Why you should count your chickens (and kookaburras, lorikeets or other backyard birds)
This year is the tenth annual Aussie Backyard Bird Count, which Professor Simon Griffith says highlights the important role citizen science projects play in our understanding of changes taking place in our world......»»
Team finds direct evidence of "itinerant breeding" in East Coast shorebird species
Migration and reproduction are two of the most demanding events in a bird's annual cycle, so much so that the vast majority of migratory birds separate the two tasks into different times of the year......»»
Homer Simpson’s 10 funniest moments on The Simpsons, ranked
Homer Simpson isn't the best husband, father, or worker, but people can always count on him for a laugh, and these 10 moments on The Simpsons prove it......»»
Migratory birds are on the move and nature-friendly farms can help them on their way
Every spring, hundreds of thousands of birds leave their winter habitat on Poyang, the largest freshwater lake in China, and fly north over the most densely populated region on Earth to reach their breeding grounds in Siberia. As with any long-distan.....»»
Birds of a feather flocking together: Research shows storks prefer to fly with conspecifics during migration
With long legs and large wings, the white stork is a prominent star of the pageant that is animal migration. Flying from Europe towards Africa in autumn, and then back again in spring, birds can be seen taking to the sky in conspicuous flocks that he.....»»
Researchers find babbling by zebra finch chicks is important step to memorizing songs
When babies learn to talk or birds learn to sing, the same principle applies: listen and then imitate. This is how the first babble becomes the first word or vocalization. Male zebra finch chicks initially memorize the song of an adult bird. Later, t.....»»
Cut light pollution and treat glass to help migrating birds, say researchers
Spring bird migration has begun. Under cover of darkness, 2.5–3.5 billion birds will fly northward to their breeding grounds in the United States and Canada. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, now is one of the most important times of yea.....»»
Tropical forests can"t recover naturally without fruit eating birds, carbon recovery study shows
New research from the Crowther Lab at ETH Zurich illustrates a critical barrier to natural regeneration of tropical forests. Their models—from ground-based data gathered in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil—show that when wild tropical birds move fre.....»»
What do bird dreams sound like?
For more than 20 years, researchers have known that areas of birds' brains dedicated to singing show neural patterns during sleep akin to the ones they use while awake and singing......»»
Scientists find blue light makes buildings more deadly to migrating birds
Bird collisions with buildings are nothing new, but a new study by scientists at The University of New Mexico sheds light on a potential cause......»»
3 rom-coms on Amazon Prime Video you need to watch in April 2024
The new teen rom-com How to Date Billy Walsh along with two older flicks count among the three rom-coms on Amazon Prime Video you need to watch in April 2024......»»
Dog-like Spot robot gets a gig to scare wildlife
An international airport is deploying a dog-like robot to scare birds and other wildlife from encroaching the runway......»»
After 10 years of work, landmark study reveals new "tree of life" for all birds living today
The largest-ever study of bird genomes has produced a remarkably clear picture of the bird family tree. Published in the journal Nature today, our study shows that most of the modern groups of birds first appeared within 5 million years after the ext.....»»
New research reveals that chickens were widely raised across southern Central Asia from 400 BCE
Chickens are one of the most economically important animals in the world today. However, the story of their origins and dispersal across the ancient world is still poorly understood. In fact, new archaeological techniques have recently led to the rec.....»»
A frozen chunk of genome rewrites our understanding of bird evolution
An enormous meteor spelled doom for most dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But not all. In the aftermath of the extinction event, birds—technically dinosaurs themselves—flourished......»»
New "Eclipse Watch" tool shows eclipses from space any time
Do you wish you could see a total solar eclipse every day? With a new online tool called Eclipse Watch, you can observe the sun's outer atmosphere, or corona, in real time with eclipse-like images from space as we count down to the next total solar e.....»»
Small birds spice up the already diverse diet of spotted hyenas in Namibia
Spotted hyenas are known for hunting (or scavenging) larger mammals such as antelopes and occasionally feed on smaller mammals and reptiles. Being flexible in the choice of prey is a strategy of generalists—and this even extends to small passerine.....»»
The Earth Will Feast on Dead Cicadas
Two cicada broods, XIX and XIII, are emerging in sync for the first time in 221 years. Birds, trees, and dirt are about to get the banquet of a lifetime......»»
Cows in Texas and Kansas test positive for highly pathogenic bird flu
The risk to the public is low, and the milk supply is safe. Enlarge (credit: Getty | Peter Cade) Wild migratory birds likely spread a deadly strain of bird flu to dairy cows in Texas and Kansas, state and federal officia.....»»
Solar eclipse could scramble bird behavior
On April 8, the shadow of a total solar eclipse will race across North America. At the same time, researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and partners will be hurrying to measure the impact of daytime darkness on the movements of birds, bats,.....»»
Early spring, earlier nesting birds
Did spring arrive early this year? Some people think so. Apparently, some birds do, too. The NestWatch project at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology documents when and where birds are nesting......»»