Fewer Shorebirds Migrating Along Atlantic Coast

Bird surveys have recorded declines in shorebirds passing through eastern North America during fall migration.

Warmer Climate Sends Birds North

Some birds nesting in the central and eastern United States have moved their range over a hundred miles farther north in less than three decades.

Toxins and Disease Kill Millions of Seabirds

Biotoxin poisoning is the leading cause of mortality among seabirds in the United States, killing tens of thousands every year.

Some Birds Highly Susceptible to West Nile Virus

West Nile Virus has decimated populations of some North American bird species, while sparing others.

Bridge Baffles Birds

Ten years after Confederation Bridge opened to link Prince Edward Island with mainland Canada, migrating seabirds still have trouble getting past the lengthy structure.

Industrial Noise Interferes With Breeding Birds

The incessant din from compressor stations located along energy pipelines in Alberta's boreal forest makes it difficult for male ovenbirds to find a mate.

Geese Turn Marshes Into Barren Ground

Lesser snow geese have stripped the coastal marshes of Hudson Bay bare of vegetation and researchers say it will be decades before plants grow there again.

Abnormal Hormone Levels in Birds at Oil Sands

Tree swallows hatched near wetlands filled with tailings from Alberta's oil sands have above normal levels of thyroid hormones.

Some Birds Gain, Others Lose From Logging

When more than half of trees are harvested from a mature forest, the populations of some bird species plummet.

Spring Migrations Beginning Earlier

Studies into the timing of seasonal bird migrations in United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland and Denmark have uncovered the same trend: birds are flying north earlier every year.

Wild Birds Deformed by Radiation

Barn swallows living near the contaminated Chernobyl nuclear reactor have a much higher frequency of physical abnormalities than do barn swallows breeding elsewhere in Europe.

Fewer Birds Nesting in North America

Loss of wetlands and spreading urbanization in eastern and central North America are blamed for the dramatic decline over the last 40 years in the number of nesting birds.

DNA Reveals New Bird Species

Examining the differences in the genetic barcode among birds leads scientists to suspect that 15 unidentified species of birds breed on the North American continent.

Toxic Bark Beetle Pesticide Found in Birds

Woodpeckers feeding on mountain pine beetles in trees treated with the arsenic-based pesticide monosodium methanearsonate (MSMA) have elevated levels of arsenic in their blood, levels toxic enough to harm nestling birds.

Birds Specialize in Where They Nest

It takes a landscape scattered with an entire range of successional stages of vegetation to support a full complement of bird species.

Cool Spring Causes Collapse in Bird Breeding

Some songbirds breeding off the east coast of Louise Island hatched fewer young in the cool spring of 1999.

Birds Choose Cavities Near Cutblock Edges

Snags remaining in clearcuts after logging are most useful to birds if left within 100 m of a forest edge.

Warm Ocean Hard on Cassin’s Auklets

Warmer than usual water off the southern British Columbia coast during the 1990s ultimately led to a crash in BC’s Cassin’s auklet population.

Endangered Birds

Ivory Gulls Mysteriously Disappear

Colonies of ivory gulls nesting on gravel plateaus of northwestern Baffin Island used to be so thick that local Inuit mistook the birds from a distance for patches of snow.

Marbled Murrelets Forced to Change Their Diet

Marbled murrelets may be having difficulty finding enough food for producing eggs because commercial fisheries have depleted the birds’ critical food supplies.

What Marbled Murrelets Need to Avoid Extinction

Scientists conclude that maintaining between 0.6 to 1.2 million ha of coastal old-growth forest could ensure that marbled murrelets survive in British Columbia.

Vehicles Hit Hundreds of Owls

Cars and trucks hit 950 owls that were later found lying along highways in the lower Fraser Valley of British Columbia, killing all but ten.

Endangered American White Pelican Colony Rebounds

British Columbia's only breeding colony of the endangered American white pelican has doubled in size since 1988.

Future Looks Bleak for Spotted Owls

Protecting more old-growth forest habitat will do little to increase British Columbia’s spotted owl population within the next decade.

Screech Owls Disappear From Vancouver Region

Western screech owls, once commonly observed in forests throughout British Columbia's lower mainland, had disappeared from 22 sites by 2002.