Author: Frances Monroe

A regional issue ceases to be regional at a certain point, which is typically quiet and unglamorous. That turning point for bird flu occurred sometime in June 2026, when a greater crested tern discovered off the coast of Robe, South Australia, tested positive for H5N1. The last inhabited continent without a verified local case of wild birds was Australia. Then it wasn’t. That confirmation came as a slow alarm to those who make a living monitoring poultry markets; it wasn’t shocking, but it was unnerving. Twelve H5N1 cases had been reported by Australian authorities in three states by the middle…

Standing by themselves in the forest at five in the morning, waiting with binoculars raised, has a subtly radical quality. There is no visible agenda. No T-shirt slogan. All you need is a field guide under one arm and patience. Over the past ten years, the meaning of that image has changed in the Philippines. The birdwatcher has evolved beyond a pastime. It is becoming more difficult to ignore the Pinoy birdwatcher in many provincial communities and in national discussions. For a long time, foreign researchers, retired professionals, and the occasional eccentric with expensive gear were the only people who…

The idea that bird-watching, a pastime traditionally associated with retirees in khaki vests standing motionless in marshes, would become a viral phenomenon driven by two filmmakers with cameras and a sincere sense of wonder seems almost counterintuitive. And yet here we are. American brothers Kevin and Brian Hale have accomplished something that most content producers spend their entire careers pursuing but never fully achieve: they made people care about something they had previously disregarded. It wasn’t initially a plan. From the way they discuss it, that much is evident. The brothers had a background in filmmaking and were trained in…

Remote workers are familiar with a specific type of fatigue. It’s not the fatigue that follows physical exertion. The hours of video calls, the persistent screen glow, and the blurring of work and personal time until both feel like neither are more akin to a gradual exhaustion. A strange thing began to happen somewhere in the middle of all of that. During lunch breaks, people started going outside to sit by garden hedges and observe squirrels. Not as a means of increasing productivity. simply because it was beneficial. This change may have gone mostly unnoticed because it didn’t appear to…

The final golden eagle in England did not perish in combat. Hunters, poisoned carcasses, and a spectacular final stand on a moorland ridge were all absent. At the age of twenty, he simply vanished by himself in the Lake District’s Haweswater Falls in 2016. Before that, he had been performing his aerial courtship show year after year for over ten years, diving, spiraling, and attempting to communicate his presence across a blank sky. No woman ever responded. The final eagle in England perished while waiting. It’s difficult to ignore that picture for a second before discussing the politics of what…

A passenger is pulled aside by a customs officer at a crowded regional airport in Thailand. Clothes, toiletries, and other typical travel clutter make up the bag’s unremarkable appearance. However, a few uncommon songbirds are nestled inside hair roller tubes, covered in cloth and hardly breathing. They have compressed feathers. They have their eyes half closed. A few have already passed away. This is not uncommon. It occurs silently, frequently, and far more frequently than official seizure figures indicate. The illicit bird trade in Southeast Asia is one of those issues that exists in plain sight but is never fully…

Nowadays, when you stroll through practically any broadleaf woodland in England, something seems a little strange. In certain areas, the canopy is thick. The understory should be dense, but deer trails cut through it. Simply put, nothing is keeping the deer in check, which makes it difficult for young trees to establish themselves. It’s not overly dramatic. It doesn’t appear to be a disaster. However, ecologists who visit these areas frequently agree that the forest is out of balance and has been for a very long time. It makes sense that mammals have dominated the rewilding debate in Britain. Most…

It has an almost ridiculous quality. Grocery prices are sent into freefall, or stratospheric territory, almost overnight by a single-celled organism that is invisible to the unaided eye, incapable of thought or intention, and capable of doing what supply chain disruptions, fuel price fluctuations, and even trade tariffs frequently cannot. You can learn more about microbial economics from the empty dairy aisle or the unexpectedly high price of shredded cheese than from any quarterly earnings report if you happen to stroll through a supermarket on the wrong week following a contamination alert. Listeria in soft cheeses was the cause. E.…

Watching hundreds of people rush into Central Park at midnight, shouting and staring at their phones, in search of a virtual aquatic creature called Vaporeon, has a subtly unsettling quality. No one raised their heads. The great horned owl perched above the entire spectacle, unimpressed, and the raccoons watching from the tree line went unnoticed. Since Pokémon Go’s release in the summer of 2016, conservationists have been debating whether getting people outside truly matters if the outdoors is merely a platform for something else. That night became a sort of symbol for that question. Pokémon Go accomplished something truly amazing.…

For nine hundred years, a meadow in Herefordshire has flooded every winter. That was the idea. Every season, the River Lugg would spill across the valley floor, leaving behind lime and silt that fed the hay, the soil, and the Norman economy that constructed churches and cathedrals in the area. It was an incredibly effective system. The floods came and went, so it was successful. The current situation is different. The Lugg meadows haven’t truly dried up since October 2019. Where mice and rabbits once dug burrows, swans and gulls have taken over. Above the chocolate-colored water are the tops…