Category Archives: Bird News

Meet the Northern Wheatear, an insect-eating bird about 6 inches long that weighs less than an ounce. On the outside, it looks like any ordinary beautiful bird, but when you delve deeper, this is one of most hardcore travelers on the planet. According to the BBC, this little bird travels from the Arctic to sub-Saharan [...]

St. Valentine’s Day gets a lot of criticism for being a manufactured holiday that’s designed by corporations to get people to spend money. While businesses might pump up the holiday a bit, there’s actually an interesting origin story for the modern interpretation that’s associated with birds. For centuries, St. Valentine’s Day was just a day [...]

There are many birds you’re sure you are never going to see at your backyard bird feeder. For example, you probably never expect to see a Sri Lankan Frogmouth in your yard or a Frigatebird eating at your tube feeder. However, sometimes you could be surprised at what you might find. That’s exactly what happened [...]

Right before the sun sets over one Kentucky town, the sky turns black, but not for the reasons you’d expect. The sky actually turns black from thousands of black birds, mostly European Starlings, flying in huge murmurations. While large flocks of birds are not unusual, it can be pretty intimidating for anyone to see this [...]

The Snowy Owl, a beautifully majestic bird that’s only occasionally seen in the United States every few years, is swooping into the country in large numbers. This is a nice treat for enthusiastic birders who have yet to cross the Snowy Owl off their life list because the birds have been spotted across the country [...]

The next time someone calls you birdbrained, you should happily take that as a compliment because scientists have made yet another discovery that further indicates the intelligence of birds. I’m sure if you’ve watched birds in your backyard, you know just how smart they can be when searching for food or constructing elaborate nests. However, [...]

I have very fond memories of going to Almansor Park in California with my mom when I was a small boy to give bread to the ducks and geese. Knowing what I know now about some of the consequences of feeding geese bread, I would have probably fed them something else or nothing at all. [...]

This past summer I took a long road trip from the Northeast to Southern California and made some stops along the way at places that are key for birds. Deep into the journey, I found myself in one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been: the Grand Canyon. If you’re never been to the [...]

The fundamental rivalry and animosity between the bird and the cat is as age-old as cats vs. dogs. Not only has it been engrained in our popular culture with outlandish characters like Tweety and Sylvester, but the issue seems to be causing bitter factions between bird lovers and cat lovers (groups that aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive). [...]

Interested in seeing a bird you’ll never ever see in real life? Well, now’s your chance. This week the Cornell Lab of Ornithology has released video from 1956 of the only known images of a now-extinct bird. The imperial woodpecker, once the world’s largest woodpecker at a whopping two feet tall, used to inhabit the [...]