Okay, but what makes a yard a bird paradise?

E15. Most people picture a bird-friendly yard and imagine feeder, birdbath, maybe a decorative birdhouse with mortgage vibes. And feeders are great. But a feeder can give you the illusion of helping birds without creating the thing birds need most: habitat.

In this episode, Dr. Doug Tallamy, Professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, joins Scott to explain why your yard is conservation infrastructure in disguise, and what it actually takes to turn it into a place birds can live, breed, and thrive.

In this episode you'll hear about:

Why "plant natives" is just the beginning, and which keystone plants actually move the needle for birds
The surprising reason a beautiful all-native garden can still function like a food desert
What Homegrown National Park is, and how your yard fits into a continent-wide conservation strategy

Ready to do more than feed birds? Join the Homegrown National Park pledge at homegrownnationalpark.org and start shifting your patch of earth.

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:

Chestnut-sided warbler audio contributed by Jay McGowan, ML191085
Northern parula audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML79471
Carolina chickadee audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML100756
Oriental pied-hornbill audio contributed by Warren Y. Brockelman, ML170843
Northern cardinal audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML249823
Black-capped chickadee audio contributed by Jay McGowan, ML202239

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Avsnitt(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 Aug 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 Aug 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 Juli 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 Juli 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 Juli 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 Juli 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 Juli 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 Juni 32min