Derrick Z. Jackson: Protecting Puffins in Maine Is an Emotional Commitment
After contorting under boulders for puffin chicks, chasing skittish tern chicks in the weeds and sitting as stone-silent sentinels in bird blinds to observe feeding and behavior, the five-person research crew on Seal Island relaxed in their work cabin in the orange and purple sunset glow.
Robert Cording: New Morning
Always that moment
when I wake up
in the dark
before dawn
and the first birds
Derrick Z. Jackson: Administration Cuts Will Leave No Refuge for Wildlife
Smyrna, Delaware—Bald eagles descended to pose on the banks and boulders on the mudflats. Shorebirds bobbed in shallow pools. Great blue herons, great egrets, and snowy egrets snapped up fish … Continue reading
Gerry LaFemina: Spring Redux
Every bird’s got perfect pitch
they remind me again,
even that bitchy blue jay
on the high branches of the apple tree.
Richard Hoffman: Nestling
One day an old painter, impatient with his failures, took a scissors to the paintings he didn’t like, cutting them into strips and putting them out with the trash.
Gary Fincke: The Chernobyl Swallows
In April, near the anniversary Of catastrophe, barn swallows returned, Flying inside the exclusion zone to Nest in the radioactive ruins. Like disciples, the swaddled scientists Marveled. The work crews, … Continue reading
Neil Shepard: Mating Behaviors of Storks, Egrets, Humans
We’re out of love again and wandering
with other birdwatchers over the cedar shakes,
spying on spring nesting sites where great
migrations end and settle into familiar patterns
of rearing and weaning.
Veronika Perková: To Save a Forest, Look to the Women
Women often suffer the most from environmental degradation. A nonprofit in Colombia is trying to make their needs central to conservation.
Derrick Z. Jackson: We saved the puffins. Now a warming planet is unraveling that work.
Seabirds are climate change prisoners. Our inaction makes us the executioners.
Molly Fisk: Devotion
The mergansers fly so close to the surface
their feet could touch it, banking up
from gray waves to paler sky
Brett Wilkins: Wildlife Defenders Cheer Restoration of Migratory Bird Protections Gutted Under Trump
Over the last 50 years, the population of North American birds has declined by an estimated three billion birds.
Tayve Neese: Still, we wait for sounds of plumage
Still, we wait for sounds of plumage
in this world even angels shun.
Jose A. Alcantara: Divorce
He has flown headfirst against the glass
and now lies stunned on the stone patio,
nothing moving but his quick beating heart.
Yadvinder Malhi: Observing nature in your backyard is not dull but radically significant
Every decade is warmer than the last, spring is earlier and the weather more erratic. The web of life is shifting and reweaving in complex ways…
