As a naturalist at Audubon, I work with kids often. And I hear them say some pretty cool things. I enjoy hearing comments about how cool nature is or about learning something new. But a child saying “I didn’t think I could do that” is my most favorite by far. In that one comment, I ...

Some things are just plain wrong, and there’s absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. Last fall my friend, Bill Thompson III, editor and co-publisher of “Bird Watcher’s Digest” (BWD), began feeling poorly. In mid-December he was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. He was 57 ...

Bats are among the world’s most unique and important groups of species. Over 1,330 species of bat have been identified globally, and more species are described by taxonomists annually. This means that bats make up around 20 percent of all mammal species. They provide key ecosystem services, ...

Starting just about now, the landscape begins to change dramatically from week to week. You walk the same trails, but new things emerge and appear. The spring season is a naturalist’s crunch time – there is so much to learn in such a short span. That little plant you walk by week after ...

Many biologists have a love/hate relationship with brown-headed cowbirds. We love their ecological and behavioral ingenuity, but we hate the impact they have on a variety of native nesting song birds. Cowbirds are stealthy nesters — they lay their eggs in other birds’ nests. Biologists ...

One of the things that I find fascinating is how little we know about how nature works. To be sure, there is a lot of information out there that we do know, but so much more is unknown. Some things are pretty basic. Many people know that a food chain consists of a plant that gets energy ...