Episodes
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This episodeâwhich is Number 94â is all about the Avian Digestive System. Thatâs right, kids, weâre looking at bird guts today!
If youâve 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.
Iâll do my best to describe in words the anatomical features we encounter today. But Iâve also drawn a diagram for you. You can check that out on the show notes for this episode on the Science of Birds website.
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This episodeâwhich is number 93âis all about the the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), one of the worldâs 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.
World Sparrow Day
In this episode, weâll get into what this species looks and sounds like, where it lives, its behavior, its breeding biology, and more.
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This episodeâwhich is Number 92âis all about the value of desert ecosystems as habitats for birds.
Deserts are important for the birds that are adapted to live in themâbirds 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 cold in a desert, the desiccating winds, and the lack of water, that bird may not find much food.
Because where there are few plants, there are few invertebrates. So a bird in the desert can have a hard time finding any leaves, seeds, fruit, or bugs to eat.
And yet, an assortment of bird species from many disparate families have managed to carve out an existence in the worldâs most arid lands. There may be nowhere near as many of them as in, say, a tropical rainforest or a temperate woodlandâŠ
BUT, the birds we do find in the desert are, I think, a particularly fascinating and admirable bunch. Theyâre tough little buggers. Theyâre resilient. Desert birds have interesting adaptations and behaviors that allow them to survive in places that would kill most other birds in a day.
CORRECTIONS: I realized after I recorded this episode that I mispronounced the names of the Namib and Thar deserts. Namib should be pronounced "NAH-mib." Thar is pronounced "Tar."
Links of Interest
Grayish Miner in the Atacama Desert [VIDEO]~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~
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This is Episode 91. Itâs all about birds in the family Paridae. These are the chickadees, tits, and titmiceâcute little forest-dwelling songbirds known and loved by many people around the world.
Iâve 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. Theyâre highly active, vocal, bold, and sometimes quite confiding with people. Itâs possible to gain the trust of tits and chickadees of some species by feeding them seeds out of the palm of your hand.
These birds not only visit bird feeders regularly, at least in winter, but theyâll also happily lay eggs in artificial nest boxes. All of these traits make birds in the Paridae family great subjects for scientists who want to study bird behavior and ecology.
So chickadees, tits, and titmice are among the most well-studied songbirds on the planet. Lucky for us here on The Science of Birds podcast, that means thereâs a lot we can learn about them
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Ground Tit [VIDEO]
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This is Episode 90 and itâs 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 âthe pollination of flowers by birds.â
Today, Iâll 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 of evolutionâthe fascinating ways that plants and birds have co-evolved with respect to pollination.
Iâll make another podcast episode, at some point, about bird and plant co-evolution. Weâll touch on it today, but the main focus is ecology.
Pollination ecology is actually an entire subdiscipline that many scientists have dedicated their careers to studying. Itâs really interesting stuff!~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~
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This is Episode 89. Iâm 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.
Colossal BiosciencesBirds, Not MosquitoesHow Wolbachia Can Save Forest Birds [VIDEO]Puzzle-solving caracaras [VIDEO]
Naturally, this isnât 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.
Instead, Iâll tell you about a handful of studies and projects that I think youâll find interesting. These gems were hand-selected by me for your educational pleasure.
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This episodeâwhich is number 88âis 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.
Owl NotesâDenver Holt Shares the Short eared Owl's Courtship Flight [VIDEO]Long-whiskered Owlet (Xenoglaux loweryi) [VIDEO]The silent flight of an owl [VIDEO]Pellet.comWhat an Owl Knows [BOOK]
Owls are divided into two familiesâTytonidae and Strigidaeâand we'll be discussing both of them today.
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This episodeâwhich is Number 87âis 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 couldnât pass up the chance to talk about this. Itâs a hot topic among birders right now. People have been asking me what I think about all these birds getting renamed. And so here we are.
If youâre hearing about this for the first time, and you donât know what Iâm talking about, donât worryâIâll explain.
