Audubon articles from January 2008

Audubon archives from January 2008

Editor's note.(Editorial)
January 1, 2008... Less than a decade ago, if you were having a meal at a restaurant or a drink at a bar in New York City, where I live, you might end up sharing a cigarette with another patron--whether you cared to or not. Secondhand smoke was simply a fact of...

Audubon view.
January 1, 2008... Audubon and the American Bird Conservancy recently completed a comprehensive analysis of all birds in the United States. The bad news is that 217 of 700 U.S. species--178 from the continental United States and 39 from Hawaii--landed on our...

Vieques: Puerto Rico.(BIRDING TRIP REPORT: AdvenTours www.AdvenTourspr.com)(Isla de Vieques)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] DESTINATION: Isla de Vieques, 8 miles east of the Puerto Rican mainland, is a naturalist's dream. Closed to the public for 60 years, much of the land, especially beaches, remains untouched. There are a number of...

No trespassing.(Letters from our readers)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "Get Off Your Land!" [Incite, November-December 2007] mentions a Michigan group called Save Our Shorelines. I own a small summer cottage on Saginaw Bay, where that group was organized. One day a member stopped and...

Bright idea.(Letters from our readers)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... Replacing incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescents (CFLs) undoubtedly will make a contribution to the reduction of greenhouse gases [Audubon Living, "This Little Light of Mine," November-December 2007]. However, compared to other...

Winning battle.(Letters from our readers)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... The article "Lost in the Wilderness" [Reviews, November-December 2007] resonated with me. In each issue of your magazine, birds tend to come in a distant second to stories about impending environmental crises. Are the crises real, and do they...

Paying for haying.(Letters from our readers)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... Regarding "Hold the Hay" [Field Notes, November-December 2007]: The reason why hay producers mow their hay fields at the peak of bird nesting season is that forage quality is reduced as plants mature, with a reduction in digestible nutrients...

Good fences.(Letters from our readers)(Letter to the editor)
January 1, 2008... Michelle Nijhuis's article "Dead End" [September-October 2007] left me concerned about where our priorities are. I believe our country's long-term survival will rely heavily on our ability to secure our borders against terrorists who espouse...

El Yunque Rainforest: Puerto Rico.(BIRDING TRIP REPORT: AdvenTours: www.AdvenTourspr.com)(Brief article)(Travel narrative)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] DESTINATION: El Yunque Rainforest, located on the far eastern edge of Puerto Rico, is the largest area of public land in Puerto Rico and is home to more than 240 tree-bird species--23 of which are only found in this...

Tails, you win.(field notes)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Who knew squirrels were so fierce or clever? In a recent study, Aaron Rundus, at the time a graduate psychology student at the University of California, Davis, found that a ground squirrel defending its pups will...

All the forest's a stage.(field notes)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... The flying adder's clear, veined wings hover as its yellow-dotted abdomen briefly brushes the stage. Then this dragonfly--or, rather, this child meticulously costumed as one--leaps to an enormous maidenhair fern and glides it across the floor...

Dodging a bullet.(ENDANGERED SPECIES)(condors)
January 1, 2008... JUST BEFORE EASTER last year a female California condor soared across the international border from Mexico into the United States. The historic flight, which marked the first recorded sighting of a condor in San Diego County since 1933,...

I am a Dorito Bandito.(field notes)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... In recent months workers at a newsstand in Aberdeen, Scotland, have spotted a winged shoplifter regularly stealing snack-sized bags of chips. Sam the Seagull, as he is now known, waits until the shop door is open and the coast is clear before...

Super size my house.(ENERGY)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Along with our waistlines, the girth of American homes has been inching up, even though the typical family is now a lean 2.6 people. Two-thirds of Americans live in single-family homes, and during the past 30 years,...

Disarming cats.(field notes)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Wearing a bib may prevent a messy meal for humans, but for cats it may also foil the meal altogether--which would be good for the estimated millions of birds and other small animals killed each year by domestic cats....

Body makeover.(field notes)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... Last spring a female great horned owl was brought to the Lakeside Nature Center in Kansas City after it was found near a chemical overflow pool in an industrial area. The owl had chemical burns on its chest and required surgery to remove...

Bush is for the birds.(WHITE HOUSE)(George W. Bush)
January 1, 2008... ONE DAY LAST OCTOBER, Audubon's editor-in-chief received a phone call that nearly knocked him off his chair. The White House Office of Media Affairs wanted to know if the magazine would like to cover an event in three days at which President...

A stunner.(field notes)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In the war against invasive species, electrocution isn't a common tactic. That might change now that the Georgia Department of Natural Resources has successfully employed electric current to beat back the pesky...

Spit and demolish.(BIRD CONSERVATION)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] THE SWIFTLET, a cave-dwelling bird found in Southeast Asia, is being eaten out of house and home--literally. Its nest is a small, gluey cup of its own dried saliva that sticks to cave walls and ceilings. It is also...

Rockin' robin, tweet.(field notes)(Bird Show of North America)(Brief article)
January 1, 2008... When the instrumental rock trio Bird Show of North America (yes, that is the band's actual name) plays in Seattle bars, it's only fitting that its song list includes "Great Horned Owl" and "Wandering Albatross." One member of the band is an...

