"A poem should always have birds in it," wrote the North American poet Mary Oliver in 1990. A lover of nature, and especially of birds, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1984 spent decades carefully observing how cardinal eggs break or how chicks chirp demanding food. In her book Devotions she explains how she waited for hours for the arrival of the water thrush. Today, however, birdwatching has become an activity that, far from being practiced only in solitude, is also experienced in community.In Catalonia, more and more women are approaching ornithology through organized groups, collective outings, or small learning networks where, in addition to identifying species, they find a way to share knowledge and build community outdoors."At first, you learn much faster when accompanied, because someone can guide you and make you see details that you would overlook on your own. But it's also important to look at it yourself in the guide, internalize it, and then put it into practice," explains Jaroa López Carrasco, a conservation biologist and technician at Paisatges Vius, where she works to protect endangered species.López, an ornithologist since she was thirteen, became fond of it thanks to a bird guide she had at home and her first outings to the Llobregat Delta with her uncle. But, once immersed in this world, she realized that most of her hobby companions were men. "It continues to be a field in which men predominate, that is evident, but I increasingly see more girls and women interested in this hobby," assures López.A historically masculinized hobby

It's quite curious. All of us, or almost all of us, know the name of Félix Rodríguez de la Fuente. On the other hand, we struggle to remember the names of researchers, scientific illustrators, or conservationists who also dedicated their lives to birds and nature. For a long time, the main obstacle has been invisibility. Precisely to combat this lack of role models, Lechuzas Pajareras was born in 2019, an organization that brings together women dedicated to the study of birds, research, conservation, and the dissemination of nature."In some associations, women make up nearly 60% of members, but this is not always reflected in decision-making spaces. Many times we are more present in administrative or support tasks, while positions of responsibility continue to be occupied mostly by men," explains Uca Díaz, spokesperson for the organization.What began as a group of twelve women is today a network of more than 350 members throughout the State. "Creating community is very important. One of the most beautiful things is to share experiences and hear other women say: «It has happened to me too». This allows us to feel accompanied and to talk without paternalism".

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This is a story about birdwatching and it begins, as usual, before dawn. The objective is none other than to observe the resplendent quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno), one of the most beautiful birds on the planet and the most famous of the trogons, a family of birds that inhabits both the equatorial forests of the New World and those of the Old World. To find it, we have traveled to a small village surrounded by cloud forest and named San Gerardo de Dota, in the highlands of Costa Rica.

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The North American company Colossal Biosciences, which aims to bring back extinct species, has announced it has created an artificial incubation platform that allows for the complete development of bird embryos outside a biological shell. According to a company press release — and not a scientific publication —, the technology has already been successfully validated with chicken embryos, which reportedly completed the incubation process up to hatching without using supplementary oxygen. This privately funded biotechnology company claims that this advance could open the door to the de-extinction of extinct birds, such as the giant moa of New Zealand's South Island; a species extinct in the 15th century that could exceed three and a half meters in height and weigh up to 250 kilos.

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Cupid has gone down in history as a winged child-god: seductive, deceitful, and malevolent, he shoots poisoned arrows that have the power to awaken desire and love in the recipient, until he himself is wounded by his own weapon and goes mad for the young Psyche. "Cupid is also known by the name of Eros, and the love he represents has a double connotation, that of sweetness and that of bitterness: we desire what we cannot catch, what appears and disappears, like a bird that flies across the sky." explains writer and editor Elisabet Riera (Barcelona, ​​​​1973), who has just published one of the most unique books of this fall, The winged ones (Malas Hierbas / Siruela, 2025), where birds, angels, gods, monsters, and other flying creatures continue to be represented as they have been for centuries of cultural history.

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When the holidays are over and routine begins to set in, that bitter feeling of farewell often appears. But some have found a different way to extend the summer: looking up and being amazed by the birds crossing the sky. What once seemed like a hobby Reserved for ornithologists with notebooks and binoculars, it can be a leisure activity accessible to all audiences. And the last days of August and the beginning of September are ideal for delving into this world.

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An Iberia flight operating between Madrid and Paris was forced to make an emergency landing at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport on Sunday afternoon following the impact of a large bird just minutes after takeoff. Both the passengers and crew of flight IB579 were unharmed, according to company and air traffic control sources.

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As mammals, we're not surprised that parallels are often drawn between humans and certain species, or that we often draw on the similarities between some of primate behavior and our own. But perhaps we're more surprised to consider that we are much more like birds than we think, and how the behavior of some specimens can be a reflection of our attitudes. This is the thesis supported by ornithologist Noah Strycker, one of the world's leading experts on birds who, in addition to showing us their daily lives in a fascinating and captivating way, has used his years of study to focus on everything birds tell us about humans.

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In Catalonia, there are seventeen garbage dumps or supplementary feeding points (SFPs) for carrion or necrophagous birds. These are authorized and regulated spaces where, subject to a series of requirements, meat by-products not intended for human consumption from slaughterhouses, such as lamb, sheep, or goat feet, can be left. Each of these contributions must be traceable, recorded, and strictly monitored. Thanks to these dumps, some necrophagous birds, such as the griffon vulture, have been able to recover, and others, which are still vulnerable or directly in danger of extinction, such as the bearded vulture, the Egyptian vulture, the black vulture, and the red kite, are on the way to recovery.

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The noise of parrots is no longer strange or exotic-sounding in the most populated areas of Catalonia, although 40 years ago they were an anecdote in the midst of the usual sparrows or serins. The list of newly arrived birds in the last decades is quite long –there are 17– and exotic birds have had a lot to do with it because they make up to half of the novelties detected by the third Atlas of nesting birds in Catalonia, a project led by the Institut Català d'Ornitologia (ICO), which is the most comprehensive study ever made of the birds that inhabit Catalonia. In view of the overall numbers, things have not gone badly for birds: it is estimated that between 8 and 12 million pairs of birds breed each year and the 233 species that can be found in some corner of the country are a very broad representation (39%) of Europe's bird wildlife.

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