Most of the bird sounds you hear on BirdNote come from the Macaulay Library, a vast collection of over one million bird calls and songs curated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The library relies on both professional field recordists and dedicated volunteers to capture the sounds of…

Corvids, like crows and jays, are known for caching seeds instead of eating them immediately. Sometimes, those seeds take root before the birds return. Mario Pesendorfer, a forest and behavioral ecologist at BOKU in Vienna, says that’s what happened on Santa Cruz Island in southern…

Las estrellas parecen girar en el cielo, lo que plantea una gran pregunta: ¿cómo logran las aves usarlas para orientarse durante la migración? El ornitólogo Stephen Emlen llevó azulillos índigo ( Passerina cyanea), también llamados colorines azules, a un planetario y observó sus…

The stars appear to rotate in the sky, raising the question of how birds can use stars to navigate during migration. Ornithologist Stephen Emlen brought Indigo Buntings to a planetarium, tracking their movements as the simulated night sky changed above them. The buntings oriented…

The Santa Marta Sabrewing is a hummingbird species so rare, they’ve only been documented twice in recent years. Native to the mountains of Colombia, they were officially described in 1946. No one reported another sighting until 2010. They became a “lost” species, eluding every attempt to…

The Magellanic Plover is known for being a bit of an oddball. These shorebirds have a round body like a dove and even feed their young with milk produced in a part of their digestive system called the crop — a rare trait they share with doves. But genetic data revealed that Magellanic…

For many of us nature nerds, books and birds go hand in hand. That’s why BirdNote brings you conversations with award-winning writers about how birds inspire their work. This week, we are asking you to support the show so that we can keep providing daily stories about birds – and the books…

Whether you know your neighborhood inside-out or you just moved and are getting to know the area, BirdNote adds another dimension to how you understand the place you live — by understanding the birds. Our hope is that by spreading knowledge about birds, BirdNote is helping you become more…

Ornithologist, poet and MacArthur Fellow, Dr. J. Drew Lanham, speaks with host Billy Almon in our season 7 finale! The two begin by talking about Drew’s humble beginnings and southern influence from his grandmother’s teachings, and how he became a self-taught birder. Later, they discuss…

Cada año, cientos de especies de aves migran entre América del Norte y del Sur. Algunas especies probablemente evolucionaron a partir de ancestros que se desplazaron hacia el norte en busca de nuevos hábitats de reproducción: la hipótesis del "hogar en el sur". Pero otras pueden haber…