BirdNote Daily

Letter to a Kentucky Warbler

26 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, ornithologist J. Drew Lanham reads a letter he has written to a Kentucky Warbler, an “uber-skulky” species that’s hard to find ...

The Stunning King Eider

25 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The King Eider is one of the most striking sea ducks in the Northern hemisphere. This male King Eider is trying to woo a mate with soft coos and brill...

How a Bird Came to Look Like a Caterpillar

24 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Cinereous Mourner is a small, ashy-gray bird that lives in the forest understory of the Amazon Basin. And it’s taking mimicry to the next level:...

Dovekie At Sea

23 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Dovekie are robin-sized seabirds related to auks and puffins. Their compact, black-and-white bodies are perfect for life on the water. In winter, bird...

The Lustrous Purple Gallinule

22 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What’s the most colorful bird in the U.S.? The Scarlet Tanager? Maybe the Painted Bunting? Well, consider one more lustrous candidate: the Purple Ga...

Chestnut-collared Longspur

21 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The cheerful-voiced Chestnut-collared Longspur shares their northern prairie breeding range with grazing cattle. Although heavy grazing can have adver...

Flying Dinosaurs: Leaping and Gliding

20 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

For years, scientists debated whether the first flying dinosaurs, the ancestors of modern birds, began by running and making little hops off the groun...

Hilarious Bird Sounds With Becca Rowland

19 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Birds make a lot of sounds — so many that author and illustrator Becca Rowland had a hard time keeping them straight. That was until Becca began pic...

Create Bird Habitat at Home with Native Plants

18 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Birds have lost many habitats they’ve called home for millions of years, but people can help create bird habitats wherever they live. It all begins ...

The Joy of Robins with J. Drew Lanham

17 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

J. Drew Lanham is a poet and ornithologist whose work intertwines his lived experience as a Black man in the American south and his love of wilderness...

Millicent Ficken Studied How Birds Play

16 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Millicent Ficken spent her career studying bird behavior and communication. The first woman to earn a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Cor...

The Vulture's Iron Stomach

15 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Circling silently above the earth on broad, black wings, vultures need little introduction. We know them as nature's clean-up crew, dining on dead and...

Lifer Pie

14 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In birding lingo, a lifer — or life bird — is any species you see or hear for the first time. Birders get very excited about lifers. Some even mar...

The Eagle, the Cactus, and the City on the Lake

13 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In one of the most iconic founding legends of the Americas, a Golden Eagle devouring a serpent atop a cactus marked the spot where the Mexicas would b...

Robins Nest On Moving Solar Arrays

12 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Solar panels are a popular source of renewable energy, but large groupings of them — called arrays — can take up a lot of space. Chelse Prather, a...

BirdNoir: That Raptor’s an Impostor!

11 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of BirdNoir, the Private Eye gets a call from his friend Frank, his eyes and ears in the neighborhood. He’s hearing a Red-shouldered...

The Sword-billed Hummingbird

10 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

To out-sip their competition, Sword-billed Hummingbirds have a distinct adaptation: these birds’ beaks are longer than their bodies. Found in temper...

Feathered Females in Charge

09 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Male birds are often the larger, flashier sex that courts choosy females, who in turn raise their chicks. But not always. Female phalaropes -- like th...

Connecticut Warbler

08 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Connecticut Warblers nest in the northern boreal forests, migrate through the Midwest, and winter in the rainforests of South America. Even with all t...

Baby Birds' Bizarre Beaks

07 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Most baby birds are adorable little floofs — but not all of them. The tongue and palate of estrildid finch chicks are strangely spotted and ringed. ...

Rickie Lee Jones Sings To The Birds

06 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Grammy-winning musician Rickie Lee Jones has performed on stages around the world. At home in New Orleans, she found a new audience: backyard birds! R...

Birding 101: Learning How to Strike Out

05 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

When you go birding, sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time and there are more species than you can count. Other times, not so lucky....

Legends of the Jackdaw

04 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The catchy name “Jackdaw” belongs to a European bird that looks like a compact crow drawn in shades of light and dark gray. They are comfortable a...

Some Birds Have Two Voices

03 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The amazing vocal organ found in most birds, the syrinx, has two sides, with different sets of muscles and nerves controlling each side.  That lets s...

Hollywood Has Gone To The Birds

02 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Some of Hollywood’s most iconic beasts owe their signature sounds to the squawks, tweets, and even hisses of birds. More info and transcript at Bird...

