Birdnote

The ability to fly seems to define birds. But there are more than 50 species of flightless birds throughout the world — from the Ostrich and Kiwi to flightless rails, ducks, and this Humboldt Penguin. Why did they evolve the inability to fly? Many dwelt on islands. Others evolved until they were huge -- like the extinct 12-foot-tall Moas of New Zealand. And the penguins? Unlike most flightless birds, they still have the strong flight muscles and keeled breastbones of flying birds. They are supremely graceful flyers. But they do it under water. 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 makes these shows possible.

 In this episode of BirdNoir, the P.I. gets a call from someone desperate over a bird stealing a tuft of her precious Pomeranian’s fur. The detective is able to ID the thief, a bird with so light a touch that it can take fur from a snoozing dog without waking it. The motive: nice, warm lining for the bird’s nest.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 makes these shows possible.

To figure out the source of a hummingbird’s hum, scientists built a special rig to measure air pressure, twelve high-speed cameras, and over 2000 microphones to observe hummingbirds fluttering in place at an artificial flower. The researchers found that the hum derives from the difference in air pressure between the top and bottom of the wings, which alternates forty times a second as the hummingbird flaps. The rapidly shifting air pressure produces a harmonic set of sounds, from low to high, creating that iconic, musical hum.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 makes these shows possible.

Connecticut Warblers nest in the northern boreal forests, migrate through the Midwest, and winter in the rainforests of South America. Even with all that traveling, you rarely see one of these birds. Though their loud, ringing song might be easy to identify, it often seems to emanate from low in a tree when the warbler is perched high in the crown, frustrating birders from Canada to Brazil.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 makes these shows possible.

Marina Castellino and her sister Marcela share a love of birds, especially those living in Mar Chiquita, one of South America’s largest wetlands. Marina got inspired from seeing her older sister’s love for shorebirds. The two sisters helped get Mar Chiquita declared a National Park and National Reserve for Argentina. That supports birds like sandpipers that migrate between South and North America. So if you see one near you, efforts from Marina may have helped you see it there!  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 makes these shows possible.

White-breasted Nuthatches aren’t the toughest birds on the block — but when it comes to their nests, they know how to put up defenses. Squirrels could easily duck inside a nest cavity and gobble up the eggs. That’s why you might see nuthatches sweeping around their nest hole with a beetle or other insect. It’s thought that chemical compounds from the insect smell bad to squirrels, driving them away. And if that doesn’t work, nuthatches try to make themselves look as big as possible.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 makes these shows possible.

Puffins fly under water into schools of slender fish, filling their large beaks. Fish are wedged into the gape, the stretchy skin at the beak hinge, but the bill edges still line up neatly. The dangling fish won’t slide out because the puffin’s tongue and roof of the mouth are heavily lined with backward-angled spines. When its beak is full, the adult flies back to its nest and feeds it all to a single chick.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 makes these shows possible.

When Florida became a state in 1845, the legislature declared the Everglades, America's largest wetland, totally worthless. In 1905, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward was elected governor on a campaign to drain them. So over the years, the slowly flowing "River of Grass" has been replaced by a series of reservoirs with little water movement. The endangered Snail Kite feeds only on the Apple Snail. And neither kites nor snails flourish in places that are permanently under water. Learn more at StateOfTheBirds.org.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 makes these shows possible.

Every spring in Northwest Ohio, the shores of Lake Erie transform into a birder’s paradise. Birder and author Kenn Kaufman, who lives in this area, says that of the many species that migrate through here, one group of vibrant, vivacious songbirds stands out from the rest: warblers. Trees leaf out later in the season along the lakeshore, making the tiny warblers easier to see as they forage for food. Northwest Ohio has earned a reputation as the Warbler Capital of the World among birders in the know. But Kenn wishes everyone could glimpse the beauty of warbler migration, even if they don’t make it to the Warbler Capital.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 makes these shows possible.

In the animal world, large, charismatic species tend to get the most attention. But for the Kori Bustard, the largest flying bird in Africa, that attention hasn't translated to a ton of scientific research. Katherine Mertes, a research ecologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, tracks animals for a living, and a few years ago she was focused on Kori Bustards. Her team used solar-powered tracking devices to study the bustards’ movements. But first, they had to catch the birds — and trying to gently herd a bustard into a giant net is quite a task.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 makes these shows possible.

