Apr 12 2025
Birds are among the most visible signs of a healthy environment. They fill forests with song, patrol fields for insects, pollinate flowers, disperse seeds, and migrate thousands of miles between seasonal habitats. So when birds begin disappearing—or when several dead birds suddenly appear in a neighborhood—it is understandable to wonder what is happening. There is …
Aug 09 2023
A flock of birds can be one of nature’s most impressive sights. Hundreds of geese may cross the sky in a precise V formation, tiny songbirds can move together through a winter forest, and enormous groups of starlings sometimes twist and turn as though the entire flock were a single living organism. But why do …
Aug 05 2023
Birds come in an astonishing range of sizes. At one end of the spectrum are hummingbirds light enough to perch on a fingertip. At the other are enormous birds that stand taller than a person, weigh hundreds of pounds, or stretch wings nearly 12 feet from tip to tip. But determining the biggest bird in …
Jul 22 2023
Feathers are one of the defining features of birds. From the soft down that keeps a chick warm to the stiff flight feathers that carry an eagle through the sky, these remarkable structures perform an extraordinary variety of jobs. A feather may look simple at first glance, but under magnification it reveals an intricate system …
Jul 09 2023
When we think of pollinators, bees usually come to mind first. A honeybee dusted with golden pollen is practically an emblem of spring. Yet bees are only part of a much larger pollination network, and some of its most spectacular participants have feathers. Birds pollinate flowers throughout many parts of the world. In the Americas, …
Jun 24 2023
Birdsong is one of the most familiar sounds in nature, yet the way birds experience that sound is remarkably different from what we might imagine. A robin singing before sunrise, a chickadee sounding an alarm, an owl tracking prey in darkness, and a flock calling to one another overhead all depend on sophisticated auditory systems. …
Jun 11 2023
Birdsong is one of nature’s most familiar soundtracks. A sparrow repeats a bright phrase from a fence post, a chickadee gives a sharp alarm note from the trees, and a mockingbird pours out an astonishing sequence of whistles, trills, and borrowed sounds. To human ears, these voices can sound like music, conversation, or simply part …
May 17 2023
Look closely at a robin hopping across the lawn, a hawk circling overhead, or a chicken scratching through the dirt, and you are looking at the surviving members of one of the most extraordinary groups of animals ever to walk the Earth. Birds are dinosaurs. More precisely, modern birds are avian dinosaurs—the only dinosaur lineage …
May 06 2023
Scattered across the volcanic islands of the Galápagos, a group of small, mostly brown or black birds has transformed how scientists understand life on Earth. They are not especially flashy. They do not possess the brilliant colors of parrots or the dramatic silhouettes of eagles. Yet their extraordinary variety of beaks, diets, behaviors, and habitats …
Jun 27 2022
And Other Flight Facts The short answer as to why birds don’t usually fly in the rain is really the same reason as to why people don’t do much outside in the rain. It just isn’t practical. Birds are conserving their body heat and hunkering down in trees and near their nests during rain storms. …
