There are two classes of words commonly applied to swifts: words about ethereality, and violent words. They are not contradictory. The violence makes the ethereal accessible. Swifts…

George Shiras the third (1859-1942) was captivated by the waters of Lake Superior at night, when sounds, shapes, and movements seemed more mysterious, more dramatic. Under cover of…

When I first adopted Lucas nine years ago from a cat rescue organization in Washington, D.C., his name was Puck. “Because he’s mischievous,” his foster mother said. Although…

Jerry Coyne is an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. His research on population and evolutionary genetics has been widely published in professional and trade journals…

Eight years ago, while flying 800 feet above the grasslands of southern New Mexico, an unlikely observation changed the course of my life. As I was leaning out the window of a small…

In his latest book, The Serengeti Rules: The Quest to Discover How Life Works and Why It Matters, Sean B. Carroll tells us the remarkable story of Robert Paine, who revolutionized…

Last spring I came to know a pair of pigeons. I’d been putting out neighborly sunflower seeds for them and my local Brooklyn house sparrows; typically I left them undisturbed while…

In Ithaca, New York, a virtual machine in a laboratory at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology sits in the night, humming. The machine’s name is Bubo, after the genus for horned owls.…

I go to the country to watchthe zunzuncito climbingthrough the air, and airthe misfortunes of yesterday;so much flying and returningthrough the delirious green,free, trembling for…

The first time I saw a free-living giraffe was in Tanzania’s Arusha National Park, where I was astounded by a yellow-and-brown head gliding gracefully and, it seemed, impossibly…