Author: Frances Monroe

An English summer is characterized by a certain sound, a rising, insistent phrase that older country people sometimes refer to as “a little bit of bread and no cheese.” It originates deep within the tangle of bramble and hawthorn, somewhere low in the hedge. For the majority of British agricultural history, the song of the yellowhammer—a small bunting with a head that appears to be dipped in egg yolk—was merely background noise, unremarkable as birdsong tended to be in a landscape full of it. These days, you have to look for it in many places. Over the past 25 years,…

Along New Jersey’s southernmost point, an almost surreal event occurs each spring. Before heading north to the Arctic, tens of thousands of red knots, tiny, rust-breasted shorebirds that have just flown several thousand miles from South America, land on Cape May’s beaches to feed on horseshoe crab eggs. Birdwatchers travel from all over the world to witness it. It has been studied for decades by scientists. It’s one of those ecological occurrences that highlights how finely tuned the natural world can be. And that calibration is seriously strained at the moment. There are multiple sources of pressure. The threats are…

No spec sheet can duplicate a certain type of test. When a bird is moving faster than your hands can follow and the light is acting strangely at six in the morning, everything you know about a camera is reduced to one straightforward question: did it get the shot? In situations that would humble more expensive equipment, the Canon EOS R6 Mark III has been silently passing that test, trip after trip. Professional photographer Kimberley Lane has made no secret of her position on the Mark III. She has covered wildlife and low-light situations extensively. She highlights its high ISO…

There is a certain stillness in the desert before sunrise that feels earned. A woman is standing next to a hooded falcon that is sitting motionless on its perch, adjusting the leather jesses around its legs with the ease of someone who has done this ten thousand times. Her young daughter keeps a close eye on her. This scene is not new; it can be found in both the steppes of Kazakhstan and the sands of Abu Dhabi. It’s just recently apparent. That distinction is more important than it may seem. Women have been involved in falconry for centuries, training…

A natural history museum’s bird storage rooms have a certain quiet. Dozens of specimens with paper tags fastened to their feet, their feathers intact, and their shapes created by long-dead hands were kept in rows of drawers. The majority of people never visit this location. However, a small but expanding group of fine-art photographers have begun to emerge, and their work is altering our perceptions of both bird photography and avian art in general. Serious bird work required fieldwork for the majority of photography’s history. awakening prior to dawn. spending hours sitting still in a hide. Patience and good fortune…

Observing a species that was once thought to be completely safe move toward threatened status in the course of a single human lifetime is unsettling. That’s precisely what happened to the snowy owl, and the conservation community is still figuring out what that means. The Snowy Owl held a certain symbolic security for many years. Vast, striking, and distinctly Arctic. Its official assessment by Canada’s Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in 1995 was “Not at Risk.” The population appeared to be sufficiently large, dispersed, and stable. No one was especially concerned. That assessment has been completely reversed thirty…

In Quezon City, there is a specific location along Katipunan Avenue where it seems as though the city’s noise just stops. There is a change, but not entirely—Manila never truly becomes quiet. There is a slight shift in the air. Trees encircle the area on all sides. Additionally, if you happen to look past UP Diliman’s university gates, you will see something that is becoming more and more uncommon in this area of Metro Manila: open space, real greenery, and the impression that someone at some point chose not to build over everything. The decision is becoming increasingly difficult every…

A woman by the name of Emily Williamson was serving fruitcake and quiet rage at afternoon teas in her Didsbury drawing room in the late 1880s. Society ladies were her guests. Her topic was murder, specifically the 200 million birds that are killed annually so that stylish women in America and Britain can wear their feathers on their hats. In the end, Williamson was a co-founder of the RSPB. Her campaign took more than thirty years to get the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Act of 1921 passed. Thirty-three years. One minor law. And everything was altered. It’s worth taking a…

The hedgerows begin to bloom in the early spring, before the bees are fully awake and the warmth has taken hold. Goat willow and blackthorn push their blooms out into the chilly air, and inexplicably, those flowers are pollinated. Nobody could adequately explain how for a long time. The answer may finally be found in a recent study that was published in the Journal of Ecology: part of the work is being done by the birds singing through those branches. At the National Trust nature reserve in Cambridgeshire, Wicken Fen, researchers caught birds in fine nets and examined them for…

Observing a city gradually fill itself in causes a certain kind of grief. There was no abrupt catastrophe or dramatic collapse, just concrete slowly moving year by year into what was once open water. Even if they are unable to identify it, anyone who has driven along Roxas Boulevard in the last ten years has most likely experienced it. There is still the bay. However, it feels more like it’s about to vanish than it ever has. Felino “Jun” Palafox Jr., an architect, has been stating this for years, and he is far more accurate than most. Palafox, one of…