Author: Frances Monroe

Every spring, something subtly amazing happens in the night sky. In the dark, millions of small birds, such as warblers, robins, and wheatears, take off on their own and start flying toward locations they have occasionally never been to before. No flock to follow. No parent is taking the initiative. Just the night, a bird, and an orientation system that we are only beginning to fully understand. For a long time, I wasn’t satisfied with the explanation. Birds must have an internal compass of some kind. But exactly how? The more thorough the investigation, the more bizarre the solution became—bizarre…

Something quiet is taking place in Angeles City along the Abacan River. Every season, migratory shorebirds and egrets still arrive, traveling through the same unseen passageways in the sky that their forefathers discovered centuries ago. Without consulting anyone’s land-use plan, they descend into Central Luzon in the same way that birds have always done. However, what they discover on the ground has undergone significant change. The sale, trade, capture, and consumption of migratory birds visiting the Abacan River are strictly forbidden, according to a public advisory issued by the Angeles City Government in recent months. Along with the environmental resources…

Every field photographer is familiar with this moment: half the group begins to pack up, the sky darkens, and the first drops hit the lens. The other half silently shifts and grabs a rain cover. The better photos are typically taken by that second group. feathers wet from the rain. A fox covered in snowflakes. In the midst of an unexpected downpour, a cheetah shook its head as the water spread out in all directions. Clear days are not when these photos are taken. They occur when things become challenging and the majority of people have concluded that the session…

You can sense the difference as soon as you leave the pavement and enter a patch of trees when you stroll through any large city on a hot afternoon. The atmosphere changes. The sound becomes quieter. In contrast to the surrounding heat, the temperature drops in a way that seems almost noticeable. It’s not dramatic, but it’s real, and the difference between the baking concrete and the shaded green is subtly turning into one of the more important issues in urban planning today. Cities are becoming warmer. That’s nothing new. The urgency with which planners, ecologists, and local governments are…

Inside a bamboo grove, there’s a certain silence. Not quite silence, but more like the forest letting out a breath. Light streams through the canopy in shattered columns, the stalks creak and move, and if you remain motionless long enough, something shifts at the edge of your field of vision. A bird. A lizard. Sometimes something bigger, if you’re patient. It’s getting harder to find that peace in the upland barangays of Panay Island’s Antique province. For many years, the forests in this area have been broken up by roads, cleared for farming, and reduced to lone green areas encircled…

You can hear what the Philippines used to sound like if you stand still long enough in the appropriate area of old-growth forest on the upper slopes of the Sierra Madre. Insects, wind, the sound of rain on leaves, and the calls of tiny birds that most people will never know the names of are all interwoven with the canopy’s layers and restlessness. Flowerpeckers and Warblers. birds with tails. Sparrows are unique to this island and cannot be found anywhere else on Earth. Standing amid that cacophony gives the impression that everything is alright. It isn’t. One of Southeast Asia’s…

A large commercial poultry facility under high biosecurity alert has a certain kind of quiet. It’s more akin to the quiet of controlled tension than a serene silence. Before entering production zones that house hundreds of thousands of birds, workers in Tyvek suits pass through decontamination stations and take medicated foot baths. Every door serves as a checkpoint. Every individual has the potential to be a vector. The enemy is the outside world, complete with muddy boots and migrating waterfowl. This is an up-close look at contemporary poultry biosecurity. Additionally, the industry is rebuilding these protocols from scratch, which is…

In central Ohio, a hawk builds its nest close to a highway overpass. For years, the locals have observed this red-tailed hawk, which appears to be in good health and unaffected by the traffic below. They fail to notice what scientists have begun to more thoroughly record: birds that nest close to high levels of noise pollution lay fewer eggs, raise fewer young, and in certain situations completely alter their calls, compressing frequencies to be heard over the cacophony. The hawk is not adjusting with grace. It’s making up for it. There’s a distinction. One of the more subdued ecological…

The British Wildlife Photography Awards consistently produce at least one picture that compels you to stop scrolling and take a closer look. There were multiple in 2026. Among the category winners, however, Sarah Darnell’s shot of two brown hares engaged in a fierce, mid-air altercation across Norfolk’s open fields struck a particularly powerful chord because of everything that had to happen just before the shutter clicked. In the world of professional wildlife photography, Darnell is not well-known. That contributes to the intrigue of this tale. In addition to seasoned pros, enthusiasts and amateurs have always been welcome to submit entries…

On a chilly Saturday morning, you can spot them at any state park trailhead: retired men and women walking quietly and purposefully, their binoculars raised, their ears tuned to something that most people pass by. They’re not taking in the scenery. They’re in competition. The practice of birdwatching has evolved. What used to seem like a quiet, solitary pastime, similar to what your grandfather did on leisurely weekends, has developed into something with scoreboards, team rivalries, and intense bragging rights. Teams compete to identify as many bird species as possible within predetermined time limits at competitive birding events, sometimes referred…