Smoke From Faraway Wildfires Is Reaching Backyard Bluebird Boxes, and Volunteer Birders Are Becoming Frontline Data Collectors
Nature World News | 08.10.2026 07:40
When smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted over Massachusetts this summer, it reached a place far from any flames: a row of bluebird nesting boxes at Mass Audubon's Drumlin Farm Wildlife Sanctuary in Lincoln. Bird project coordinator Pam Sowizral, whose team has checked the boxes three times a week for about 20 years, noticed the difference. "Those periods of time when the smoke was here, the air somehow felt a little different," she told NPR in a report published by KPBS on Oct. 6.