Yes, this is primarily relevant to birds and the humans who love them in the Western Hemisphere. Mostly North America for now.
But similar changes may be on the horizon for your local birds, wherever you live. So I think youâll find this interesting, even if you donât live in the US or Canada.
Links of Interest
American Ornithological Society (AOS) Council Statement on English Bird NamesAOS Community Congress on English Bird Names [VIDEO]~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~
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This episodeâwhich is Number 86âis all about bird beaks.
The Mark My Bird Project
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 shapes like these is one of the fascinating things about birds.
Birds use their beaks for all sorts of tasks. These appendages are vital tools, used for getting food, for grooming, for communication, and more.
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This episodeâwhich is Number 85âis about the Meadowlarks of the world.
And itâs 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. Weâll be talking about them today, too.
Meadowlarks belong to the New World Blackbird family, Icteridae. This family includes birds like Red-winged Blackbird, Baltimore Oriole, and the Great-tailed Grackle.
Thereâs a lot to admire about meadowlarks. The 3 yellow-breasted and 5 red-breasted meadowlark species bring color and music to the windswept grasslands of the Americas.
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This is Episode 84. Our topic today is the challenge of saving bird species that are very close to extinction. Species like the Spixâs Macaw, which have tiny global populationsâwhether 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 species a fighting chance at long-term survival.
This episode is about species that we almost lost forever, but with great effort weâve kept them from disappearing.
Many of these species, like the California Condor, arenât out of the woods yet. They may be in better shape now than they were a couple of decades ago, but they still need lots of help.
In this episode, weâre first going to look at some of the biggest challenges faced by conservationists as they try to save species on the brink.
Second, weâll talk about the tools and methods used to save birds.
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This is Episode 83. Itâs all about birds in the family Odontophoridae. These are the New World quails.
Why is this the family of "New World" quails?
Because thereâs 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 the daytime, looking for tidbits of food in the leaf litter.
If they sense any kind of stranger danger, they hunker down and hide in bushes or other vegetation. Their first instinct is to sit still and rely on their camouflage, rather than to fly away.
These birds may be shy around strangers, but theyâre generally very social with members of their own kind. Theyâre gregarious little buggers.
In this episode, I go into detail about what New World quails look and sound like, about their diversity, and about the ways they live their lives.
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This is Episode 82. It's all about the ways that scientists track the movements of individual birds.
The focus of todayâs episode is not so much about the behaviors of birds, but about the technologies used by researchers to study bird behaviorâthe 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 movements of birds, like using radar to track flocks of migrants.
But today weâre looking at techniques that can reveal the unique paths taken by an individual birdâa sandpiper, a hawk, albatross, pheasant, penguin, or whoever.Links of Interest
Motus~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~
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This is Episode 81. Itâs all about birds in the family Nectariniidae. These are the sunbirds and the spiderhunters.
These sunbirds keep singin' their song [VIDEO]
If you live in or have gone birding in places like Africa, India, Southeast Asia, or Indonesia, youâre 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, Iâm excited to introduce you to this group of wonderful birds today.
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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 canât fly. Thatâs only about 0.54 percent of the worldâs approximately 11,000 species.
It turns out there were way more flightless bird species out there before humans started exploring and colonizing every corner of the Earth. It wasnât just the Dodo that was killed off by people.
In todayâs episode, weâll look at the wonderful diversity of flightless bird speciesâin both the present and the past.
Weâll also talk about conservation andâperhaps the most interesting thingâthe evolutionary process that leads to flightlessness. How does this weird thing happen in nature? What causes a bird species to give up its greatest superpower?~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~
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This is Episode 79. It's all about the Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis).
This is one of North Americaâs 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, youâre likely to spot a Red-tailed Hawk circling in the sky over a field, soaring or flapping slowly.
In this episode, I cover the key traits of the Red-tailed Hawk, it's diet, and its breeding behaviors.Links of Interest
Red-tailed Hawk ProjectRed-tailed Hawk âkitingâ [VIDEO]Red-tailed Hawk and Great Horned Owl fight over a nest [VIDEO]Pale Male, the Famous Central Park Hawk, Is Dead at 32. Maybe.~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~
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This is Episode 78 and today weâre doing an overview of parental care in birds. How do birds raise their babies?
