Planet of Birds

Text by Audubon Introduction The Florida Scrub-Jay lives only in Florida, in rare areas of oak scrub that must be renewed periodically by lightning-ignited fires. Seemingly inexorable development in the state has fragmented much of the scrub-jay’s habitat, minimizing the occurrence of fire. Unburnt, the oak scrub tends to become overgrown and evolve into sand […]

Text by Audubon Introduction The Piping Plover is a small shorebird that nests on beaches and sandflats along the Atlantic Coast, the Great Lakes, and large rivers and lakes in the Great Plains on the United States and Canada. Piping Plover nests are inconspicuous in the sand, and newly hatched chicks look like small sand-colored […]

Text by Audubon Introduction Kirtland’s Warbler is a small – they weigh only half-ounce each – migratory songbird that nests exclusively under trees in young jack pine forests in Michigan and sometimes Wisconsin and Ontario. Historically, this habitat is renewed when naturally occurring fires renew forests, with the heat from the fire forcing open the […]

Text by Audubon. Introduction The Gunnison Sage-Grouse, a chicken-sized ground bird, depends on sagebrush habitat for cover throughout the year and feeds exclusively on sagebrush during the winter. During the spring, summer, and fall, the grouse also browses on other plants and insects. Once native to New Mexico, northeastern Arizona, Colorado, and Utah, Gunnison Sage-Grouse […]

Text by Audubon Introduction The poignant irony of human engagement with endangered birds is captured in the image of a delicate open-cockpit ultralight aircraft that looks like one of Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machines guiding a flock of large, elegant white-andblack Whooping Cranes on their annual migration. Whooping Cranes once bred easily in the central […]

Text by Audubon Introduction A huge bird with a small range and a tiny population, the California Condor is one of the most endangered birds in the United States. The California Condor is the largest bird in North America, weighing over 18 pounds and with a wingspan of more than nine feet. A scavenger that […]

Text by Audubon Introduction The Ivory-billed Woodpecker once ranged widely across the southeastern United States, including Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, as well as in Cuba. As logging reduced the hardwood and pine forests that constitute its habitat, however, the bird became increasingly rare. Indeed, having not been […]