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…

eBird, an online tool for submitting bird observations, allows scientists to keep track of birds around the world. eBird now has over one billion bird observations from more than 700,000 people — most of them community scientists who care about their local birds. And as more people in more…

In the fall, Rusty Blackbirds get new feathers with reddish-gold highlights that have a unique and subtle beauty. Their complex little song might sound like a door hinge that needs some grease. Though once common, Rusty Blackbirds have lost over 90 percent of their population since 1966 –…

Just off the southern coast of Iceland, the Westman Islands are home to many of the country’s several million Atlantic Puffins. When puffin hatchlings, known as pufflings, get confused by the lights of the city, volunteers of all ages search for wayward pufflings on the street and bring…

Birds are resourceful. Wherever they live, even in the biggest cities, they find clever places to build their nests. An initiative from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology called Celebrate Urban Birds once asked people to share the funkiest and funniest places they’ve seen a bird nest. Among…

The alpine forests of Australia’s southeast are home to an iconic pint-sized gray parrot with a bright red mohawk, and a call that’s been described as a “flying creaky gate”. The Gang-gang Cockatoo has seen significant habitat loss in recent years, especially after the 2020 wildfires. It’s…

In winter, many songbirds join flocks made up of multiple species that travel around looking for food, benefitting from safety in numbers. But a bird flock that doesn't move in the same direction soon scatters to the wind. It turns out that the Tufted Titmouse, a small gray songbird, is…

The poet Ray Young Bear writes in both English and Meskwaki, his first language. He says that the task of passing on Indigenous languages feels especially urgent now as linguistic scholars predict the loss of languages. The Meskwaki language is rich with bird names, like Tti Tti Ka Kwa Ha…

Many years ago, when writer and musician Ray Young Bear was training his singing voice, he took a kind of vocal lesson from the blackbirds. “they have the most complicated song in the world — high pitches and low notes, and then it smooths out, then it kicks up again,” he says. “I would…

As a young child, Kenn Kaufman ventured into his neighborhood in search of the tigers, bears, and dinosaurs, but quickly found that Indiana doesn’t have those. So he set his sights on the next best thing: figuring out which birds were in his family’s yard. Though he’s now a world renowned…