Bird Podcast with Shoba Narayan

This is a story about a wood stork called Flinthead.  He lived with his partner in Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, Florida.  The wood stork couple depended on the wetlands in Florida for not just their survival but also to bring up their babies.  This is a post-episode trailer of Episode 5 where I interviewed Dr. Jerry Jackson. Even though the audio isn't perfect, Episode 5 is worth listening to becaus...

This episode is about wetlands.  This is a post-episode trailer of Episode 5 where I interviewed Dr. Jerry Jackson. Even though the audio isn't perfect, Episode 5 is worth listening to because he covers so much ground. Ecology, wood storks, wetlands, anhingas, and much more. Here I focus on one aspect of that episode: wetlands What is the feeling that you get when I say these words? Swamps, marshe...

In this episode, we have Professor Yossi Leshem from Israel joining us to discuss several things: tracking migratory storks with GPS, working with barn owls as pest control agents, regional cooperation, reducing aircraft collisions, and working with defense forces.  Dr. Leshem has won countless awards and is Professor Emeritus at the School of Zoology at Tel Aviv University and is the founder of t...

Post Episode Trailers are short episodes in which I highlight an earlier episode that is worth watching. This episode is about Episode 12 of The Bird Podcast in which author and migration expert, Scott Weidensaul talks about the amazing feats that birds do in order to migrate.

In which we go behind the scenes to see the fascinating aspects of the bird specimen collection of one of America's most well-respected museums. You really should watch this episode on our Youtube page (Bird Podcast) or our Instagram feed (bird_podcast), but in case you cannot, included here is also the audio only version.   In this episode, Dr. Shultz shows us house finches, parrots, frigatebirds...

Where she talks about how multiple nations and habitats need to cooperate to help these champion migrants. In this episode, Dr. Yaara Aharon-Rotman speaks about long distance migration, mainly among shorebirds but also passerines.  We have explored migratory shorebirds before in Episode 43.  Here, Dr. Rotman talks about how national borders don't apply to migrating birds and how we all need to coo...

Interview with a filmmaker who won the L'oiel d'or or Golden Eye in Cannes for best documentary film in 2022. We have a different sort of guest for this episode: a filmmaker.  Shaunak Sen's film "All That Breathes" premiered at Sundance Festival, where it won the Grand Jury award and then won the L'Oeil d'Or (Golden Eye) for the best documentary at the 75th Cannes Film Festival.  You should really...

Our guest today is the much-admired Bittu Sahgal.  Mention Mr. Sahgal and three words come up: Sanctuary, activism, and conservation.  He founded Sanctuary magazine in 1981. It morphed into Sanctuary Nature Foundation in 2001.  In these capacities, and in his role as the President of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), Mr. Sahgal knows the wildlife and ecology of Asia intimately.   Today, h...

Our guest today is distinguished academic, author and ultra-marathoner, Dr. Bernd Heinrich .  He talks about owls, ravens, tree swallows, painted snipes, great horned owls, crows and much more.  This episode is about the various birds that Dr. Heinrich has encountered and why he enjoys them. Dr. Heinrich is a professor emeritus in the biology department at the University of Vermont and is the auth...

Today we are talking with Dr. Erica Nol of Ontario, Canada about challenges of the arctic-breeding shorebird.  Dr. Nol is a professor at Trent University in Canada.  Her research interests lie in the biology and conservation of shorebirds across many areas in Canada and beyond.  In particular, she studies the impacts of climate change on the habitats and life histories of arctic and subarctic bree...

How to bird watch: Part 4. Last Part In which the author loops in some history and fables and talks about her habitat. Birds are the stuff of myth and legend in every culture. Some of the most beautiful poetic images come from birds. My father, an English professor, loved the Romantic poets: Keats, Shelley, and Wordsworth, who lived in the Yorkshire moors in close proximity to nature and wrote lyr...

