Author: Frances Monroe

Somewhere on a soggy northern moor, a game warden pauses and pays attention. Not for anything pleasant. Perhaps for the sound of a gunshot, or for the engine of a quad bike. The work of protecting birds of prey across Britain’s shooting estates has become something closer to a covert operation than a conservation job — and for the people doing it, that shift has come with real personal cost. The conflict between commercial grouse moor operators and those who protect raptors has been building for decades, but in recent years it has moved into genuinely alarming territory. Investigators have…

Smøla, an island off the northwest coast of Norway, is home to a wind farm where white turbine blades spin in wide, steady arcs against a pale sky while the air moves continuously. It’s a tidy and useful location, the type of renewable energy installation that climate activists gladly cite. However, shortly after it opened in 2002, something continued to occur. White-tailed Eagles were dying as they flew into the blades. No one could quite figure out why a bird with extraordinary vision, able to see a fish from a hundred meters above the ground, was unable to see a…

A small group of volunteers wearing hi-vis vests are already counting dead birds on the downtown streets of Dallas before the majority of the city is awake. Tucked up against building bases, warblers, sparrows, and doves are occasionally covered in ants and occasionally barely alive. One of the worst offenders on their circuit is the 72-story Bank of America tower, which is made of glass and light. One morning, a wren was discovered outside it; it appeared to be sleeping. It wasn’t. During the night, it had struck the building at full speed. America’s migration season has a dark side…

There is a mid-rise office building in Makati that dates back to the early 1990s and still has the original aluminum-framed single-pane windows. The building’s air conditioning system struggles against the glass on a Tuesday afternoon in April when the heat index slightly rises above 40 degrees Celsius. Until you’re seated on the wrong side of that wall, it’s a minor detail that is simple to ignore. Beneath the glittering skyline of Metro Manila, this is the quiet reality. For many years, glass has shaped the aesthetic aspirations of Philippine commercial architecture. However, an increasing number of engineers, architects, and…

The mudflats of Iloilo contain a certain kind of irony. Due to a combination of ecological resilience and neglect, the ponds that were cut out of mangrove forests decades ago—often destroying coastal ecosystems in the process—have subtly changed into something no one could have predicted: resting and feeding grounds for wading birds that fly thousands of kilometers between continents. This was not created by anyone. No one set aside money for it. The way nature tends to fill gaps left by human failure, it just happened. Shallow, brackish ponds that once supported shrimp and milkfish are now mostly empty along…

Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time with photographers will recognize the moment when the quest for the ideal shot becomes more about something other than the truth. Think of it as ambition. Describe it as pressure. If the wolf was tame, or if the distraught farmer decided to walk through the field again after the first attempt failed, call it the silent calculation that no one will notice. The majority of the actual ethical issues in photography start at that tiny, seemingly innocuous moment. Artificial baits and staged shots are not new topics of discussion. However, it…

There’s something almost hypnotic about passing any large glass tower on a clear morning, with the city doubling itself in the facade and the sky perfectly reflected. It appears pricey. It appears contemporary. At least from the outside, it doesn’t appear to be an issue. However, that shiny surface is the last thing seen by the approximately one billion birds that perish every year after colliding with glass buildings across the United States. This is no longer a minor environmental issue. It’s evolving into a discussion about investments, design, and, in certain cities, the law. Although it took decades for…

A certain type of photograph is one that refuses to give itself up right away. You glance at it once and feel something, but you’re not sure what it is. You take another, longer look, and something else comes to light: a detail you overlooked, a tension you initially failed to notice. Such pictures are common among the Hasselblad Masters winners of 2026. And that seems to be the main point more than anything else. One of the more understatedly prestigious competitions in the field of photography is the Hasselblad Masters of Photography. It has real weight among professionals, but…

When volunteers from the Chicago Bird Collision Monitors arrived at McCormick Place Lakeside Center on a morning in early October a few years ago, they discovered that the ground was covered in birds. More than a thousand of them. Dead at one building, in one day. The species included birds traveling thousands of miles, such as warblers, sparrows, and thrushes. Those journeys were never completed. It’s likely that the majority of them never saw what killed them. That is the harsh, unglamorous reality of glass in contemporary architecture. Glass does not appear to be a wall to birds. It appears…

The sheer extent of vulnerability becomes nearly unbearable to contemplate when you enter a typical commercial poultry barn in rural England or the American Midwest. Tens of thousands of birds, all genetically susceptible to a virus that has recently wiped out hundreds of millions of their kind worldwide, are crammed under one roof. It’s an efficient agricultural setup, but regrettably, it also has the potential to spread catastrophically. Researchers at the University of Edinburgh’s Roslin Institute and Imperial College London have been working in secret to find a solution to that issue. They might also be closer than most people…