BirdNote Daily

After they leave the nest but before they take flight, many baby birds - especially robins and flickers - spend time on or near the ground. If you see such a baby bird, and your first thought is to "…

The 'Akiapōlā'au is a bright yellow bird with a black eye mask, found only in the upper elevations on the Big Island of Hawai'i. But its most distinct feature is its totally unique, uneven bill. The …

Cliff Swallows gather in spring, in nesting colonies of up to 3,700 nests. Look for swarms of them under bridges, under the eaves of barns, or even the side of your house. The swallows use mud to mak…

Summer is a crucial time to keep your backyard birds supplied with water for drinking and bathing. Birdbaths set at different heights serve a great variety of birds. A wide, shallow birdbath that dee…

The way that some birds flick, wag, or flare their tails can be distinctive. A flicking or flashing tail might suggest to a predator that a bird is particularly alert or hard to catch, while also war…

The Gull-billed Tern are terns with black caps and unusually thick bills– like a gull. This lets them eat more types of prey than other terns that rely on fish. Gull-billed Terns tackle crabs and liz…

In marshes across the country, birds awaken on a summer morning. Tall dense grasses and reeds often make marsh birds hard to see, but their voices carry easily across the lush, green landscape. You c…

From a bird's perspective, the Dry Tortugas, a cluster of islands in the Gulf of Mexico, can be a life-saver. Millions of migratory songbirds fly north across the Gulf and Caribbean each spring, head…

We often hear from listeners that BirdNote has changed the way they see and interact with the world around them. It's had that impact for those of us who help make the show, too. There’s so much life…

The Umatilla Chemical Depot in Oregon, a landscape dotted with a thousand concrete bunkers, may not look like an ideal haven for birds.  But the site has taken on a new life — as a luxury subdivision…

It takes a lot to bring you the rich sounds of birds yodeling, cooing, and screeching to you each day. It's a meticulous process of researching, writing, fact-checking, editing, recording and sound d…

Known locally as 'Akē'akē, the Band-rumped Storm-Petrel is one of the smallest and rarest seabirds that nests in the Hawaiian Islands. To protect the nests of these rare birds, scientists have to fin…

Listeners are always curious about the origin of BirdNote's theme song. In this show, learn how Grammy-Award winning artist Nancy Rumbel and the BirdNote team created the theme. BirdNote is an indepe…

Insects sustain our ecosystems, as a food source and pollinators of 90% of all plants. But their numbers have dropped by half in the last 50 years, so it is now critical to help foster insects. One c…

In this show, Marcus Rosten shares his involvement in a study of the American Woodcock with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. The study revealed the surprising journeys of …

Lilli Holden is an emerging environmental leader in Chicago. She visits local schools and leads students outside to see birds. Lilli says the students’ enthusiasm while birding is contagious. But whi…

A decent pair of binoculars can considerably enhance your enjoyment of birds. In this episode, Dara Miles Wilson — a naturalist with Montgomery Parks in Maryland — shares a crash course on how to use…

For her PhD, Lauren Pharr took on a challenge: studying Red-cockaded Woodpeckers, which make their nests high in pine trees. But as a Black woman working as a field biologist in the rural South, Laur…

Harriet Tubman was a heroic abolitionist in the cause to end chattel slavery. She was also an excellent astronomer and naturalist — and an expert birder. She mastered the hoot of the Barred Owl, usin…

When Adé Ben-Salahuddin stopped to help a trapped young bird on his way home from work, he found an unexpected source of help: an older Black woman walking by who had just the skills for the problem …