Telling Apart Two Cheery Bird Songs

01 Mar 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The American Robin and the Baltimore Oriole both have cheery, upbeat songs. At first, you might think there’s no way to tell these two singers apart...

Rapid Evolution in the Galápagos Islands

28 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Scientists have long thought that new species took a very long time to emerge. This thinking has now changed dramatically. On an island in the Galápa...

Ducks That Whistle

27 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Whistling as they fly, Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks are gorgeous waterfowl with bright pink bills and legs, chestnut necks and backs, and black under...

The Delightfully Round Bearded Reedling

26 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The Bearded Reedling is a wetland songbird that’s enjoying a boom in both population and popularity. Barely larger than a chickadee, the male reedli...

Birding 101: Bird Vocab Basics

25 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Any hobby or special interest has its own jargon. You’ll pick up on the silly slang that birders use as you go – like calling the Yellow-rumped Wa...

The Gull and the Garbage Truck

24 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Gulls are notorious for snatching french fries from waste bins and flocking to landfills. But one Western Gull’s devotion to trash reached a new lev...

BONUS EPISODE: Words in Flight

23 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Birds have always been a source of inspiration for writers. Edgar Allen Poe, Maya Angelou, and William Shakespeare, to name a few, have all written ab...

The Ferocious Feet of the Great Horned Owl

23 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Great Horned Owls excel at nocturnal hunting, thanks to their acute senses and stealth — but their feet let them secure squirming prey. The outermos...

Feeding Frenzy

22 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It's late winter at Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island, Florida. Many birds have finished nesting, and young birds are everywhere...

Cranes' Voices Across the Globe

21 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

There are 15 species of cranes across the globe, found everywhere but Antarctica and South America. During the winter, cranes forage and rest together...

A Hummingbird Hospital in a Mexico City Apartment

20 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In Mexico City, 73-year-old Catia Lattouf started a hummingbird hospital — in her apartment! She hosts dozens of hummingbirds as they recover from i...

How the Barnacle Goose Was Named

19 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Boldly patterned in black, white, and silver, Barnacle Geese are stunning birds. In Europe, huge flocks gather in pastures and mudflats where the gees...

Magpie-Jay Flocks Are Led by Females

18 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Found in much of Central America, White-throated Magpie-Jay flocks are family groups led by a dominant female. They include a mate and several female ...

Aldabra Rail: The Bird that Evolved Twice

17 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Over 130,000 years ago, White-throated Rails migrated across hundreds of miles from Madagascar to the tiny island of Aldabra. Fossil records show that...

Migrations: Pine Siskin Irruption

16 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Do you ever see flocks of birds in your yard that show up in droves one year, but are completely absent the next? Some nomadic species such as Pine Si...

Mating for Life

15 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Most bird species in North America mate for a single breeding season. Some may team up again the following year, just because both stay in - or return...

Seeds of Attraction

14 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

What is it that draws us to a romantic partner? Birds have lots of ways to catch the attention of a mate. Most cranes duet with prospective partners f...

eBird: Contribute to Science While Birding

13 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

eBird, a project of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, lets you log the bird species you observe on a smartphone app or on the web. Whether you’re goin...

Join the Great Backyard Bird Count

12 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Over the course of four days in February, the Great Backyard Bird Count gathers heaps of info about birds all over the world — and helps people conn...

The Best Nest

11 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Some birds woo a mate by building the best nest. Males of many weaverbird species construct a series of intricately woven nests to impress a prospecti...

Participate in Project NestWatch

10 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Organized by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Project NestWatch is made up of volunteers around the world who monitor bird nests, reporting whether the...

Finding Mom's Favorite Bird

09 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Author and illustrator Becca Rowland likes to keep an eye out for cardinals. Her mom loves them and is pretty good at finding them, too. Becca didn’...

A Bird in the Hand

08 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

You’ve probably heard the old saying: “A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” Well, it’s a very old saying, and it’s gone through som...

February Summer in Argentina

07 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In February, winter still holds sway over much of North America. But in Argentina, it’s summer, and birds are in full voice. Argentina’s national ...

Family Time with Red-throated Loons

06 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Millions of birds from around the world begin their lives in the Teshekpuk Wetlands of northern Alaska. In 2025, author and environment reporter Lynda...

To Breathe Like a Bird

05 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Birds have a highly efficient breathing anatomy that powers the exertion of flight. It is driven by large, thin-walled air sacs located throughout the...

