BirdNote Daily

Young birds leave their nests in different ways. Some shuffle tentatively along the nearest branch and practice flapping their wings, while others take the "big leap." Which path they take depends upon their species and the location of the nest. Young Great Horned Owls clamber out of the nest to nearby branches where they flap their wings and make short, cautious flights, while they continue to be fed by their parents.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible. 

Crested Auklets are small seabirds that nest on remote cliffs in the Northern Pacific and the Bering Sea. But it’s their smell that really sets these birds apart. They smell like tangerines! Experiments show that females go for males that emit the strongest scents.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible. 

Some birds spend most of their lives on the open ocean, only coming to land when it's time to breed. These high-sea specialists are called pelagic birds, which include jaegers, petrels, and albatrosses, among many others. The best way to see them for yourself is by setting sail on a pelagic birding tour or whale watching cruise!More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible. 

David Sibley, creator and illustrator of The Sibley Guide to Birds, offers this advice for people learning to identify birds: “Spend time at home, paging through the field guide . . . by flipping through the pages of the book and looking at pictures and reading the names, you’ll start to get a sense of what those birds are . . . It doesn’t have to be about seeing a lot of different species, but more about getting to know the birds that are common in your neighborhood or in your yard.”More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible. 

Names are conventions, right? But some names contain something special: a bird! For example, the name Paloma comes from the colloquial name in Spanish for the common pigeon, but as a human name it often refers to doves. Or Garzón, my last name, is derived from Garza, or Heron, in Spanish.Listen to this episode in Spanish here. More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible.

In the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, June days offer almost continuous daylight to breeding birds, including this Black-bellied Plover. At this high latitude, Black-bellied Plovers can complete their breeding cycle in a month and a half. Not long after the summer solstice, the adults begin their southbound migration, without their young. Juveniles don't migrate with their parents, but wait a month.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible. 

Crows play many roles in human cultures, from ominous tricksters to sacred purveyors of wisdom. After exploring the stories behind her family surname, attorney and playwright Alice T. Crowe discovered a deep historical connection between the racist symbology of Jim Crow and the negative image of these birds in many Western cultures. Despite the social stigma surrounding crows, Alice says we can learn important lessons from how they treat each other.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible. 

If you see a wild bird with a small metal band around its leg, that means researchers have given the bird a unique ID to keep track of it over the course of its life. You can report the sighting to the Bird Banding Laboratory, a part of the U.S. Geological Survey that studies banded birds across the continent. Analyzing where and when banded birds are seen helps biologists figure out bird lifespans, migratory routes, and how their populations are changing.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible. 

In 2022, ornithologists recognized the Chihuahuan Meadowlark as a separate species rather than a subspecies of the Eastern Meadowlark. Named after the northern region of Mexico where they're easy to find, Chihuahuan Meadowlarks live in dry desert grasslands. They form a distinct population in Mexico and the southwestern U.S., and have a song that sets them apart from other meadowlarks.Escuche este episodio en español aquí!More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible.

Adorned in shades of peridot green, sapphire blue, and onyx black, the Green Jay is a jewel-toned wonder with a voice as loud as its color palette. Their range is split over two regions, one from southern Texas to northern Belize and a second along the Andes Mountains from Venezuela to Bolivia. Green Jays often forage in family flocks where their noisy, rasping chatter helps ward off predators and keep their colorful kin together.This episode is sponsored by Bruce Heyne, in thanks to all those who steward the parks, refuges, and nature preserves that support birds — especially in Deep South Texas where Green Jays thrive.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to get ad-free listening and other perks. BirdNote is a nonprofit. Your tax-deductible gift makes these shows possible.