Monthly Archive

Photo: USFWS

Thanks so much for showing Audubon your support and love, and sending us your comments and questions this year. We really appreciate it!

We’re taking a short break from the blog next week. (Don’t fret, you can still find plenty of our content—new and old—on our website, as well as through our Facebook and Twitter pages.)

We’ll be back on January 2, 2012—unless, of course, one of us gets an itch to post something that just can’t wait.

Happy holidays and Happy New Year!

Whether you fancy yourself a serious “lister,” a novice birder, an outdoor enthusiast, or a hard-core competitor, you may be interested in a challenge that is about to begin when the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve.

It’s called “Bird-A-Day.” The objective: Count how many days in a row you can find a “new” bird. (New = recorded for the first time in this game.) The rule: You must never repeat a species, nor go a day without seeing a new one. If you do, you are out of the challenge.

An Orange-crowned Warbler feeds in a Turk's cap thicket (David J. Ringer/Audubon)

Grand Isle: the only inhabited barrier island in Louisiana. A narrow wisp of sand marking the gulf-most extent of an old and withered Mississippi River Delta lobe. The setting for some of Kate Chopin's most memorable scenes, the site of many horrors during BP's oil disaster, and a stage for all the life in between. And today, the hub of the Grand Isle Christmas Bird Count.

See more photos, a video postcard, and David J. Ringer's account of the day after the jump.

[Click on the images above to see them larger and for other photo awards entries.]

We have our first Feathered Four finalist: Surfing bird won in a landslide! Three more to go before we have our big people’s choice winner.

Next up, we’ve got the black-crowned night heron playing peek-a-boo and the peregrine falcon soaring off the roof, winners of Matchups 3 and 4, respectively. They both come from the gallery, “You Lookin’ at ME?” chock-full of images from our Photo Awards.

Snowy owl at the outlet of Irondequoit Bay, near Rochester, New York, December 10, 2011. Credit: Chris Wood
 
Every four or five years large numbers of snowy owls, those majestic white birds that haunt the Arctic tundra, migrate south and invade the northern United States. It’s happening right now—big time. “Already we can see that this year is one of the biggest irruption years ever for snowy owl,” says Cornell University ornithologist Chris Wood.
 
Reported sightings reveal a flurry of snowies in the Great Lakes region, with smaller numbers of birds being spotted from Washington to Maine, and south as far as Oklahoma and Hawaii.

El Dorado Audubon member Greg Gook was initated last year to the Christmas Bird Count. His experience inspired him to write this poem.

[Click on the images above to get to previous blog posts on the subjects. Photo: Georgia Pecan Commission, Map: Peter Hoey.]

A few stories we recently covered on our blog—about the payroll tax bill including provisions related to the Keystone pipeline, and earlier in November, about a pecan shortage—are popping up again. Click through for a look at how they’ve changed since we wrote about them last.

Photo: Hotels in Eastbourne

From long lines to bargain bin battles, holiday shoppers endure a lot of pain to pick the perfect present. But have you ever wondered why we put ourselves through so much to benefit somebody else? A recent study on rats and empathy may offer a few hints.

Photo: Mike Morel/USFWS Southeast
 
We've narrowed down the entries for the hilarious picture of the sharp-shinned hawk (read them all here). Thanks to everyone who contributed captions; we love your creativity! Now it's time to vote for your favorite below. Be sure to check back on Friday for this week's photo, and follow us on Facebook for all of our latest updates.

Wow! What a great Soaring Sixteen set of matchups. Thanks to everyone who played. Now we’re on to the Egret Eight, where the winners of the previous rounds will compete for a chance at our finals. The top quartet will make it to the Feathered Four, then two onto the championship match.

Our owl poking her head from a tree cavity won the last first-round head-to-head. (Click the link and scroll to the bottom to see all the previous winners.)