It's dawn on a spring day in the Big Cypress Swamp of Florida. Mist rises from quiet water into Spanish moss hanging from the cypress branches. A Limpkin is foraging for apple snails. When it touches a big, round shell, it grabs it quickly and pulls it from the water. Then, moving to solid ground

La plañidera cenicienta es una pequeña ave gris cenizo que vive en el bajo dosel del bosque de la cuenca amazónica. Y ha llevado la mimetización al siguiente nivel: Cuando se ve desde arriba, acostado solo en su nido en forma de copa, su polluelo es casi idéntico a una oruga altamente tóxica, una

The month of April inspires poets, sometimes with contradictory results. Poet TS Eliot describes April as "the cruelest month." Shakespeare strikes an upbeat note, writing, "April hath put a spirit of youth in everything." Let April speak for itself. Listen to the birds.

A Red-tailed Hawk soars on broad, rounded wings, the epitome of effortless flight. Without flapping, it traces a leisurely, rising circle. The hawk is riding a thermal, a column of warm rising air generated near the earth's surface by heat from the sun. The Red-tail periodically circles to stay

A Burrowing Owl is about as big as a can of beans on stilts. Between the long legs, bright yellow eyes, and signature bobbing salute, these little birds are comical members of the western ecosystem. Cowboys riding Western rangelands have a nickname for these little owls. They call them “howdy birds”

The Santa Marta Sabrewing is a hummingbird species so rare, they’ve only been documented twice in recent years. Native to the mountains of Colombia, they were officially described in 1946. No one reported another sighting until 2010. They became a “lost” species, eluding every attempt to find them

In the daytime, hot air rises as the sun heats the ground. The rising column of air is called a thermal, and it’s the perfect way for a Turkey Vulture to hitch a ride. Like an elevator to the skies, the thermal gently wafts the vultures upward. They move in a slowly ascending spiral around the

You might think the first bird species that humans raised in captivity would be a relatively small one, like a chicken. But evidence suggests that people in New Guinea reared the cassowary, often called the world’s deadliest bird, as much as 18,000 years ago, long before the domestication of

For her signature project You Are Here, U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón sought to connect people and nature through poetry. In addition to curating a book of poems by the same name, Limón also partnered with Shauna Potocky and others at the National Park Service to design poetry installations at seven

¡Y vaya que el hoazín es un pájaro extraño! Hasta parece que fue diseñado por un comité. Pero su aspecto físico no es lo único que distingue a este pájaro. El hoazín es estrictamente vegetariano y se satisface con hojas, para después echarse a descansar y digerir durante periodos largos. Los