BirdNote Daily

One of the most difficult skills to pick up as a birder is how to identify birds in flight. You have to sort through a series of visual clues all at once, at high speed: silhouette, wing shape, how f…

In this story from Nimiipuu culture, Meadowlark is likened to the ‘reporter’ of Western grasslands, singing its song from the tops of fenceposts and trees. This story takes place before the time of p…

Twenty years ago today, the first BirdNote Daily episode aired on the radio in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington. Since then, through sound-rich stories, we’ve explored the lives of countless birds – an…

Glenn Albrecht grew up in western Australia, where he became enamored with birds. As he grew up, Glenn witnessed how coal mining devastated the Australian countryside — and the birds that lived there…

Standing over three-feet tall, Great Egrets have elegant white feathers and long slender necks. During the breeding season, both males and females grow long frilly feathers called aigrettes. Great Eg…

Most wrens in North America are small, furtive birds that stay deep in the vegetation. But the Cactus Wren is large, bold, and brassy. These wrens are well adapted to the desert and can get all the m…

Male and female Northern Shovelers both have that unmistakable trowel-shaped bill, but they differ in plumage. Females and non-breeding males are a mottled beige color. But during the breeding season…

After breeding on Arctic cliffs and tundra hillsides in summer, Rough-legged Hawks winter throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Open country is their ideal territory, where the small rodents they depen…

It’s winter in North America — a good time to head for the subtropical realms of South Florida and listen to the region’s birds, such as the secretive Mangrove Cuckoo pictured here. Rarely seen, it s…

For some birds, love is in the air. When a pair of White-throated Swifts wants to get to know each other, they meet up — on the wing — high above the ground. The birds grasp one another and, clinging…

That’s not a distant dog barking. It’s a Black Skimmer in flight, at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge in Virginia. This striking, black-and-white bird with a red bill and red feet has a most…

Invasive European Starlings are one of the most common birds in North American cities. Recent genetic research into European Starlings shows that populations in North America may have become better a…

Woodpeckers, as a group, eat far more ants than most other birds do. Many other vertebrates tend to avoid ants because of their stings or because of the noxious chemicals they contain, like formic ac…

From their cheerful melodies to their vibrant color and skillful acrobatics, there’s a lot to love about Eastern Bluebirds. Look for them along country roads, city parks, and other open woodlands wit…

With its rubbery-sounding rattles and clownish red eyebrows, the ptarmigan is quite the stand-out northern bird. As winter approaches, the ptarmigan’s feet grow feathers, and its claws grow longer. A…

The idea of the "swan song" recurs from Aesop to Ovid to Plato to Tennyson. Ovid described it, "There, she poured out her words of grief, tearfully, in faint tones, in harmony with sadness, just as t…

Thousands of years ago, giant raptors lived on what is now Cuba. Gigantohierax is an extinct genus of eagles whose fossils have been found in local cave deposits and tar seeps. With an estimated weig…

In winter, when snow blankets the northern states, nearly all of the songbirds that graced the days of summer are gone. But there’s one special winter visitor that fills the absence: the Bohemian Wax…

Red-headed Woodpeckers have mastered the art of high-contrast fashion. Both males and females have deep-crimson head feathers. Their clean white body feathers are offset by large patches of ink black…

In this episode of BirdNoir, the Private Eye sees some suspicious activity: a House Sparrow tries to steal a nestbox from Tree Swallows, but then flees the scene in terror. He stakes out the nestbox …