U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff banding a tundra swan in the Willamette Valley National Wildlife Refuge Complex. Photo: George Gentry/USFWS, via Flickr

Every week we post a funny animal photo that’s begging for a caption. Join in the fun! You’ve got til 11:59 pm (Eastern time) on Monday to enter your suggestion (click “Read more” below). On Tuesday we’ll choose our three favorite captions and list them under the image.

Photo: Ralph Daily/Flickr

Memorial Day Weekend is just around the corner, and that means backyard barbeques and trips to the beach. As you gear up to head outside, remember to take sunburn precautions. Nothing spoils the holiday fun like red, blistered, painful skin. Here are tips to prevent burning, and 184 top-rated beach and sport sunscreens.

The winning artwork for the 2011 duck stamp (Source: US Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters / CC BY 2.0)

For any migratory bird, there are few gifts better than a bunch of new habitat acres and some heightened protection that keeps your precious wetland ecosystem safe. That’s what the US Fish and Wildlife Service has helped to secure by approving a chunk of funding last week that came from the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission and the North American Wetlands Act, and which is intended to preserve wetland habitat that over 700 bird species need to thrive. 

An obsessive birder—and Audubon member—saves a species considered extinct for three centuries.

Photo: USFWS/Flickr

Every week we post a funny animal photo that’s begging for a caption. Join in the fun! You’ve got til 11:59 pm (Eastern time) on Sunday to enter your suggestion (click “Read more” below). On Monday we’ll choose our three favorite captions and list them under the image.

 Photo by Katey Nicosia / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

For the days when hauling around a tome for identifying birds just won’t do, Audubon comes to the rescue with its new online guide to North American birds, available for $3.99 on the iPhone, Android, iPad, NOOK or Kindle through the Audubon Birds app. One screen pretty much holds it all, displaying information about birding, conservation, even avian anatomy. The guide categorizes more than 800 species by family, common name, or general shape, allowing users to pick the most appropriate identification route.

Photo: Chuck Rogers/Flickr

UPDATE: Choose the winner!

Every week we post a funny animal photo that’s begging for a caption. Join in the fun! You’ve got til 11:59 pm (Eastern time) on Sunday to enter your suggestion (click “Read more” below). On Monday we’ll choose our three favorite captions and list them under the image.

Billions of birds are already on the move or about to take flight, heading back to their breeding grounds. Take a minute to wish our flying friends safe travel, with this video from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The Amazon's dense thickets hold untold - and undiscovered - secrets. (Photo by Dams999 / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

A discovery in the Peruvian Amazon of a plant decked in plump, lime-green pods rich in omega-3s could offer some respite to trees that live under the threat of deforestation. Found in a Peruvian farmer’s garden, the new plant, christened Plukenetia carolis-vegae, is offering researchers a creative option as a ‘conservation crop’, Nature News reports.

We're creeping closer to a milestone: the highest concentration of atmospheric CO₂ in human history. The U.S.’s greenhouse gas emissions are down to 1990s levels—due largely to the recession, the natural gas boom displacing much dirtier coal, and increased fuel efficiency in vehicles—all good news for the Obama administration, which promised to cut emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. But the amount of carbon in the global atmosphere is creeping higher and higher.