Revolutionizing Bird Watching with Radar
Ecologists can now forecast bird migrations like meteorologists forecast the weather. But without on-the-ground citizen science observations, it’s hard to tell a songbird from a goose.
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Project Martin Roost: A Scavenger Hunt in Your Backyard
This is part one of three in a collaboration between SciStarter and Career in STEM, in which writers will spotlight different citizen science projects, interview project leaders about their careers, and create educational content for teachers and students. This series is available from Science Connected, Career in STEM, SciStarter, and Discover Magazine. As the sun sinks low below the horizon and the crisp night air begins to descend, a miraculous sight can be seen in many areas across the continental United States. Hundreds of thousands of birds will suddenly appear…
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Big, Beautiful Bird Brains
By Emily Willoughby @eawilloughby It is probably not a coincidence that the verbs ape and parrot have such a similar meaning: to imitate an observed behavior. There is something suggestive of intelligence in the words, perhaps informed by knowing that babies mimic the behaviors of adults as their brains begin to mature. But the similarity may reflect something more fundamental. Primates and certain birds—most notably parrots and corvids, the group that includes crows and jays—are well known as being among the smartest of animals. For apes this is no surprise,…
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Seabird Watching in Baja California
This is the latest addition to wildlife photographer Max Goldberg’s collection of photo essays based on his recent National Geographic tour of the coast of Mexico. After a long day spent exploring Isla Espíritu Santo on foot, it was time for a sunset cruise around the island to watch and photograph seabirds. The first birds I saw that evening were pelicans perched on the rocky shoreline. Most of the time, they were by themselves sunning or watching the waves, but sometimes they would gather in small groups of three or…
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