What a lark: bird collections reflect air pollution

Birds lodged at museums for more than a century are providing insights to soot levels in America’s industrial heartland. Jeff Glorfeld reports.

'Sooty birds' reveal hidden US air pollution

Black carbon trapped in the feathers of songbirds gives new insight into historic US air quality.

Dirty Birds Are Refining Climate Models

Enterprising researchers working at the Field Museum in Chicago dusted off a collection of Horned Larks to get a better look at the dirt trapped in their wings. That's because these birds, ...

What soot-covered, hundred-year-old birds can tell us about saving the environment

Horned Larks are cute little songbirds with white bellies and yellow chins—at least, now they are. A hundred years ago, at the height of urban smoke pollution in the US, their pale feathers ...

These dirty birds show why we need natural history museums

Animals Those who forget the past are doomed to re-breathe it. Sooty wings in museum drawers hold the keys to understanding how our recent ancestors breathed.

Birds Once Turned Black From Pollution—What That Teaches Us Today

Soot-covered, 100-year-old birds reveal black carbon level

Horned larks are small songbirds with white bellies and yellow chins. But one hundred years ago, at the peak of urban smoke pollution in the US, their pale feathers were stained gray by atmospheric ...

How dirty, soot-covered birds can track down pollution over a whole century

Back in the day when Chicago and Pittsburg were the world's Beijing and New Delhi.

Hundreds of birds found in Rust Belt museum collections provide further evidence of the poor air quality that came from coal burning over the past 135 years.

Credit: Carl Fuldner and Shane DuBay, the University of Chicago and the Field MuseumOrnithologists at the Field Museum have long noticed that many bird specimens in the collections ...

Dirty bird carcasses tell the story of how air pollution has improved in the last 100 years

What soot-covered, hundred-year-old birds can tell us about saving the environment Museum collections track soot in the atmosphere throughout the 20th century From the FIELD MUSEUM Horned Larks ...

Bird Specimens from Museum Collections Show Industrial Soot Levels

NewsThe layers of soot trapped in bird feathers has now provided a vital “air filter” time capsule of when industrial American cities had the dirtiest air to breathe. The feathers from 1,097 ...

Dirty old birds shed light on key global warming particle

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some dirty old birds are helping scientists better understand one of the more baffling climate change mysteries....

A History of Soot Preserved in Feathers

When gliding through our old and rusty skies, You filtered out the wheezing, blackened air; A century of progress built on lies, Now captured in ... Read more