Audubon Magazine Blog
Speciating with Flying Colors: Birds with Color-Polymorphism Speed Up Evolution
 Red-phase and gray-phase eastern screech owls at the Carolina Raptor Center, Huntersville, N.C. This color-polymorphism speeds up evolution, researchers at the University of Melbourne in Australia found. (Photo: Dick Daniels/CC-by-3.0) |
The North American eastern screech owl is a particularly small and cute ball of fluff. Found in most of North America’s dense deciduous forests, these little guys boast large heads, striking ear tufts, and golden eyes. Though most of the owls’ intricately patterned plumage is a rusty red, a pale grey variation is also common in parts of western Canada and the north-central United States. Side by side, the so-called red and grey “morphs” look like completely different species—and that might be what Mother Nature intended. A new study shows bird species that exhibit such color-polymorphism evolve into new species faster, suggesting the characteristic plays an active role in accelerating speciation.
Video: Disco the Rapping Parakeet
Birds—like Disco, the rapping parakeet—say the darndest things. In the video above, he’s like an iPod set permanently to shuffle, moving from Styx to beat boxing to the Flintstones theme song.
Review: The Mindful Carnivore
Tovar Cerulli thought he’d crafted an Edenic lifestyle—until a showdown with a buck-toothed rodent helped change his mind.
Birds Mom Awards: The Good, the Bad, and the Just Plain Weird
Female prothonotary warbler. Rondeau Provincial Park, 2005; de: Zitronenwaldsänger. Photograph: Mdf/CC-by-3.0
Mother birds employ wildly different reproductive strategies, nearly all of them successful. From a human point of view, however, some moms seem “better” than others. Here are the National Audubon Society's first-ever “Mother Hen Awards” for distinctive parenting styles, just in time for Mother's Day.
Write a Caption for This Photo: Atlantic Puffin
Atlantic Puffin with sand eel in Mykines Island. Photo: Alessio Mesiano/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
UPDATE: We've narrowed down the entries to these three. Which is your favorite?
Every week we post a funny animal photo that's begging for a caption. Click "Read more" to add your suggestion in the Comments section by midnight (Eastern time) on Sunday. On Monday we'll choose our three favorite captions and list them under the image.
Check out our top choices from last week’s photo of a ground squirrel, and all previous weeks.
A Bird-a-thon Adventure in Central Park
 Male rose-breasted grosbeak, one of the species spotted during the Bird-a-thon. Photo: Trisha Shears/CC BY-SA 2.0 |
By 6:30 am on Tuesday, we’d been out and about for a half hour. Despite the early hour, Central Park was already abuzz—with people and birds. We were there for the latter, of course, as part of Audubon New York’s Bird-a-thon.
Each year around this time, when spring migration’s at its peak, thousands of bird-lovers take to the streets, parks, forests to spot the winged wonders and raise money on their behalf.
Camera Trap Snags Video of World’s Rarest Gorilla
A camera placed in Cameroon’s Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary has captured remarkable footage of the elusive Cross River gorilla. In the two-minute video, eight of the critically endangered gorillas make their way through the forest. One sits by a tree, seemingly waiting for the rest of the troop to catch up. Another makes its way on only three limbs because it’s missing a hand, perhaps severed by a snare. At one particularly thrilling moment, a gorilla stands and charges the camera, beating its chest. (Click through for the video.)
Dive Into TheBlu, A Social Ocean Experience with a Cause
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TheBlu, an online social experience in a digital ocean, is now available for download. |
The queen angelfish moves swiftly in an endless pool of pure, blue ocean. The creature’s magenta body passes gracefully over gardens of lush thong weed, bursts of yellow cluster anemone, and fierce spouts of pinkish-colored black coral in a vibrant Caribbean reef. Her caudal fin sways with the current as a colossal striped marlin rushes by. And, in the distance, a pair of black ocellaris clownfish dive past a monstrous barracuda. While witnessing these sights usually requires a plane ticket and scuba gear, with the new social media and graphic art app, theBlu, all you need is a computer.
Launched May 4, theBlu is a global art and entertainment social media application where users can explore miles of digitized ocean. Like the queen angelfish I’ve been following, every species in theBlu is an original work created by an international group of artists, animators, and developers—including Academy Award winners Andy Jones (Avatar) and Kevin Mack (What Dreams May Come). As if the breathtaking graphics weren’t enough, theBlu is also dedicated to saving the same environments it depicts, collaborating with Mission Blue, Ocean Elders, Oceanic Preservation Society, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and WildAid.
Molasses Helps Clean Up Contaminated Soils
 Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons |
These days the sweet smell of gingersnaps might be wafting from contaminated sites rather than grandmothers’ kitchens. Remediation companies are pumping food-grade molasses into polluted soils in order to feed microbes.
From Street to Plaza: Building Public Space in NYC
The New Lots Triangle after its opening ceremony last fall. Photo: Noah Kazis
A transformed street in East New York is just one of many projects that New York City's Department of Transportation is tackling as part of the metropolis's PlaNYC initiative.
