The Essentials

An Ithaca High School volunteer for Cornell’s Elephant Listening Project at the Lab of Ornithology has won first prize in a national essay contest. Michelle Jang, 16, was a winner of the Humane Education Networks’ “A Voice for Animals” essay contest. Her essay, “Road to Extinction: Confinement of Roads,” was chosen from more than 8,000 high school [...]

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From the Cornell Lab of Ornithology: “To celebrate the unforgettable 11 weeks of family life that Big Red and Ezra shared with us, we’ve created a video highlight reel with comments from hawk fans and a slideshow of photos from the cam community. Thank you to everyone for watching with us this season and for [...]

Bird cam videos are big at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Don’t miss a moment of the drama as the first red-tailed hawk chick is expected to hatch any day now. The female hawk, Big Red, laid her first egg March 19 and completed the clutch with her third egg March 22. Incubation lasts 28-35 days, [...]

Viewers interested in a bird’s eye view of a great blue heron nest may get an eyeful as a Cornell Lab of Ornithology live-streaming camera captured a heron laying her first egg of the season March 28. The birds have nested in a white-oak snag near the lab the last four years and have typically laid [...]

A camera 80 feet off the ground above a Cornell athletic field is streaming up-close views of a Red-tailed Hawk pair’s nest via the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s All About Birds website. The nest should be active for at least the next two months. The female laid eggs on March 16 and March 19, and [...]

Researchers have found a key to the habitat puzzle to improve long-term survival of the endangered Florida Scrub-Jay, a species at risk of extinction with just over 5,000 birds left in the world. The high, dry, sandy scrub-oak patches where the bird lives and breeds exclusively have been prime real estate for developers and citrus [...]