Podcast Episodes
Back to Search
Júlia d’Oliveira on Recreating Extinct Animals
Júlia d’Oliveira is a paleoartist who brings extinct species to life in artwork. For each species she illustrates, she learns everything she can about the species to come up with a realistic portrait…
Published on 2 months, 2 weeks ago
Snowy Albatross Molt
Most birds molt and regrow their flight or wing feathers — one at a time along each wing — to stay in prime condition for flying. But for a Wandering Albatross, with a whopping 10-to-12-foot wingspan…
Published on 2 months, 2 weeks ago
Why Are There Flightless Birds?
The ability to fly seems to define birds. But there are more than 50 species of flightless birds throughout the world — from the Ostrich and Kiwi to flightless rails, ducks, and this Humboldt Penguin…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Spark Bird: Birding from the Bus
Kelsen Caldwell drives a bus in and around Seattle for King County Metro. As a bus driver, sometimes there’s downtime if your bus is moving too fast. What do you do with all that extra time? If you’r…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Chickadee Line-up
Chickadees are tiny songbirds named for their characteristic song and there are seven species found in North America. You'll find the Black-capped Chickadee across the northern U.S. into Canada. The …
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Sapsuckers
Sapsuckers drill small holes in the bark of favored trees, then return again and again to eat the sap that flows out. And hummingbirds, kinglets, and warblers come to the sap wells to eat the insects…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
An Ever-Growing Library of Bird Sounds
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 o…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Moon-Watching for Migrating Birds
Before the high-tech gadgets used to track bird migration today, there was moon-watching: a technique dreamed up in the 1940s by ornithologist George Lowery. Using telescopes pointed at the moon to s…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
How Jays Helped Restore an Oak Forest
Corvids, like crows and jays, are known for caching seeds instead of eating them immediately. Sometimes, those seeds take root before the birds return. Mario Pesendorfer, a forest and behavioral ecol…
Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Migrations: Indigo Bunting, Master Stargazer
The stars appear to rotate in the sky, raising the question of how birds can use stars to navigate during migration. Ornithologist Stephen Emlen brought Indigo Buntings to a planetarium, tracking the…
Published on 2 months, 4 weeks ago