Many bird species can eat the fruits of plants that are toxic to humans —even the white berries found on poison ivy. These birds just aren’t sensitive to the compounds in the berries that are irritating or poisonous to people. While you probably want to stay away from poison ivy, you can improve habitats for birds by planting native fruit bushes and advocating for wildlife-friendly gardening in public green spaces. 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 makes these shows possible.

Marcela Castellino works as a conservation specialist for Manomet’s Flyways team, visiting wetlands, salt lagoons, and salt flats around Mar Chiquita in Argentina, one of South America’s biggest salty wetlands. She surveys shorebirds to track their populations and strengthen their conservation. One species she studies, Wilson’s Phalarope, travels from their breeding grounds in North America to winter in huge numbers at Mar Chiquita. As they feed, they swim in circles, swirling the water and stirring up things to eat.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 makes these shows possible.

Wood Thrushes migrate more than 2,000 miles each way, between their summer breeding territories in the US and Canada to where they winter in Central America. During migration, the birds will fly for hundreds of miles at night, then stop for days or weeks to refuel. In the spring, they’ll head north three times as fast as they did during their southbound fall migration.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 makes these shows possible.

Picture this Gadwall duckling swimming slowly across a pond, skimming the water’s surface with its broad, spatulate bill. This behavior is called dabbling. Along with the pond water, multitudes of tiny particles pass through the duck’s bill. Somehow it sorts out and swallows the edible seeds and invertebrates, while rejecting the tiny, inedible bits of grit, mud, and debris. To see how a duck pulls this off, we need to pry its bill open and look carefully inside. 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 makes these shows possible.

A tern or gull plunges headfirst into the water, then bounces aloft grasping a small fish in its bill. But before the bird can swallow its catch, a Parasitic Jaeger swoops in. The jaeger nips the bird's wing, and it drops its hard-won fish. The pirate catches the fish in mid-air and gulps it down. The jaeger (German for hunter) is built for sprinting speed and predatory feats. 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 makes these shows possible.

When young Bald Eagles fledge, the event is the culmination of nearly a year’s work by the parents. Let’s recap how it might have gone: male and female build a nest over the winter. By March, they have two eggs. The female incubates the eggs for about a month, with the male taking an occasional turn. The result? A couple of tiny, three-ounce chicks. At eight weeks, they’re as heavy as the adults — 10 to 14 pounds. Two weeks later, they make their first flights. But it will take another 10 weeks of practice flights and provisioning by the adults before the young birds are ready to strike out on their own. 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 makes these shows possible.

Willistown Conservation Trust in Pennsylvania carries out bird banding to help researchers understand bird populations. Led by licensed bird banders, a team of volunteers catches birds using mist nets — 8-foot tall nets made of fine nylon string that practically disappear when strung out between poles. After carefully untangling birds from the net, volunteers weigh and measure the birds, affixing a small metal band to their legs with a unique ID. Compiling records for many banded birds helps keep track of whole species. 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 makes these shows possible.

For many species of birds, scientists know more about the males than the females. And that’s a problem when making a conservation plan for a species that maps out which habitats to protect. Joanna Wu, a PhD student at UCLA, says that in some species of warblers, males and females live in completely different habitats during the winter. Joanna hopes to study how to better incorporate female birds into conservation efforts and ensure that the whole species is protected.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 makes these shows possible.

By late summer, the male Mallard’s need for fancy feathers to attract the females has passed. These birds have molted, and their bright feathers are replaced with mottled brown ones. Subdued colors help camouflage the male ducks, protecting them from predators. Come fall, the male Mallards will molt again and become the colorful dandies we remember.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 makes these shows possible.

When you think of bird migrations, you might think of a bluebird or a robin first. But some owls do migrate – such as the Short-eared Owl, which flies south for the winter. Northern Saw-whet Owls were once thought non-migratory, but in fact they travel at night, unseen. Snowy Owls breed in the Arctic then wander toward the south, staying wherever they can find food. Some Burrowing Owls spend their whole life in one place. But others migrate every spring and fall with the regularity of a bluebird.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 makes these shows possible.