Swimming against the tide.(TRIBUTE)
January 1, 2008... EARLY IN THE MORNING at Audubon board meetings and staff retreats more than a decade ago, a trim figure with muscular arms could often be spotted swimming in whatever chilly mountain lake or northern ocean was at hand. "Brrr!" shuddered the...

Raising shorties: on a tiny Pacific island, scientists defy an active volcano to secure the future of the Northern Hemisphere's most endangered seabird. So far they're winning.(Birds)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Far removed from Tokyo's hustle and bustle, I find myself in the sort of situation one rarely associates with Japan: dangling by a rope with my face pressed against cool granite, my nose filled with hot sulfur fumes...

Green guru: advice for the Eco-minded.
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I want my child to connect with nature, but how can a suburban park be designed to both protect visitors from Lyme disease-carrying ticks and restore the natural ecosystem? Lena Crandall, Scarsdale, NY The funny...

Passion fruits: after decades of struggling to grow apples in his backyard, a gardener rediscovers a cornucopia of native and sweet edibles that thrive without sweat and chemicals.(Audubon Living)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Twenty-five years ago I planted a dozen apple trees in my backyard in Ulster County, New York. I was planning to sink my teeth into some of the best apple varieties in existence. From this row of trees, I would enjoy...

A rose is [not] a rose: long the symbol of love, irresistible desire, and ephemeral beauty, the prickliest of flowers has never been so popular, so lucrative--or so toxic for the environment. But enterprising growers and marketers are working to turn the red rose green.(ORGANICS)(Cover story)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Between rows of tall, pale pink roses, he came at me like Darth Vader in a billowing cloud of vapors, his identity cloaked beneath a black face mask, hood, and plastic clothes. But the material coming out of the...

Counting the wings: Charley Harper perfected an inimitable style that celebrated nature's colorful purity. Now designer Todd Oldham, in an excerpt from his new book, talks about his friendship with Harper and about the artist's work.(Excerpt)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Late in 2001, I was rummaging through thrift stores in rural Pennsylvania when I came upon a stack of postcard-sized magazines called Ford Times. The magazine's diminutive size did nothing to distinguish itself...

Let's make a deal: with a signature and a handshake, an innovative legal too is allaying private landowners' fears of one of the nation's most powerful environmental laws to create critical wildlife habitat.(ENDANGERED SPECIES)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] A bad case of chainsaw fever struck the small city of Boiling Spring Lakes, North Carolina, in the summer of 2006, launching its otherwise laid-back citizenry into a paroxysm of clear-cutting that reduced miles of...

On the edge: wolverines, long admired for their ferocity and canniness, are so elusive that few people have even seen one. Now biologists are racing to find them before trappers do.(Journal)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Springtime high in the Rockies, where the calendar reads May 9, but it's snowing in rattling bursts of graupel. After snowshoeing for hours up a tilted, twisted drainage in Montana's Gallatin Mountains, south of...

Unfair game: considering all the celebration of the bald eagle's recovery, it's hard to believe that a generation ago they were hunted and killed like vermin.(Archives)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The recent removal of the bald eagle from the endangered-species list should be a cautionary tale, reminding us how reckless we were to let our national bird decline to the point where its very survival looked...

Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics By Rebecca Solnit University of California Press, 416 pages, $24.95 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Few writers describe a landscape more vividly than Rebecca Solnit. Here she is on the...

The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet's Largest Mammals.(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet's Largest Mammals By Peter Heller Free Press, 288 pages, $25 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dreadlocks-wearing vegans, rugged mountain men, professional gamblers,...

The passionate flock: if you own binoculars and a guidebook, you're part of an illustrious, centuries-old tradition. Still, real birding is much more than life lists and passive entertainment, argues the author of this engrossing book about America's most popular pastime.(Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Of a Feather: A Brief History of American Birding By Scott Weidensaul, Harcourt, 358 pages, $25 Who are we, we birdwatchers and birders? We Audubon types, wanderers with a purpose through forests and swamps? ...

Art of the wild.(Vanishing World: The Endangered Arctic)(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... The color white has subtle shifts in hue and intensity, as Vanishing World: The Endangered Arctic (Abrams, 264 pages, $40) beautifully illustrates through the lens of photographer Mireille de la Lez. Fresh powdery snow glistens on a polar bear,...

The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming.(This Is My Planet: The Kids' Guide to Global Warming)(Children's review)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming By Laurie David and Cambria Gordon Scholastic, 112 pages, $15.99 (ages 9 and up) This Is My Planet: The Kids' Guide to Global Warming By Jan Thornhall Maple Tree Press, 64 pages, $10.95 (ages 9-13)...

Lions, Tigers, and Bears: Why Are Big Predators So Rare?(Brief article)(Book review)
January 1, 2008... Lions, Tigers, and Bears: Why Are Big Predators So Rare? By Ron Hirschi Boyds Mills Press, 40 pages, $16.95 (ages 7-10) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Lions are kingly cats, boasting majestic manes and golden pelts. Despite their enduring...

Right on time.(One Picture)(Brief article)(Photograph)
January 1, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SPECIFICATIONS Photographer: Jean Luc Mylayne Subject: European robin What: From, Jean Luc Mylayne, Plate No. 36 When: October 1990--February 1993 Where: Bordeaux, France Camera: 8x10 view...