By Steve Zack An appreciation of vultures is in the eye of the beholder. William Clark of the Lewis and Clark Expedition certainly appreciated them; Charles Darwin certainly did not. Clark carefully described in his journal of 1806 the “butifull buzzard of the Columbia” that we now know as the California Condor. Darwin, in 1832,...
By Dr. Steve Zack If a place on earth motivates a Bar-tailed Godwit to fly more than 9,000 miles from southern Australia, the Buff-breasted Sandpiper to fly 8,500 miles from the pampas of Argentina, and Arctic Terns to fly some 11,000 miles from Antarctic, well, that place must be something special. That special place is...
By Steve Zack In the last few weeks the tundra swans have abandoned the wetlands near my Oregon home. The cackling geese flew off right behind them. These birds and millions of others from around the world left for the Arctic’s greatest nursery – a vast wetland complex surrounding Alaska’s Teshekpuk Lake. They have done...