The Wild Parrots of San Francisco

04 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Flocks of Cherry-headed Conures, a species native to South America, are now found throughout San Francisco. While a local legend claims that a pet sho...

Albatrosses Saving Albatrosses

03 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Black-footed Albatrosses are masters of the high seas, but their fate is threatened by trouble on land. At their nesting grounds on Midway Atoll in Ha...

Conserving Wetlands for Black Rails

02 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Black Rails are marsh-inhabiting birds, more often heard than seen. Many Black Rails nest in marshes along the Atlantic seaboard and in the Midwest. B...

Voices and Vocabularies: House Finch or Purple Finch

01 Feb 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In parts of the United States, House Finches overlap with similar-looking Purple Finches. Their distinct songs help us sort them out. House Finch song...

Ornithographies

31 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Photographer Xavi Bou creates incredible images of birds and their movements by combining his love of photography and technology with his love for bir...

New Zealand Bellbird

30 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A forest in New Zealand rings with the sound of bellbirds, also known as Korimako or Makomako. Many bellbirds sing together, especially in the morning...

Wild Goose Dacha

29 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

No human dreams of relaxing on the shores of Novaya Zemlya, an archipelago in the Arctic Ocean that’s best known as a Soviet testing site for nuclea...

The Value of a Dust Bath

28 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

It might sound strange, but dirt helps birds scrub themselves clean. Birds of all sizes, like the Eurasian Skylark, often scrape a depression in the g...

Ancient Birds Nested in the Arctic, Too

27 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Every summer, millions of birds flock to the Arctic Circle to find mates and raise their young. In a study published in 2025, paleontologists found ev...

Female Birds Sing in the Tropics

26 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In temperate climates like North America, it’s often male songbirds that sing the most. Typically the males migrate north before females and establi...

Preening 101

25 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

If a bird’s feathers get too dried out, they become brittle. To prevent that from happening, most birds have a gland located above the base of the t...

The Heart of a Bird

24 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Birds’ four-chambered hearts run larger than those of mammals, relative to body size, and they are coupled with extremely efficient cardiovascular s...

Magnificent Frigatebird Drum Roll

23 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Magnificent Frigatebirds are huge, gangly seabirds found around the warm waters of the Western Hemisphere. When it comes time to mate, males inflate g...

‘Ākohekohe

22 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Sporting a fancy tuft of feathers on its forehead and a bright orange nape, Maui island’s ‘ākohekohe is one Hawaiʻi’s strikingly beautiful nat...

Letter to a Pileated Woodpecker

21 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, ornithologist J. Drew Lanham reads a letter he has written to a Pileated Woodpecker, a large species of woodpecker that is sometimes ...

The Early Bird

20 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

We've all heard that the early bird gets the worm. But research shows that birds dining early and heavily may lower their life expectancy. Socially do...

Spark Bird: Murry Burgess and the Painted Bunting

19 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Urban ornithologist and children’s author Murry Burgess has always been interested in wildlife. But she first felt a spark for birds on a college fi...

Western Tanagers Are Flashes of Bright Color

18 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Western Tanagers dart from tree to tree, on the lookout for delicious bugs. They’ll find them by scanning the tree bark — or maybe snatching them ...

Ornate Hawk-Eagle: The Elegant Eagle

17 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Ornate Hawk-Eagles stand out from other raptors with their impressive crest that looks like an elegant crown in adults, and a punk hairdo over the whi...

Diving Birds Are Dense

16 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

While many birds have hollow bones that make flying a breeze, diving birds are built differently. The bones of divers such as Common Loons are denser ...

Razorbills Swim in Synchrony

15 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Razorbills, a cousin to the puffin, nest in colonies on cliffs. Before they lay eggs, Razorbills take part in two unique social behaviors. In one, the...

Welcoming Back Common Loons

14 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The call of the Common Loon is a symbol of the far north. But the species once nested as far south as southern New England, Ohio, Iowa, and California...

How Terns Read the Water

13 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Like an expert angler, a tern can read the surface of the water to find where to catch its next fish. Scientists piloted a drone to track the flight p...

Finches Singing Over the Sidewalk

12 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The songs of two common finches provide a steady soundtrack in cities across North America: the House Finch and the American Goldfinch. While they can...

Giving Your Cat a Great Life Indoors

11 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Outdoor cats kill billions of birds each year in North America — and they live much shorter lives than indoor cats. But life as an indoor cat doesn’...