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Parent birds feeding their chicks in a nest is an iconic image. Itâs 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 humans approve of this sort of thing. It makes us feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
I mean, the behavior of birds and mammals is way better than what amphibians and reptiles do, right? Those cold-blooded critters just crank out a bunch of babies and then leave them to fend for themselves. No parental care to speak of. Despicable!
But to be fair, birds arenât always the paragons of parental love that we might think they are. They sometimes do pretty messed up things when it comes to raising their offspring.
And this highlights the fact that humans like to project our own cultural values onto animals.
If, for example, we see a pair of adult geese dutifully tending to their adorable, fuzzy chicks, we might think, âAww⊠What a cute little family. They all love each other.â
And when we hear about a female Blue-footed Booby that did nothing and just sat there indifferently while the older of her two chicks murdered its younger sibling⊠Well, in that case, weâd probably think that booby is a bad mommy. She should be locked up in bird prison, if there were such a thing.
Iâll admit Iâm often guilty of this sort of thinking. I like to think that birds love their babies. Iâm a total sucker for heartwarming scenes of parental care in birds.
But I also know itâs not really fair for us to judge birds based on human ideas of right and wrong. Birds are just being birds. They do whatever it takes to survive and reproduce in a challenging and mostly unpredictable world. -
This is Episode 77. It's an overview of seabirds. Some might call them Oceanic birds or Marine Birds.
Bass Rock - the tiny island that gannets love [video]Far From Land: The Mysterious Lives of Seabirds [book]
How do we define what is or isnât a sea bird?
Well, it depends on who you ask. Thereâs no one definition, since âseabirdâ is an informal term, rather than a scientific one. It doesnât correspond to a single taxonomic category, or to a single evolutionary lineage.
Hereâs what the authors of the book Oceanic Birds of the World have to say about it:
âTo our mind, true seabirds are birds of the ocean, birds you generally go on a boat to see. Yes, some of these species can be seen from shore (and almost all come ashore somewhere to breed), but the birds we include here are species that make their living from the ocean for all or most of the year, and often not from coastal waters.â
Oceanic Birds of the World is a field guide, and it includes about 270 species. Other authorities might say there are between 300 and 350 seabird species.
In this episode, we'll talk about the various types of seabirds and what taxonomic groups they belong to.
We'll look at how seabirds face the challenges of live on the ocean, how and where they breed, and how they find food.
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In this episodeâwhich is Number 76âIâll be answering some interesting questions sent to me by my listeners. Questions about birds, of course.
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The questions in todayâs episode came from not just any old listeners, but from my supporters on Patreon. At the two higher tiers of support, one perk for my patrons is the chance to send me questions for these âAsk Me Anythingâ episodes. So if youâd like to ask your own question for a future episode, consider becoming a supporter of this show on Patreon. -
This is Episode 75. Itâs all about shrikesâbirds in the family Laniidae.
I said that Germans call the Great Gray Shrike "Nine Murder." Several of my German listeners emailed and kindly corrected me. The species they call Nine Murder is the Red-backed Shrike.
These are true songbirdsâmembers of the avian suborder Passeri within the order Passeriformesâeven though they act (and sort of look like) tiny falcons or hawks.
Shrikes are sit and wait predators. They typically sit upright on an exposed, conspicuous perch and then wait for something tasty to come along. Some small animal, like a Vesper Sparrow, a rodent, lizard, grasshopper, and so on.
Shrikes are such cool birds that they have many fans among ornithologists. In fact, thereâs a subdiscipline of ornithology called shrikeology. For real. And those who study these fascinating birds are known as shrikeologists.
So for today, at least, letâs all be honorary shrikeologists. Letâs get down to the nitty-gritty details of shrike biology.
Errors and Updates
Red-backed Shrike courtship [VIDEO]
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