Making Sense | Audubon

Chances are high, when you’ve spent any time close to a physique of water, you might have seen an Osprey. Aptly nicknamed fish hawks, the birds hunt alongside coastlines, rivers, and lakes all through the hemisphere and the world. However have you ever ever actually seen an Osprey? 

Mark Smith’s arresting cowl picture captures the raptor in spectacular element, revealing how fine-tuned it’s to its aquatic way of life. Smith was standing on a Florida pier as a faculty of menhaden swam in with the tide, and this Osprey, passing by way of on its southbound migration, was laser centered on the chance at hand. It dove inside 30 toes of Smith and hit its mark. “For a fowl with a thousand miles nonetheless forward,” says Smith, “that fish was all the pieces.” 

Bryan Watts would agree. He has additionally carefully noticed Ospreys; his work as a biologist takes him from nest to nest within the Chesapeake Bay, the place he friends into the birds’ elevated abodes utilizing a mirror mounted on an extended pole. The picture of an Osprey feeding its chick in David Gessner’s feature piece is one which he took, and there’s a narrative behind that, too. Simply out of body is a second chick, a lot smaller in measurement, and lengthy gone from the image, a 3rd chick that had died from hunger. These Ospreys had been a part of a research inspecting how important menhaden are to fueling the birds’ profitable replica. (Spoiler alert: very.) 

Elsewhere on this concern, others are equally paying shut consideration to realize new views on birdlife. Elizabeth Preston, for instance, considers crows by way of the eyes of those that’ve related with them with a purpose to probe an everlasting query: Are these birds really our friends? And group scientists throughout the nation have turned out to look at where birds go in a changing climate, serving to to disclose how they could adapt to it.  

Researchers are additionally discovering new methods to tune in. Esteban Valdivia plays ancient instruments to expertise birdsong by way of the ears of Indigenous cultures. And by pairing audio recorders with artificial intelligence, scientists can not solely shortly establish what species are utilizing a habitat but in addition use that knowledge to extra successfully shield them. 

As environmental challenges mount, such tales illustrate that we might want to use all of our powers of commentary—and the entire instruments at our disposal—to raised perceive birds and what they’re telling us. That’s our alternative, if we select to laser in. 

This piece initially ran within the Summer season 2026 concern. To obtain our print journal, turn out to be a member by making a donation today.