Bald Eagles' Daredevil Cartwheel Flight

10 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Two eagles locking talons high above the ground might look like they’re risking injury, but it’s a normal courtship behavior called the “cartwhe...

Kelp in the Eagles’ Nest

09 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

A pair of Bald Eagles will reuse their nest each year and repair it with new tree branches. But recently in British Columbia, scientists came across a...

Spark Bird: J’orge Garcia and the Finch Robot

08 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

J’orge Garcia loves making things. For several years at the Chicago Public Library, he helped people to design and build their own creations with ed...

The Music of Long-tailed Ducks

07 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Long-tailed Ducks are back for the winter from the north, where they nested on tundra ponds and marshes. These diving ducks spend the winter in deep s...

Bruno & La Güera: An Albatross Love Story

06 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Isla Guadalupe off the Western coast of Mexico is famous for its massive colonies of petrels, shearwaters, and Laysan Albatrosses. Now, conservationis...

Wrens from North to South

05 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

There are nearly ninety species of wrens in the world, and quite a few are exceptional singers. Nearly all of them reside in the Western Hemisphere, w...

An Indoor Wildlife Adventure

04 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

The video game Alba: A Wildlife Adventure lets you have adventures in a stunning virtual landscape while curled up at home with a cup of hot cocoa. Th...

Peace in Wild Places

03 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

Wendell Berry wrote: "When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's live...

Birding 101: The Fear of Getting Started

02 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

For folks looking to try birding for the first time, getting started can be daunting. Should you learn every species’ call, every subtle feather pat...

Rickie Lee Jones Helps Birds at Home

01 Jan 2026

Contributed by Lukas

At her home in New Orleans, Grammy-winning musical artist Rickie Lee Jones has transformed her yard into a safe haven for birds. By putting out water ...

Kererū: Pigeons That Get Tipsy

31 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Kererū, green-blue pigeons native to New Zealand, like to sun themselves after dining on fruit. But in warm summer months, the bird’s sunbathing ha...

Golden Eagle: From Aztec Legend to the Steppes of Kazakhstan

30 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Golden Eagle is a bird of epic proportions not only for their impressive size but also for the many legends they’ve inspired across human histor...

Ivory Gull and Conservation

29 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Polar Bears symbolize the icy landscapes of the far north like no other animal. The bear's way of life — its very survival — is inseparable from t...

From the Start, Daffy Duck Has Been a Cartoon Original

28 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

From his start in 1937, the gangly, black-feathered Daffy Duck was a cartoon original: wildly outspoken, volatile, and confrontational — a truly daf...

Lewis's Woodpeckers and Pine Forests

27 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A century of logging and fire control has taken its toll on the mature pine forests of the West, the preferred nest site for this Lewis's Woodpecker. ...

When ‘Terror Birds’ Ruled the Earth

26 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

A bird known as Titanis walleri made its home in Florida just a few million years ago. Titanis, as its name suggests, was titanic indeed — a flightl...

What Makes an Efficient Flying Bird?

25 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Every bird species uses its wings a little differently, and some are specialized for highly efficient flight. But that means going without other abili...

Birds Move from Fresh to Salt Water

24 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

To hear a Common Loon in the wild during summer, you’ll need to find a northern, freshwater lake where a pair is nesting. But to find that same Comm...

Birdsong and Solitude

23 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

The Wall of Birds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology is a towering mural showing nearly 250 life-sized birds across a map of the world. To complete the...

Letter to a Dark-eyed Junco

22 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Writer and ornithologist J. Drew Lanham shares a note he has written to a Dark-eyed Junco, which he fondly nicknames “snowbird.”More info and tran...

Why Birds Eat Snow

21 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

In the depths of winter, when open water is frozen over, it can be challenging for birds to stay hydrated. Some birds eat the frozen water all around ...

Building Birds with LEGO

20 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

Thomas Poulsom is a hobbyist LEGO builder best known for his models of birds. But making birds out of bricks isn't easy. That’s why he uses special ...

Painting Birdsong with Jane Kim

19 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

At the visitor center of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, artist and scientific illustrator Jane Kim painted the Wall of Birds to celebrate the evoluti...

Dining with Sanderlings

18 Dec 2025

Contributed by Lukas

While many shorebirds have gone south, tiny sandpipers called Sanderlings are easy to find on winter shores. They follow the waves as they lap in and ...