Okay, but did birds originate the open relationship?

E26. We borrowed a phrase from human dating and tried to pin it on birds. Turns out they never needed the rulebook. Dr. Wenfei Tong, biologist and author of Bird Love, joins Scott to unpack what bird partnerships actually look like once you stop projecting our scripts onto them, from females who run the territory to males who guard their paternity in deeply weird ways.

In this episode you'll hear about:

Why the drabbest little brown bird in the garden has one of the wildest sex lives in the animal kingdom
How a female calls the shots when she holds the better real estate, and what the males do about it
The cloacal pecking payoff you have to hear to believe

All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:

Laysan Albatross audio contributed by Ted Miller, ML117679
Black-capped Chickadee audio contributed by Jay McGowan, ML202239
Spotted Sandpiper audio contributed by Lucas DeCicco, ML516963
Northern Jacana audio contributed by Gerrit Vyn, ML140224
Red-necked Phalarope audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML235440
Black Coucal audio contributed by Myles E. W. North, ML3084
Papuan Eclectus audio contributed by Thane Pratt, ML169808
Red-winged Blackbird audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML249827
Red-winged Blackbird audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML94215
Red-capped Manakin audio contributed by David L. Ross Jr., ML57360
Blue-footed Booby audio contributed by Robert I. Bowman, ML85906
Greater Flamingo audio contributed by Myles E. W. North, ML2443
Dunnock audio contributed by Niels Krabbe, ML249162

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Jaksot(36)

Okay, but what's the deal with Darwin's finches?

E35. Eighteen species of small brown bird on a pile of volcanic rock have taught us more about how evolution actually works than almost anything else on Earth. Not because Darwin figured them out. He ...

13 Elo 36min

Okay, but what's the deal with nests?

E34. Not all birds build one, but for the ones that do, a nest has a single job and a shockingly wide range of ways to get it done. Dr. Vanya Rohwer, Curator of Birds and Mammals at the Cornell Univer...

6 Elo 29min

Okay, but how do birds handle a heatwave?

E33. When the air temperature climbs past a bird's own body temperature, staying cool stops being free and starts to cost them water they may not have. Dr. Blair Wolf, University of New Mexico, has sp...

30 Heinä 26min

Okay, but how does wildfire smoke impact birds?

E32. Wildfire smoke is blanketing more of the map every year, and it turns out a smoky sky changes everything for birds, from how they breathe to whether we can find them at all. Dr. Olivia Sanderfoot...

23 Heinä 31min

Okay, but did birds invent music?

E31. If a bird sings a phrase worthy of Beethoven, is that music, or just biology in a nice outfit? Dr. Hollis Taylor, a violinist, composer, and ornithologist, has spent more than two decades recordi...

16 Heinä 29min

Okay, but is the dawn chorus getting quieter?

E30. That wall of birdsong outside your window at sunrise has a name, a structure, and a surprising amount of drama. This week Scott talks with Dr. Dan Mennill, a professor at the University of Windso...

9 Heinä 34min

Okay, but what's it like as a bird at the top of the world?

E29. Standing at 11,000 feet, lungs burning, Scott watched birds go about their afternoon in the exact thin air that had nearly taken him out. This week he sits down with Dr. Chris Witt, evolutionary ...

2 Heinä 34min

Okay, but does easy living make birds dumber?

E28. A bird's brain is the most expensive thing it owns, and evolution doesn't hand one out for free. Dr. Carlos Botero, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has spent a decade tr...

25 Kesä 32min