Audubon Magazine

Adult Swallow-tailed Kites primarily eat insects, but they feed their chicks lizards, snakes, and amphibians, like the green tree frog this father caught. Many known nests in the United States are located in privately owned working forests. When cond

THERE’S A NIGHTMARISH, AND completely avoidable, scenario coming into focus for climate and wildlife advocates, one where America’s wildlife could become roadkill on the path to ambitious reductions in climate change. If you connect the dots, the for

Supplement your retirement with fixed income for as long as you live—at an attractive rate—and leave a conservation legacy with an Audubon gift annuity. Annual payment rates go as high as 9.0%, depending on your age. Act now to save on taxes in 2020.

You can now easily find the local plants you need to support the birds you love. audubon.org/native-plants The long, tubular flowers of native honeysuckle vines are magnets for hummingbirds. Plant them near a fence or trellis to ensure a sturdy verti

ALBATROSSES ARE THE AIRBUS A350 of seabirds, with some capable of flying 10,000 miles on a foraging trip and routinely traveling 75,000 miles around the world’s oceans in a single year. It’s an increasingly perilous journey. Thousands are unwittingly

AROUND THE VILLAGE OF Pachariya in India’s northeastern province of Assam, hibiscus flowers bloom into fuchsia whorls and paddy fields pop green from recent monsoon rains. Inside the prayer hall, wafting incense blends with the scent of sliced fruit.

NURTURED FROM NATIVE seeds, a lively prairie near Ohio’s Dayton International Airport sprouted on 140 acres of former farmland in 1995. The wildflower revival marked a win for both conservation and aviation at the time. Yet alongside verdant grasses,

NEARLY A DECADE AGO, ornithologist Ruth Bennett was living in Honduras studying the Golden-winged Warbler, a declining and little-understood species, when she noticed a surprising pattern. The birds near her host university were mostly females. The m

A half-century-old chemical has come back with a vengeance, for the express purpose of killing birds and other wildlife. The more officials investigate, the more crime scenes they uncover. THE VICTIM LYING ON KEVIN HYNES’S STAINLESS-STEEL table on Ma

STEVE BEISSINGER KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT famed naturalist Joseph Grinnell was doing on June 2, 1932: He was hiking a ridge near Lagunitas, California, with his wife, Hilda. This was no lovers’ picnic. On their 3.5-hour trek, the duo undertook three separa

THE WORST OIL SPILL IN U.S. WATERS BEGAN with a deadly explosion on April 20, 2010. Many of us remember the distress we felt as that day stretched into days, then months—a slow-building dread that no one could make a gaping hole drilled into the eart

SHAWN VIRGILLO HAS ALWAYS LOVED the outdoors. He grew up among farms and forests in Astoria, Oregon, near where the Columbia River empties into the Pacific. He used to make regular trips to the state’s eastern border to fish on the Snake River, and w

AMERICA LEARNED A LESSON ABOUT THE VAST harms oil spills unleash when the Exxon Valdez tanker struck a reef in Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989, releasing an influx of crude into biologically rich waters. That spill prompted lasting reforms to p

TEN YEARS AGO, WHILE REPORTING ON THE BP oil spill, I fell hard for the Gulf Coast. Its spectacular wetlands seemed so underappreciated that I devoted the next year of my life to writing about them. In terms of biological richness and diversity, the

ThE FIRST OILED PELICANS I SAW that spring didn’t look like the ones they put on TV. They looked almost normal at first, but an odd behavioral tic drew your gaze back to them. Then you saw that their belly feathers hung clumped and matted, looking we

Climate change is the single greatest threat to birds today. It’s time to do whatever you can to help vulnerable species survive and thrive. Join a select group of devoted supporters by becoming a member of the Great Egret Society. With a gift of $50

Quiz! Match the warbler to its description (answer key at lower left). 1 American Redstart 2 Louisiana Waterthrush 3 Ovenbird 4 Kentucky Warbler A Walks Like a Chicken B Actively Wags Its Tail C Appears to Wear Goggles D Is Actually Orange For more w

AS A CHILD, ANA GALVAN WOULD JOIN HER GRANDFATHER ON WALKS ALONG THE SOUTHEASTERN coast of Spain, delighting in the infinite calm sea and antics of seabirds. “I have a very strong attachment to the sea and everything related to it,” says the Murcia-b

Enter the 10th Audubon Photography Awards. You could win cash prizes and see your photo published in Audubon and Nature’s Best Photography. Jan. 13–Apr. 6, 2020 Grand, Amateur, Professional, Youth, Plants for Birds, and Fisher Prizes Six days at the