Birds

The Harbingers (detail), Sparrow, cut Geological maps of Great Britain, pins, installation, dimensions variable, 2011/Claire Brewster
British artist Clair Brewster uses old maps and atlases items to create, through careful cutting, intricate avian forms.

From the common loon to the misunderstood blue jay, it’s no secret that Audubon and its readers welcome the sight of birds (whether they’re in our backyards or on textiles). But we can’t help but notice that our winged friends are popular with the non-birding crowd: Walk into any Urban Outfitters or Anthropologie and you’re sure to find a dozen products adorned with birds. With this trend in mind, Portlandia, a comedy on the Independent Film Channel, gave us “Put A Bird On It”, a hilarious sketch about Bryce Shivers and Lisa Eversman, who put birds on things to “make it pretty.”

A walrus female and pup on an ice floe in the Chukchi Sea, June 2010. Photo: Sarah Sonsthagen/USGS
 
Oceanographers Sylvia Earl and Paul Dayton think it’s a bad idea, as do more than 500 other scientists and numerous environmental groups: energy development in the remote, often ice-choked waters off northern Alaska.
 
It’s a sentiment Audubon shares, and the organization has made it super easy for you to make your voice heard: Click here to tell the Interior Department the Arctic Ocean should be off-limits to drilling. Hurry—the deadline is 11 a.m. Eastern tomorrow, February 8.

Black-capped chickadee (Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife)

Black-capped chickadees, those adorable, ubiquitous birds, are one of the first species people learn to ID, according to Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds. I happened to catch one this past weekend, as my bird for Day 5 of the Bird-a-Day challenge. (I started Feb. 1, unlike features editor Rene Ebersole, who has been going since the start of 2012. As always, if you’re participating in Bird-a-Day, please let us know on Facebook and Twitter, and use the hashtag #birdaday.)

Click through to take our quiz to determine how much you know about this chickadee species. They may be common birds, but some facts about them may surprise you.

Photo: Tim Ross

It was a season of surprises for Operation Migration, a group working to reestablish whooping cranes on the East coast. Yesterday this year’s class of birds have arrived at their final—if not originally intended—destination.

A new month brings a fresh start for those who decided to join in on the Bird-a-Day Challenge. The official challenge, taking place on birdaday.net began on New Year's Day. Since then I have been trying to play along, just for fun, counting how many days in a row I can find a “new” bird. (New = recorded for the first time in this game.) So far, I’ve lasted five weeks. Making it this far has already been tough, and it’s only going to get harder.

Plenty of people are playing along, some from as far away as the UK. And a number of new people recently started counting from Feb 1.

Photo by the US Fish and Wildlife Service

On Day 15 of the 2012 Bird-A-Day Challenge, Features Editor Rene Ebersole saw a Bonaparte’s gull. She’s on Day 33 already! (Click here to learn more about the BAD challenge. And don’t forget to let us know that you’re participating, through Facebook or Twitter, @audubonmagazine.)

Take our quiz to determine how much you know about this gull.

Photo by Kevin Shank, Nature Friend

Albinos are hard to come by: Only one in 17,000 humans are believed to have albinism, and there are seven billion of us. Which is why getting pictures of an albino ruby-throated hummingbird – a tough bird to photograph as it is – can be difficult.

But Kevin Shank and his eldest four sons managed to do just that last August, capturing an array of beautiful pictures of the unique creature.

A Laysan Albatross flying in air. (Michael Lusk, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Whether he was searching for fame or just wanted to catch a glimpse of the Hollywood sign, a Laysan Albatross somehow made his way to sunny Los Angeles, CA. After his weekend trip (catching some rays, hopefully) with members of International Bird Rescue, the Albatross was brought a half mile by boat from the California shoreline and released back into its Pacific Ocean home.

Photo: Lori Oberhofer, National Park Service

Since 2000, the presence of invasive Burmese pythons has been documented as a growing danger in the Everglades. Yesterday, pythons became big news when the US Geological Survey released a report documenting just how much damage pythons may have caused.