The Science of Birds

This episode—which is number 95—is all about spoonbills.

There are six spoonbill species in the world, all of which belong to the genus Platalea. The unique beak of spoonbills sets them apart from pretty much all other birds. What is the advantage of having a bill shaped like that? We'll answer that question in this episode.

~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~

Link to this episode on the Science...

This episode—which is Number 94— is all about the Avian Digestive System. That’s right, kids, we’re looking at bird guts today!

If you’ve ever wondered what happens to a fish swallowed by a kingfisher or what happened to that piece of bacon swiped off your lunch plate by a cheeky Ring-billed Gull... Well, you're about to find out.

I’ll do my best to describe in words the anatomical features we encounter today...

This episode—which is number 93—is all about the the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), one of the world’s best known and most abundant birds. It expanded across the planet along with humans over the last 10,000 years, with the spread of agriculture. Today, this plucky little bird is a model organism for the study of basic bird biology. Over 7,000 scientific studies of the House Sparrow have been published.

In this episod...

This episode—which is Number 92—is all about the value of desert ecosystems as habitats for birds.

Deserts are important for the birds that are adapted to live in them—birds that can handle the harsh conditions.

Deserts are home to relatively few bird species. Only the polar regions and maybe some parts of the open ocean have less bird diversity.

Even if a bird species can handle the extremes of heat and...

This is Episode 91. It’s all about birds in the family Paridae. These are the chickadees, tits, and titmice—cute little forest-dwelling songbirds known and loved by many people around the world.

I’ve had a lot of requests to make a podcast episode about chickadees and their kind. Some species in this family are familiar visitors to backyard bird feeders. They’re highly active, vocal, bold, and sometimes quite confiding wit...

This is Episode 90 and it’s all about the importance of birds as plant pollinators.

If I had to use only one word for the topic of this episode, it would be ornithophily. The definition of ornithophily is “the pollination of flowers by birds.”

Today, I’ll be focusing mostly on the ecological relationships between plants and the birds that pollinate them. Another way to look at all of this would be through the lens...

This is Episode 89. I’m publishing it right at the beginning of 2024, and it's a review of some fascinating things that happened in the world of ornithology and bird conservation over the last 12 months, in 2023.

Naturally, this isn’t an exhaustive review of every scientific discovery about birds in 2023. That would be too much. An exhaustive review would be, well, exhausting. Maybe not for you, but definitely for me....

This episode—which is number 88—is all about owls. Owls are fascinating birds that have captured our imaginations since the dawn of humankind. They have amazing camouflage that allows them to blend in with their surroundings, and they have several other avian superpowers that set them apart from all other birds.

Owls are divided into two families—Tytonidae and Strigidae—and we'll be discussing both of them today.

This episode—which is Number 87—is all about some big news in the birding world. The common names for about 150 North American bird species are going to change in the not-too-distant future.

This comes from an announcement made by the American Ornithological Society just a few weeks ago, on November 1st.

I couldn’t pass up the chance to talk about this. It’s a hot topic among birders right now. People have been as...

This episode—which is Number 86—is all about bird beaks.

This will be an overview of beak anatomy, function, evolution, and diversity.

The head of every bird on Earth is adorned with a beak. A bill. And to the delight of us all, those beaks come in a wild variety of shapes and colors.

Just picture the mugs of toucans, vultures, ducks, parrots, flamingos, and pelicans.

The diversity of beak shape...

This episode—which is Number 85—is about the Meadowlarks of the world.

And it’s not just those three North American species: the Western, Eastern, and Chihuahuan.

There are actually 8 bird species we call meadowlarks. The other five are found primarily in South America. We’ll be talking about them today, too.

Meadowlarks belong to the New World Blackbird family, Icteridae. This family includes birds like...

This is Episode 84. Our topic today is the challenge of saving bird species that are very close to extinction. Species like the Spix’s Macaw, which have tiny global populations—whether in the wild, or in captivity.

Other familiar examples are the California Condor and the Whooping Crane, whose populations bottomed out at 22 and 23, respectively. Rigorous conservation programs have since given these two North American speci...

This is Episode 83. It’s all about birds in the family Odontophoridae. These are the New World quails.

Why is this the family of "New World" quails?

Because there’s a whole mess of birds we call quails that live in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. But those birds all belong to the pheasant family, Phasianidae.

New World quails are shy birds ground-dwelling birds that walk or run around in t...

This is Episode 82. It's all about the ways that scientists track the movements of individual birds.

The focus of today’s episode is not so much about the behaviors of birds, but about the technologies used by researchers to study bird behavior—the methods used to reveal the movements of birds.

And our focus will be on the tracking of individual birds. There are other methods scientists use to record the mass...

This is Episode 81. It’s all about birds in the family Nectariniidae. These are the sunbirds and the spiderhunters.

If you live in or have gone birding in places like Africa, India, Southeast Asia, or Indonesia, you’re probably familiar with sunbirds. Consider yourself lucky.

But if you have no idea what a sunbird or a spiderhunter is, or if you have only a vague idea, I’m excited to introduce you to this group of...

This is Episode 80. It's all about flightless birds, and about the evolutionary processes that lead to flightlessness.

Flightlessness in birds is, in my opinion, a fascinating scientific topic. And so here we are with this episode.

Alive on the planet today, there are about 60 bird species that can’t fly. That’s only about 0.54 percent of the world’s approximately 11,000 species.

It turns out there w...

This is Episode 79. It's all about the Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis).

This is one of North America’s most common raptors. We find these birds from sea to shining sea across the continent.

The Redtail is a generalist predator. It can eat many kinds of prey and thrive in a broad range of habitats. Besides seeing these birds along the highway, you’re likely to spot a Red-tailed Hawk circling in the sky ove...

This is Episode 78 and today we’re doing an overview of parental care in birds. How do birds raise their babies?

Parent birds feeding their chicks in a nest is an iconic image. It’s a symbol of the spring and summer seasons and of the annual rejuvenation of nature.

To the casual observer, birds generally come across as caring, attentive parents. Similar to the way mammals demonstrate good parenting behavior. We hu...

This is Episode 77. It's an overview of seabirds. Some might call them Oceanic birds or Marine Birds.

How do we define what is or isn’t a sea bird?

Well, it depends on who you ask. There’s no one definition, since “seabird” is an informal term, rather than a scientific one. It doesn’t correspond to a single taxonomic category, or to a single evolutionary lineage.

Here’s what the authors of the book O...