Fall 2018

Audubon Magazine

Connecting People with Nature

Audubon Magazine2 min read
The Long Game
WHEN CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Rene Ebersole first started poking around the black market for songbirds in South Florida, she knew she was onto something big. So did federal investigators. It took another two years for the undercover operation to unfold an
Audubon Magazine2 min read
Climate Change: It’s a Bird Issue
IT’S BEEN A BUSY SUMMER HERE at Audubon—our lawsuit defending the Migratory Bird Treaty Act has become only more important, we’re protecting the Greater Sage-Grouse and the places they need in the West from efforts to undermine habitat conservation p
Audubon Magazine3 min read
Inbox
Social Cues In early September, 19-year-old Sam Swartley lit up Audubon’s Instagram feed with the iridescent reds of a male Rufous Hummingbird. “These birds are known for their extraordinary flight skills, flying 2,000 miles during their migratory tr
Audubon Magazine3 min read
Risky Business
TO MOST AMERICANS, THE Endangered Species Act of 1973 has been an astounding success, saving some 99 percent of listed plants and animals from extinction, including iconic birds like the Bald Eagle and Whooping Crane. But it’s far from an industry da
Audubon Magazine3 min read
Straight To The Source
AS ANYONE WITH A FIRST cousin twice removed can attest, family trees are hard to decipher. But for a family that includes thousands of feathered species and more than a hundred million years of evolution, it’s proven near impossible. For centuries, s
Audubon Magazine2 min read
Trailblazers
CATHALEE LA KNOWS MORE about Idaho's hummingbirds than your typical teenager. On a June morning in southwest Idaho, she watched attentively as a bird bander weighed a tiny Calliope Hummingbird, before identifying it as male and noting its sugar-water
Audubon Magazine2 min read
Triumph Of The Trumpeters
ON A DEWY SUMMER MORNING in the Mission Valley, a quartet of Trumpeter Swans bobbed around a grassy pen at the Montana Waterfowl Foundation’s captive-breeding center, waiting for their checkup. By July’s end, the five-foot-long birds would be free to
Audubon Magazine2 min read
Ground Control
HIGH IN THE CANOPY OF A 200-foot Douglas fir, a drone hovers and buzzes, a thermal-imaging camera strapped to its landing gear. Far below, Matt Pickett and Jim Rivers study the image it transmits on a tablet. They fixate on a white-hot blob among the
Audubon Magazine12 min read
Operation Ornery Birds
ON MAY 28, 2014, AN UNDERCOVER COP TRAWLING the Internet read an advertisement about a bird for sale by someone calling himself “El Doctor.” The bird was a male Puerto Rican Spindalis, a colorful yellow-and-black island endemic that fills the highest
Audubon Magazine9 min read
Safety By Design
WITH ITS LUSH, TIDY PLANT BEDS AND outdoor benches, the office compound in Markham, a suburb of Toronto, seemed park-like on a mid-July morning. Ontario had little rain this summer; forest fires raged in provincial parks. But the trees, shrubs, flowe
Audubon Magazine17 min read
On The Trail With The Wild Detective
SOME TIME AGO IN THE AUSTRALIAN OUTBACK, a man who made his name as a Roo shooter—that is, someone who shoots kangaroos for their meat—arrived in the town of Winton with a headless carcass. This creature was not, as you might expect, a kangaroo. It w
Audubon Magazine10 min read
Goodwill Hunting
THERE’S A HARD LINE BETWEEN WHERE the birds might be and where the birds certainly are not. On one side lies a rolling field of native prairie grasses—wheatgrass and big bluestem, Indian grass and false sunflower. On the other, a long, slow rise of c
Audubon Magazine1 min read
Home Is Where The Hearth Is
With their insect-exclusive diets and oddly arranged feet, swifts spend the majority of their days in flight. Only at night do they fall still, clinging to cliffs and chimneys with eight sharp toes. Centuries ago, Chimney and Vaux’s Swifts roosted pr
Audubon Magazine2 min read
Swift or Swallow: How Can You Know?
Go out on any fall day when there are insects buzzing about, and you’ll see a unit of feathered fighter jets swooping and diving after them. These avian aerialists—swifts and swallows—may look similar and exploit the same niche, but they’re not relat
Audubon Magazine2 min read
Take Your Trip to the Next Level
A couple of decades ago, the only bird guides in many countries were visitors from North America or Europe. Now there are expert local birders practically everywhere on Earth, and many work as professional guides. Some are associated with ecolodges;
Audubon Magazine1 min read
The Illustrated Aviary
FROM THE OUTSET, BERLIN-BASED ARTIST CHRISTOPH NIEMANN knew that his depiction of a Great Horned Owl wouldn’t be naturalistic like John James Audubon’s. “That owl that he drew is absolutely perfect,” he says. “There’s nothing to add.” Mulling at his

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