruits of their boundless attention with us. In a world filled with distractions, that’s a gift. Take time to notice the details in the images honored here—selected by three expert panels judging anonymous files—and revel in what you might otherwise miss. GRAND PRIZE PHOTOGRAPHER Jack Zhi, amateur SPECIES White-tailed Kite…

MILLIONS OF AMERICANS flock to coastlines every summer in search of sun, sand, and a stiff sea breeze. They are not the only beachgoers willing to travel for better conditions. By the end of June, shorebirds that nest in the Arctic and boreal forest are already starting migrations south—sometimes weeks, if not months, ahead of what many birders consider the fall migration period. Greater Yellowlegs, Western and Least Sandpipers, and Black-bellied Plovers can be spotted on shorelines in the Lower 48 as soon as early July. The migration push then picks up through August and into September. Why do some shorebirds leave their breeding grounds seemingly just after they’ve arrived? The Arctic breeding season is short, roughly two months from arrival to departure. Shorebirds generally have time for only one…

THE GLOBAL RISE OF AC Today in wealthy countries 9 in 10 households have AC, versus 1 in 10 in emerging economies. By 2050 installed AC units are projected to surge beyond 5 billion, including a fivefold increase in the tropics and subtropics. If all cooling needs were met, regardless of wealth, 14 billion units would be needed by 2050. SUMMER IS HERE in North America, which means in many places it’s too hot for comfort. To keep cool, birds pant and seek shade. Humans have an additional edge over biology: air-conditioning. With access to electricity, we are able to alter the air temperature itself. Air-conditioning is expensive, but it saves lives. In summer 2021, a heatwave set record temperatures in the Pacific Northwest, a region that’s relatively under-air-conditioned: In…