Tag: american bird conservancy

_{This YouTube video was produced by the American Bird Conservancy.}

Each spring heralds a unique spectacle on the brushy western plains of North America. Year after year, male Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) congregate on ancestral display grounds known as leks. There, the males strut about, fanning spiky tail feathers and raising feathered white collars while inflating bright yellow throat sacs — all the while making a weird assortment of booming, swishing, and popping noises. Choosy female sage-grouse, the object of all this parading, look on with a critical eye.

Although male birds of other species, from the Greater Prairie-Chicken down

_{This YouTube video was produced by the American Bird Conservancy.}

The rufous-breasted Red Knot (Calidris canutus rufa), once known as the “Robin Snipe,” is a champion long-distance migrant, flying more than 9,000 miles from south to north every spring, then reversing the trip every autumn.

One tagged Red Knot lived to at least 19 years old. Over its lifetime, researchers estimate that this bird traveled farther than the distance from Earth to the Moon, hence its nickname, Moonbird.

The rufa Red Knot is one of six subspecies, three of which are found in North America. The rufa Red Knot’s migration

_{This YouTube video was produced by the American Bird Conservancy.}

The Three-wattled Bellbird (Procnias tricarunculatus), like other Central and South American bellbirds in the Cotinga family, is a natural history paradox. Breeding males perch on exposed branches and sing one of the loudest songs of any bird, impossible to ignore and audible from more than half a mile away. However, despite this extremely conspicuous breeding season behavior, females and nonbreeding males are notoriously difficult to observe, foraging in the higher levels of the canopy and remaining remarkably silent. As a result, this species has been subject to fascinating and in-depth