10,000 Birds

Britain’s most unpopular bird? That’s not an easy question to answer, as there are a number of contenders. For many years the House Sparrow was arguably the No 1 feathered public enemy. W.H.Hudson, writing in his book British Birds (1918), comments that “it is not advisable here to enter into the controversy on the subject of the injury he inflicts, or is believed by many to ...

I was standing on a small road in a Maine suburb, directing my camera at a garden next to the road. There, a bird was commuting between its foraging area, a staging post, and a nestbox, busy feeding its young. The friendly owner of the garden emerged from her veranda, asking about the name of the bird. Embarrassed, I pretended not to know. Would she have called the police if ...

How one unusual rail became a taxonomic mystery Mohan Monto Fact Jungle There is something slightly unsettling about a bird species known from just one specimen. Sharpe’s Rail is one of those birds. The specimen arrived at the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie in Leiden in 1865, obtained from the natural-history dealer G. A. Frank. Its original provenance was unknown.

There are birds you hear before you see, birds that announce themselves with a familiar call or a burst of movement. And then there is the Western Tanager (Piranga ludoviciana). A flash of yellow, black, and red that can seem to materialize among the pines and disappear just as quickly. In the mountains of Northern Arizona, Western Tanagers are a welcome sign of summer.

Nature is full of inspiring lessons about perseverance, cooperation and resilience. Fortunately, with careful selection of photographs and captions, these lessons can be undermined.

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