Image: The Ultimate Bird Drawing Throwdown Showdown Graphic featuring images of David Sibley and H. Jon Benjamin

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Illustrator David Sibley and actor H. Jon Benjamin will face off in the bird illustration battle of the century during BirdNote's Year-end Celebration and Auction!

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Shows With Contributions by Mark Bramhill

A Great Blue Heron faces to viewers' left, with its curving neck and very long sharp beak in filtered light

Spark Bird: Jerome Gaw at the Aquarium

When Jerome Gaw got the chance to volunteer at the Aquarium of the Pacific, he was stoked. He'd loved sharks and marine life since he was a kid. But for his interview, he had to give a presentation on a creature he wasn't familiar with: the Great Blue Heron. But he read up on the bird…
Illustration of Tenijah Hamilton in a pink shirt with "Bring Birds Back — Valentine's Day Special" above her. Three birds are flying around her

Bird Love Language

Love is in the air and we’re not talking about your $4.99 Valentine’s Day balloon! For this special episode of Bring Birds Back, we dive into all things bird love! Doves may be the universal bird symbol for love, but romance in the bird world is happening all around. Our guest Wenfei Tong…
Male Hooded Oriole, its bright yellow body highlighted with black face mask and wings

The Skatebirder

Dave Mull is not your typical birder — he's a professional skateboarder, or a “skatebirder” as he puts it. He brings binoculars with him when he skateboards and doesn’t mind putting his board down to check out a bird. But the birds aren't really a distraction for Dave. Tuning into his…
A old black-and-white photo showing three pigeons with cameras strapped to their chests

A Pigeon’s Eye View

In 1907, a German pharmacist named Julius Neubronner invented the pigeon camera. It was a small camera strapped to a pigeon’s breast — like a photographic baby-bjorn. A timer let the camera take multiple snapshots throughout the bird’s flight. This allowed for some of the earliest aerial…
A male Northern Flicker atop a vertical branch, giving a quizzical head-tilted look at the viewer

Spark Bird: H. Jon Benjamin’s Bird Reports

When the COVID pandemic started, comedian and actor H. Jon Benjamin and his family moved to a secluded house by a creek in upstate New York. And living there, he started to get really interested in birds. He began videotaping himself getting excited about seeing birds and sharing these…
A Wood Thrush lit by filtered light as it perches amidst dense greenery

The Wood Thrush as a Symbol for Inner Peace

When we think of a bird to represent peace, many of us might think of doves. Deja Perkins, an urban ecologist, says that the Wood Thrush is the bird that best represents inner peace and peace of mind.
A Steller's Jay faces the viewer, showing bright blue while gripping a branch

Dave Mull and the Courage of Steller’s Jays

Skateboarder and birder Dave Mull remembers the first time he heard a Steller’s Jay imitating a Red-tailed Hawk. “These Steller's Jays were pretending to be something they were not, kind of tricking the world,” he says. It got him into the mindset that he could attempt a terrifying new…
A Clark's Nutcracker bird perched atop a vertical branch of Whitebark Pine

Clark’s Nutcracker and the Whitebark Pine

Clark’s Nutcracker is a clever corvid that has a special relationship with a tree called the whitebark pine. The tree’s cones don’t open on their own, and Clark’s Nutcracker is one of the few species that can pry them open. When the nutcrackers cache the seeds for the winter, they’ll leave…
Male Red-tailed Hawk, wings extended in flight against a clear blue sky

Spark Bird: Maya Higa and Bean

When Maya Higa started interning at a zoo, she wasn't especially into birds — until she began rehabilitating a Red-tailed Hawk named Bean. Meanwhile, Maya was doing live-streams of herself singing and playing guitar on the website Twitch, just for fun, to a pretty small audience. The video…
The episode artwork for Bring Birds Back: This is Your Brain on Birds

This is Your Brain on Birds

In order for us to show up for birds, we must first show up for ourselves. Our show is all about ways we can help our bird friends, but today we’re looking at how birds and nature can help restore us. Over the past few decades, researchers have found strong links between our connection to…