BirdNote Daily

When smaller birds join forces to ward off larger birds, it's called mobbing. This behavior — like calling your family for help — is used by many bird species. The best time to observe mobbing is spring and early summer, when breeding birds are trying to protect their nests and young. Birds including swallows, blackbirds, and even these American Crows, seen here mobbing a Red-tailed Hawk, know tha...

Birds at a suet feeder... What a burst of vitality on a chilly morning! What's the attraction? A cake of suet, suspended from a branch in a small wire feeder. Suet is beef fat, a high-energy food critical for birds' survival in the colder months. Suet is an especially strong magnet for birds (including this Northern Flicker) that eat lots of bugs in the warmer months. You can learn about suet feed...

How long can a bird fly without touching the earth? To find out, Swiss scientists attached sensors to Alpine Swifts. The sensors showed long periods when the swifts were gliding and not flapping their wings. Were the birds asleep? Scientists don’t know for sure. It could be that Alpine Swifts sleep during the summer breeding season — and don’t sleep at all during migration. But why do they stay al...

Harpy Eagles spend their lives in tall, remote tropical forests in Central and South America, flying from tree to tree in search of food. The eagles are named for the Harpies of Greek mythology, women with the bodies of birds who, on Zeus’s command, snatched people from the earth. Since it takes many months for a nestling to mature, Harpy Eagles raise a youngster just once every two or three years...

For small songbirds, surviving a cold winter night can be challenging. Their bodies lose heat faster than those of larger birds. So little birds have found resourceful ways to stay warm — like huddling close together with other birds. But the Verdin, a tiny bird of the Southwest, does something few other birds do to keep warm: it builds extra nests to roost in, in the winter. More info and transcr...

Kentucky Warblers nest in forested regions in much of the East, preferring woodlands with a dense understory, often near streams or other wetlands. These birds can use our help. As their forest habitat shrinks, it’s easier for Brown-headed Cowbirds to find and parasitize the warblers’ nests. While migrating, they are easy prey for domestic cats, so keeping cats indoors can save many warblers. And...

Christian Cooper wasn’t always interested in birds. His parents were teachers, his dad a science teacher, so nature was always part of his life. When he was a kid, his parents made him take a woodshop class, where he had to build something. So he decided to build a birdfeeder and hang it in his backyard.   More info and transcript at BirdNote.org .  Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly news...

The two American species of dowitchers, Long-billed and Short-billed, are similar in appearance but have distinctive calls. And they’re some of the continent’s most dramatic songsters. On their northern breeding grounds, Short-billed Dowitchers ascend as high as 150 feet in the air then glide slowly earthward, singing. At the end of the glide, they may take off again for another bout of song. More...

The Greater Honeyguide's demanding call is not aimed at a member of its own species. Instead, the bird guides people in search of honey through the forest, directly to bee hives. The bird flies to a colony of bees living in a hollow tree. The human follower exposes the hive with an ax and takes much of the honeycomb. Then the honeyguide moves in to feast on bee larvae and beeswax. More info and tr...

A typical bird nest will have maybe four to six eggs neatly arranged by the parent to hunker down on. But in one Rhea nest, you may find between 50 and 80 eggs! And they’re not all from the same set of parents. Male Rheas mate with several females and then build a single nest on the ground to hold all the eggs from each of them. Listen to this episode in Spanish here . More info and transcript at...

The Golden-headed Manakin is a tiny bird with dance moves that would turn a pop star green with envy. Johanne Ryan, a nature educator who lives in Trinidad, describes this bird’s remarkable breeding display, which features a moonwalk and tail-flicks. More info and transcript at BirdNote.org .  Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening an...

Shorebird chicks hatch into a dangerous world, so they need to be vigilant from the start. Researchers in Australia noticed that some shorebird chicks began chirping in their final days in the egg. The chirps fell silent when the researchers played recordings of a Little Raven, which hunts for young birds. The finding suggests the chicks are listening carefully and may be able to tell threatening...

In an ornithology class in college, Corina Newsome was introduced to the Blue Jay. After this, Newsome was determined to learn about the world of birds she had never noticed before. More info and transcript at BirdNote.org .  Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks.  BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift mak...

