Author: Frances Monroe

A peregrine falcon nest that had been active for years is now empty somewhere on a cliff face in northern England, the kind of ledge that requires a rope and a certain kind of resolve to reach. The springtime hatchlings there failed to fledge. They did not scatter to create their own domains around metropolitan tower blocks or coastal headlands. They relocated to a market several thousand miles away that was willing to pay more for them than most individuals make in two years, all while hiding and using documentation that falsely characterized them. Although the illegal trade of British…

The Appalachian Trail above Newfound Gap is crowded with birds on a June morning. The forest generally behaves as tho it has been doing this for a very long time without human help or interference, with veeries and black-throated blue warblers calling from the rhododendron thickets, the occasional ovenbird somewhere down the slope repeating its accelerating phrase. That characteristic of the Great Smoky Mountains is that they are old, independent, and seemingly unaffected by events occurring at lower elevations. However, the information gathered from point count surveys and banding stations conducted throughout the park doesn’t quite match that sense of…

It began with no idea of being therapeutic, as these things frequently do. Her little garden in the east of England consisted of a piece of lawn, an overgrown lavender border, and a bird feeder that had been there since she moved there and that she refilled out of habit rather than any special interest in birds. A goldfinch landed on the feeder one morning when she was enjoying coffee outside before the tasks of the day came to mind. She spent several minutes watching it. After that, she went inside to retrieve her phone. The bird was already half-turned…

When people haven’t spent time in a forest, they don’t realize how calm it is at midnight. Insects, frogs crying from somewhere near water, and the rustle of something tiny moving thru leaf litter are all part of the continuous pattern of sound. Human sounds is missing. Additionally, that absence is not a luxury for scientists studying reclusive forest owls. It is the whole basis upon which the work is constructed. When it comes to studying nocturnal owls, field craft is one of those disciplines that appears straightforward on the surface but is actually quite specific. The basic approach, which…

Although Mindoro is so close to Luzon that, on a clear day, you can practically see its outline from some locations along the Batangas coast, it has always seemed much farther away than that. The interior is steep, traversed by rivers that don’t show up on most maps with any degree of precision, and forested in ways that the lowlands are no longer. It is a site that consistently surprises you, has more to offer than you anticipate, and defies the notion that everything fascinating has already been recorded, according to field researchers who have worked there. When a rare…

Negros is a sugar-shaped island. The cane fields sprawl in all directions as you drive inland from Bacolod into the western side’s mountain foothills. This agricultural monoculture is so prevalent and long-standing that it’s easy to forget what the area was like before it. Nearly all of the lowland forest that formerly covered a large portion of Negros Occidental has disappeared. The Walden’s hornbill, one of the most endangered species in the Philippines and maybe the entire world, survives in the fragments that remain after being forced to the higher slopes and ravines where the cane machinery was unable to…

The cameras were set by researchers who had low expectations. That’s not cynicism; rather, it’s the pragmatic attitude that snow leopard field conservationists typically acquire with time. The wind comes off the ridges in gusts that make tripod work truly challenging, you hike for hours above the treeline, your breathing becomes labored at 4,000 meters, and you bolt a weatherproof camera housing to a rock face on a narrow ledge where the scrape marks in the soil suggest a cat has passed thru at some point in the recent past. After that, you descend again and bide your time. frequently…

The Agusan Marsh doesn’t appear to have been dying recently. It has the settled quality of a landscape that has always been this way on a clear morning, with mist hovering low over the water and egrets working the shallows along the reed edges. It smells of mud and green things, is dense with life, and has the unique richness of water that flows slowly thru vegetation rather than over stone. The locals, however, recall a different picture: contaminated water, diminished fish populations, logging trucks passing thru places that ought to have been off-limits, and a general feeling that the…

Tawi-Tawi is a group of islands in the Sulu Sea at the very bottom of the Philippine archipelago, nearer Borneo than Manila. The beaches are still quiet enough at dawn to hear individual birds moving thru the undergrowth, and the forest almost reaches the waterline. It is precisely the kind of location where an age-old animal tactic—burying eggs in warm sand and then moving on—has continued to be effective for longer than anyone has been able to document. Until today, it seems. There isn’t much casual interest in the Philippine Scrubfowl. It lacks the characteristics of a kingfisher or hornbill.…

Townsend’s warbler, Audubon’s oriole, Scott’s oriole, Bachman’s sparrow, Bewick’s wren are just a few of the names that appear in nearly every birding guide published before to 2023. Each name refers to a naturalist, collector, or patron of the 19th century who was honored by having a species associated with their name, typically by a contemporary who respected them or owed them a professional debt. In a time when educated white males from wealthy families were primarily interested in natural history, the procedure was commonplace and the birds themselves had no voice in the issue. The movement for change has…