Field Reports
Yellow Rails at Anahuac, the First Week of May
A controlled prairie burn at sundown, three rail species in a single sweep, and the cooperative banding crew that has worked this marsh for twenty years.
Habitat editor
Inara Khan
Inara Khan works on urban wetland conservation in South Asia and edits Roost's Habitat section from a small flat in Bandra.
Beats
Published in Roost
Species
The Common Nighthawk Over American Cities
At 8:46 p.m. on May 30, on a flat-roofed parking garage on Broadway in Saskatoon, a common nighthawk hunted moths against a sodium-vapor glow. The roof had hosted nighthawk nests since at least 1979. The next renovation, scheduled for 2027, will install a green roof.
Backyard
Planting for the Birds You Already Have
A landscape architect in Asheville spent six years converting a half-acre lawn into a bird-supporting yard. The species count tripled. The water bill dropped.
Migration
What the Yellow Sea Mudflats Still Hold
Two decades of seawall construction took most of the East Asian-Australasian Flyway's critical staging habitat. What survived is now under intensive watch.
Habitat
The Tidal Edge: Saltmarsh Sparrow on the Last Productive Marshes
On the high marsh at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge, the saltmarsh sparrow is timing its nesting to a tide cycle that no longer offers the margin it once did. The species may not have the decade.
Songs
Subsong: The Quiet Rehearsal of Young Birds
Before a young songbird produces full adult song it goes through a long quiet practice called subsong, which sounds like nothing in particular and is, in fact, where everything is learned. Inara Khan visits a Bombay rooftop where a juvenile magpie-robin is at work.
Citizen Science
The International Shorebird Survey: Volunteers Counting at the Tideline
Since 1974, an unusual network of amateur counters has tracked the shorebirds that move between the Arctic and Patagonia. Inara Khan walks a count site at Plum Island.
Migration
A Month of Stopover on the Texas Coast
At High Island and Sabine Woods, the difference between a good migration year and a bad one is measured in caterpillar abundance and the wind on the Gulf.
Endangered
The Spix's Macaws of Curaçá Have Started to Argue
Five years after the first reintroductions in northeastern Brazil, the released birds are forming pair bonds, defending territory, and producing the species' first wild-hatched chicks in twenty-six years.
Backyard
Nest Box Plans for Eastern Bluebirds
The North American Bluebird Society's standard plan has not meaningfully changed since 1978. A retired carpenter in Vermont explains why.
Habitat
The Warblers of Hazelwood: A Pittsburgh Brownfield in May
On the cracked slab of a former steel coking plant on the Monongahela, a chestnut-sided warbler sings from a sumac no one planted. The brownfield is doing the work no one budgeted for.