One of the most-visited pages at All About Birds is our Frequently Asked Questions page. With their bright colors, funny antics, and tendency to show up in unexpected places, birds are an unending source of questions for the people who watch them. We’ve calculated that the Cornell Lab staff answers some 80,000 questions per year [...]
As winter settles in on North America, Jon Erickson is sweating his way through tropical forest in Black River Gorges National Park, perhaps the finest remaining tract of forest on the island of Mauritius. Read on for sights—and to hear the sounds he recorded—from his first day looking for the endangered Mauritius Kestrel, one of [...]
It’s nearly winter, and those of you lucky enough to live near some beaches or mudflats probably enjoy gazing out over motley assortments of shorebirds like this one. Until you can get outside, though, cast your eyes over this photo and help us answer the question: How many species are in this photo? (Of course, [...]
Birders visiting the New World tropics rarely have to wait too long before hearing male manakins at their leks. With a bit of careful creeping through the undergrowth, you’ll often find a bizarre gathering of the little fist-sized birds hopping, strutting, or sidling along their perches in the hopes of attracting a mate. The soundtrack [...]
Back in April when we launched the new version of our All About Birds website, we picked 51 common species and gave them the full treatment: expanded ID and life history information, sound and video clips, related links, and lots of photos of each bird in all (or nearly all) its plumages. But commenters fairly [...]
Thanks everyone for weighing in on our photo quiz! Meanwhile, halfway around the world on Mauritius, recordist Jon Erickson has been unpacking his bags and aiming his microphone at the tamarind tree in his yard. Here’s his first impressions of life in the middle of the Indian Ocean: On the third morning after arriving on [...]
We got such an enthusiastic response to our first photo quiz that we’ve decided to launch another one. This one’s certainly not a tricky-ID problem—few people would look at these two photos and see two closely related species requiring keen attention to detail to separate. And yet, they aren’t your everyday species and, despite their [...]
We’ve just launched a new online course about birds and behavior. Titled “Courtship and Rivalry in Birds,” it’s appropriate for all levels of interest and birdwatching expertise—anyone who’s ever seen a bird have an odd hop, wing-stretch, or squabble and wondered what it meant. The five-week course is taught on a rotating basis, and enrollment [...]
Jon Erickson is living on the island of Mauritius for the next nine months. While his wife pursues a Fulbright scholarship to study local children’s literature, Jon plans to explore the island, recorder and parabolic microphone in hand, gathering natural sounds for our ever-expanding archives in the Macaulay Library. Mauritius, a former French colony, is [...]