Birds have to be smart to survive — but their minds often work a little differently than ours do. In a new study, researchers trained pigeons to identify different types of shapes, peck a button to give their answers, and receive a treat for the correct response. The pigeons learned to fix their mistakes over time, but not by learning their shapes as a human would. Instead, the researchers found t...

Webbed feet are ideal for birds that swim, on the water’s surface or under. In fact, they’re such a nifty adaptation that they evolved, independently, in several bird groups. Ducks and geese, gulls, cormorants, loons, pelicans, penguins, puffins and boobies all have webbed feet. More info and transcript at BirdNote.org .  Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote...

Hidden below the outer breast feathers of herons, pigeons, doves, tinamous, bustards and some parrots are patches of special down feathers. These feathers are never molted, and they grow continuously. The tips break down into a dust the consistency of talcum powder. Using a fringed claw on its middle toe, a heron collects some of the dust — or powder down — and works it into its feathers. Sort of...

Sailors once believed Wilson’s Storm-Petrels foretold a dangerous tempest. There might be a grain of truth: the tiny seabirds might find a little shelter from the gusts near a ship. Wilson’s Storm-Petrels are found in every ocean. When foraging, their feet patter across the surface, stirring up prey. Their fondness for feeding in cold, salty water could make them an indicator for changes in ocean...

The call of the Common Loon brings to mind a summer visit to northern lakes. A "yodel" call is given by a male on his breeding territory. With his neck outstretched, the male waves his head from side to side, sending his eerie calls across forests and open water. The yodel entices females and asserts a claim of territory. Nothing common about this bird! More info and transcript at BirdNote.org . ...

Eared Grebes eat brine shrimp and aquatic insects for sustenance, but rigid exoskeletons make them hard to digest. So these grebes – along with their other grebe cousins – evolved to use their feathers as a way to slow down digestion. The feathers form dense balls in the digestive tract and appear to slow the passage of food long enough that the food can be safely liquified. The bird then regurgit...

High in a leafless cottonwood, a female Great Horned Owl incubates two eggs. As light snow falls on her back, her mate roosts nearby. Since December, this pair has been hooting back and forth regularly at night. Great Horned Owls nest in winter, because the owlets, which hatch after a month of incubation, must remain near their parents a long time compared to many other birds — right through summe...

For some birds like hermit hummingbirds, the difference between sexes starts with the beak. Females hermit hummingbirds typically have curved bills while males wield straighter ones. Because the two sexes are better at drinking nectar from flowers that match their respective beak shape, males and females of the same species don’t compete with each other for food resources. Adaptations like these c...

Like the American Robin, the European Robin is a bird of yards and gardens. But it’s not much bigger than a chickadee. The robin’s likeness turns up everywhere from Mother Goose rhymes, Peter Rabbit stories, and whiskey labels to postage stamps and Christmas cards. On at least two occasions, the “Robin Red-Breast” has won the popular vote to become the UK’s unofficial national bird. And as for its...

Snow Geese nest from far northeastern Russia to Greenland, in the arctic and subarctic. They winter in large flocks on the deltas of rivers in northwestern Washington, areas along the Eastern Seaboard, and throughout the Mississippi Flyway. Watching Snow Geese in flight, author and naturalist Barry Lopez described them, "as if the earth had opened and poured them forth, like a wind, a blizzard, wh...

A Merlin hunts boldly from a high perch. A Peregrine Falcon dives on a hapless pigeon, with an air speed approaching 200 miles per hour. The Gyrfalcon can fly down even the fastest waterfowl in a direct sprint. A Prairie Falcon blends in with its background. And the smallest North American falcon of all, the American Kestrel, hovers a field, watching for a mouse or large insect. You can find out w...

A chickadee comes in to the feeder, quickly grabs a seed, and flies away. It may return immediately, but it's more likely to wait its turn. When a whole flock of chickadees moves into the yard, it looks as if they form a living conveyer belt. One chickadee after another flies to the feeder and leaves with a seed. The birds take turns rather than squabbling over the seeds. Watch for the Black-cappe...