The Science of Birds

This episode—which is Number 50— is all about Female Birdsong. Songs are one of the things we love most about birds. They define the soundscapes of the natural world. Even though humans have been ...

19 Apr 202221min

This episode—which is Number 49—is all about bird nests. There are tons of fun facts fun facts here, since nests are one of the more impressive aspects of bird behavior and breeding biology. We’ll ...

6 Apr 202252min

This episode—which is Number 48—is about the “Pecking Order” in birds. Or, to use the more technical term, dominance hierarchy. Our focus will be on dominance hierarchies that we see among birds wit...

25 Mar 202227min

This is Episode 47. It’s all about birds in the family Laridae. This is an ancient evolutionary lineage that originated over 70 million years ago, when the world was still ruled by dinosaurs. Besides...

10 Mar 202242min

This episode—which is Number 46—is about a special place in the Malay Archipelago where two bird worlds collide. This region lies between Southeast Asia and Australia, between the Indian and Pacific ...

18 Feb 202219min

This episode is all about forensic ornithology. This is a field where specialists use scientific techniques to identify bird species from trace evidence. Evidence like maybe a bit of feather, a bone f...

11 Feb 202249min

This episode—which is Number 44—is about the relationship between coffee production and bird conservation. We'll get into how do different types of coffee cultivation affect birds, and the conservat...

20 Jan 202218min

This episode—which is Number 43—is all about the Common Loon, Gavia immer. People in Europe may know it as the Great Northern Diver. This bird is a symbol of the northern wilderness in North America. ...

13 Jan 202238min