Ornithology

Falconry—the art and practice of hunting wild quarry with trained birds of prey—is one of humanity’s oldest and most refined partnerships with the natural world. Its origins stretch back at least 4,000 years, with early evidence from Mesopotamia and Central Asia. Over time, it spread across Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, becoming both a practical hunting method and a symb...

For centuries ornithologists relied on binoculars, mist nets, banding stations, and direct observation to determine which bird species occupied a particular habitat. Today, however, an extraordinary new tool is transforming the field: environmental DNA, commonly called eDNA. This technique allows scientists to detect birds not by seeing or hearing them, but by identifying tin...