The Spanish photographer Xavi Bou digitally combines sequential pictures of birds to create a single image, or chronophotograph, that reveals the shapes of their flight paths against Catalonian skies. His work shows the variety and beauty to be found in the daily activities of the local birds, including spiralling storks, swooping starlings and giddy swifts. Here: European herring gulls at Llobregat Delta. (Photo by Xavi Bou/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

A Siberian eagle owl, which can grow up to 71cm tall, is among a collection of 60 birds of prey at SMJ Falconry near Oxenhope, West Yorkshire, England. (Photo by Charlotte Graham)

Jan Agha, 49, an Afghan hunter, tries to catch his crane at a field in Bagram, Parwan province, Afghanistan on April 10, 2019. As the early morning light breaks over the plain north of Kabul, bird hunter Jan Agha checks his snares as he has done for the past 30 years, hoping to catch a crane, using a tethered bird to lure others down to the nets. (Photo by Mohammad Ismail/Reuters)

A robin perches on a spade handle in a garden on a rainy day in Lixwm, north Wales. Researchers said this week that when European robins are subjected to human-produced noise, their behaviour changes. (Photo by DGDImages/Alamy Live News)

A brown-hooded kingfisher sits on a branch with a freshly caught frog in it's beak. Riaan Marais who took the photo said, “We were doing a boat safari on the Rufiji river in Selous Game Reserve, Tanzania when I spotted the bird with the frog on an overhanging branch on the river bank. It most probably caught the frog in the reeds along the river’s edge as this is where these frogs stay. The kingfisher must have caught the Common Reed Frog just before I took the image, as the frog was still alive, I had a brief moment to take the image before the bird flew off with the frog”. (Photo by Riaan Marais/Solent News and Photo Agency)

A pigeon stretches its wings in the Ka Faroshi bird market in Kabul on July 16, 2022. (Photo by Lillian Suwanrumpha/AFP Photo)

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.