Sharon Beals is a San Francisco based photographer who has photographed nest and eggs specimens collected over the last two centuries at The California Academy of Sciences, The Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, and The Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology. While few nests are collected today, these nests and eggs are used for research, providing important information about their builder’s habitats, DNA, diseases and other survival issues.

Potoos (family Nyctibiidae) are a group of near passerine birds related to the nightjars and frogmouths. They are sometimes called Poor-me-ones, after their haunting calls. There are seven species in one genus, Nyctibius, in tropical Central and South America.
These are nocturnal insectivores which lack the bristles around the mouth found in the true nightjars. They hunt from a perch like a shrike or flycatcher. During the day they perch upright on tree stumps, camouflaged to look like part of the stump. The single spotted egg is laid directly on the top of a stump.

Brazen seagulls, pigeons and starlings bask in the afternoon sun undeterred by a plastic Owl bird scarer on the roof of Liverpool Coastguard Station at Crosby on January 13, 2012 in Liverpool, England. (Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

This perfectly-timed GoPro snap captures the moment an angrymagpiecame within inches of a biker, as swooping season takes hold in Australia. The notoriously aggressive bird can be seen flying with its wings tucked in so it looks exactly like a torpedo in the magnificent photograph from Middlemount, Queensland. Retail businesswoman Monique Newton, 53 was riding pillion with a friend when she spied the divebombing bird – but rather than speed off, they slowed down to capture it up close. (Photo by Monique Newton/Caters News Agency)

A peacock leaps into the air as it battles a rival over territory on a foggy morning. The brightly coloured bird jumped almost six feet into the air before crashing down on its opponent. The fight was captured by amateur photographer Nilesh Patel, in Dudhwa National Park, India. (Photo by Nilesh Patel/Solent News & Photo Agency/Solent News)

The shortlist for the coveted Bird Photographer of the Year awards has been announced by Nature Photographers and the British Trust for Ornithology. Here: Red-billed oxpecker on an impala, Kruger National Park, South Africa. (Photo by Edmund Aylmer/BPOTY/Cover Images/The Guardian)

Portrait category, bronze award winner. Purple-crested Turaco Gallirex porphyreolophus. Lower Mpushini, near Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. (Photo by Richard Flack/Bird Photographer of the Year 2022)

The stories of a unique bond between a child and their pet are as timeless as they come, but rarely does the pet have wings. Such is the case with photographer Cameron Bloom whose son Noah happened upon a baby magpie in 2013 when the family was out walking near their home in Newport, Australia. After consulting with a veterinarian, the family learned to raise the orphaned bird, who they affectionately named Penguin.