BirdNote Daily

For years, nature recordist Lang Elliott came up with clever ways to hear high-pitched bird songs despite his high-frequency hearing loss. Lang teamed up with a programmer to develop an app called He…

With a graceful leap, wings outstretched, Sandhill Cranes welcome the longer days. The stately cranes are courting, renewing an annual dance they perform in earnest as the days lengthen into spring. …

Dr. Clinton Francis is a sensory ecologist who studies how noise pollution affects birds, like this Black-headed Grosbeak. He says sounds from machines and vehicles can really disrupt bird behavior. …

When Day Scott teaches people how to take pictures of birds, she emphasizes observing birds carefully before picking up the camera. Sometimes that means choosing whether or not to even attempt a phot…

Some plants have evolved fruits with edible flesh that attract birds. When birds swallow the fruit, they also ingest the seeds. They transport the seeds to new spots for the plants to take root. Bird…

Hummingbirds are built for hovering flight, with flexible wrists that rotate their wings in a rapid figure-eight motion that generates almost constant lift. Eurasian Skylarks, on the other hand, hove…

In the 1990s, train engineers in Japan built trains able to travel nearly 170 miles per hour. The problem was that when the trains exited a tunnel, the air in front of their bullet-shaped noses expan…

While many shorebirds have gone south, tiny sandpipers called Sanderlings are easy to find on winter shores. They follow the waves as they lap in and out, probing the swirling sand for prey. They oft…

Artist Debra Ramsay became fascinated with the way that birds and their colors mark changes in the seasons. In her “Migrations” project, she painted species seen in New York’s Central Park, creating …

Tennessee Warblers love drinking nectar, but they do it without helping to pollinate flowers. By tapping a hole into the base of a flower, these warblers enjoy an easy meal while bypassing the flower…

When the shorebirds called Lesser Yellowlegs sense a threat to their nest, they’ll put up an unforgettable racket to drive the danger away. Smaller and with a shorter bill than the Greater Yellowlegs…

For most birds, keen eyesight is critical for survival. But many birds lead lives that can be very hard on the eyes — like flying at breakneck speed, racing for cover into a dense thicket, or diving …

Fresh-fallen snow is beautiful, but it poses a challenge to birds. The ground where they found food is now covered by several inches of snow. Birds such as juncos and other sparrows flit under bushes…

On a winter morning in Costa Rica, a colorful choir welcomes the day. A pair of Bay Wrens sings a brisk duet just before sunrise. Perched in the upper canopy of the tropical lowland forest, a group o…

In several neighborhoods of Sydney, Sulphur-crested Cockatoos have learned ways to open trash bins and grab some leftover food. Researchers found that birds in a given suburb seem to learn their tras…

Sam ‘Ohu Gon was one of the last people to see an ‘Ō‘ū, a native Hawaiian bird that’s presumed to be extinct. He’s worked at the Nature Conservancy of Hawai‘i for nearly forty years. In 1988, he took…

Birds have many ways of showing affection for their partners. One way is allopreening, where a bird uses its bill to groom a mate, twirling each individual feather in its beak (like these Macaws). Ot…

The Keel-billed Toucan, also known as the Rainbow-billed Toucan, looks like a bird with a giant banana for a beak. They have a black body, a yellow patch from the face to the breast, and a huge rainb…

The American Robin and the Baltimore Oriole both have cheery, upbeat songs. At first, you might think there’s no way to tell these two cheery, upbeat singers apart. But there are a couple of differen…

When the bitter cold of winter arrives, songbirds face an emergency: how to keep warm through the night. On normal nights, many prefer sleeping solo in a sheltered spot. But in severe cold, some kind…