In which the author talks about how to see. Ayurveda divides us into three phenotypes: vata, pitta and kapha. Vatas have acute hearing and enjoy the sense of touch— if my memory serves right. Pittas have acute vision and enjoy the sense of smell. Kaphas have acute taste and enjoy the sense of touch. As a classic vata, I have acute hearing, as a result of which I'm very sensitive to the sound of bi...

Like most things that require identification, be it wine, textiles, or art, identifying birds is figuring out patterns; like recognizing an artistic or musical signature, or the terroir of wine.  It is about seeing patterns, not just on the birds but also on the trees that they inhabit. Nature is both generous and opportunistic. Trees attract birds during certain seasons; and then allow other tree...

Part 1 of 4. This episode addresses a question that every bird watcher hears at some point or other.  People who watch us stand still at balconies gazing skywards or at trees, peering through binoculars at walks, or getting excited by some random tiny green bird.  Some of us get this question from puzzled spouses or confused friends and the question in: What are you guys doing?

This episode is about the Upupa epops.

Today's guest, Anusha Shankar studies hummingbirds as a Rose Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. She has lived and worked on four continents and loves being an Indian woman in science. She is fascinated by hummingbirds' ability to use a hibernation-like state called torpor to save energy at night. She is investigating how they can get cold (10°C / 50°F) and rewarm safely every n...

Our guest today is Dr. Gopi Sundar , who heads the international ecological journal, Waterbirds.  He is also a scientist in the cranes and wetlands program at the Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF) based in Udaipur.  Gopi has worked on waterbirds for over three decades, particularly on the Sarus Cranes of Uttar Pradesh.  In this episode, he talks about waterbirds and how they coexist with humans...

There is this bird that my mother watches.  When it comes down, she says Garuda, garuda.  And does a namaste. This bird is called the Brahminy kite. Haliastur indus.  But is this bird really the Garuda that Hindus worship? That is the bird of Indonesia– after which its airline, Garuda Indonesia is named? We find out in this short episode. Brahminy Kite.  Haliastur indus.  Latin names are precise. ...

The beginning of a new avatar. Where we do short episodes. As always, thanks for your attention.

In this short 3-minute episode, we are talking about the amazing birds of Nagaland with Angulie Meyase, a birding guide based in Khonoma, one of the most picturesque towns of Nagaland. He describes many of the birds you can see in Nagaland including the gray sibia, great barbet, assam laughing thrush, crested finchbill, green cochoa, purple cochoa, some eagles, rusty capped fulvetta, mountain bamb...

This episode is about hornbills in Valparai.  About human wildlife conflict and other things.  But mostly about hornbills. Valparai in the South Indian state of Tamilnadu is verdant and beautiful.  Entire slopes of these gently undulating mountains are covered with tea.  It is in this landscape that the great Indian hornbill likes to play.

Our guest today is Dr. James Christopher Haney, a conservation biologist, wildlife researcher, and author of more than 250 peer-reviewed journal articles, technical reports, and science summaries. His career trajectory spans the arc of conservation and extinction and we are going to talk about both these topics today.  Dr. Haney's latest book, "Woody's Last Laugh: Ivory-billed Woodpecker as Tricks...

We are so sorry but we messed up.  The previous episode that was published was an interview with Judith Mirembe.  For some reason, the full conversation did not go out.  Here is the full-length interview.  Those who listened to part of it before, please fast forward to 22:00 minutes.   Our guest today is Judith Mirembe who is currently based in Uganda.  Judith is a bird guide and researcher with a...

Our guest today is Judith Mirembe who is currently based in Uganda.  Judith is a bird guide and researcher with a passion for birds, keen on their conservation as well as protection of their habitats. This passion stems back from when she was a kid where she learnt birds in her local language and appreciated the cultural stories attached to them. She is the Chairperson of the Uganda Women Birders'...

This episode is about the magnificent migration of the Amur Falcons , the largest raptor migration in the world. It is 4:30 AM on a cold day in November.  A group of us from Bangalore are driving from Dimapur to Hakhezhe, Nagaland to observe a spectacle like nothing we've seen before: the greatest raptor migration on earth.   The Amur falcon or Falco amurensis breeds between Northern China and Sou...