Over the course of four days in February, the Great Backyard Bird Count gathers heaps of info about birds all over the world — and helps people connect with their local birds. Anyone can participate with the Merlin Bird ID app. And if you’re familiar with your neighborhood birds, you can…

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 together, tumble downward, for over 500 feet. Just before striking the earth, they…

Organized by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Project NestWatch is made up of volunteers around the world who monitor bird nests, reporting whether the birds successfully raise their young. Joining the project involves a bit of online training, finding a nearby bird nest, and briefly…

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…

House Finches are evolving rapidly and visibly. In 1941, some captive House Finches from California escaped near NYC. They spread rapidly and are now found across most of the US. We know the finches have evolved, because those that survive differ from their parents. Size is one example…

When a Carolina Wren like this one sings, something remarkable happens. These birds can sing so loudly that you almost have to shout to be heard over their songs! How can a bird like a Carolina Wren – at just 5½ inches long and weighing only as much as four nickels – produce so much sound…

Great Blue Herons nest in colonies, in adjoining trees or with several nests in one tree. But by autumn, the adults and gangly young have left the nests to take up solitary lives, a pattern that is the reverse of many other species. After all the "togetherness" of the nesting colonies, the…

If you see a wild bird with a small metal band around its leg, that means researchers have given the bird a unique ID to keep track of it over the course of its life. You can report the sighting to the Bird Banding Laboratory, a part of the U.S. Geological Survey that studies banded birds…

California's Salton Sea is hot and smelly - and it's also a Mecca for thousands of wintering birds. This inland sea formed when the Colorado River breached floodgates in 1905, forming a lake 45 miles long. The lake has diminished in size and greatly increased in salt concentration, but a…

Common Poorwills don’t sing much when the mercury drops. But they can do something else that is remarkable. As the winter cold deepens, these petite members of the nightjar family can enter a hibernation-like state — and stay like that for hours — or even weeks! Scientists call it torpor…