One of the most difficult skills to pick up as a birdwatcher is how to identify birds in flight. You have to sort through a series of visual clues all at once, at high speed: silhouette, wing shape, how fast it flaps, and patterning. An experienced birder will take in all these and other clues that are hard to put into words — and might say something like: “Look! A hawk! Must be a Cooper’s Hawk — it has that giss.” In other words, it has all the telltale signs. But where did this bit of birdwatching slang originate? 

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In 2017, Hurricane Maria tore through the island, causing widespread destruction for both people and for birds. The critically endangered Puerto Rican Parrot was devastated by the storm when they lost their food sources. However, the Puerto Rican Parrot Recovery Program helped save the birds in the wild with feeding stations. The program is working to boost the species’ numbers through captive breeding.

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Northern Mockingbirds can learn to mimic the sounds of just about any bird. They mimic to show off, not to deceive. But this Thick-billed Euphonia, a tiny songbird in South America, employs what scientists call “deceitful mimicry.” When frightened by a predator near its nest, a Thick-billed Euphonia imitates the alarm calls of other birds nesting nearby. This stirs them into action as they rush in to harass the predator. The euphonia, meanwhile, sits tight while others do the dirty work.

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While it’s still winter in many parts of North America, it’s summer in Antarctica. And the King Penguins are singing! Some form breeding colonies that number in the tens of thousands. When many pairs of these colorful birds tip their heads back and sing, it sounds like the world’s largest kazoo band.

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eBird, an online tool for submitting bird observations, allows scientists to keep track of birds around the world. eBird now has over one billion bird observations from more than 700,000 people — most of them community scientists who care about their local birds. And as more people in more places join in, eBird becomes an even better way for researchers to understand birds. In this show, learn how you can make your birding more useful to science.

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By winter, most warblers have migrated south. But the Yellow-rumped Warbler, which birders affectionately call “butterbutt” is a lesson in adaptation, notes Bryan Pfeiffer, a writer, naturalist, and educator who lives in Vermont. “In winter, when most of their kin are enjoying insects in the tropics, Yellow-rumps are finding food across parts of the West, the southern U.S. and north into New England,” he says. “With insects in short supply, the Yellow-rump turns to fruit . . .”

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Glenn Albrecht grew up in western Australia, where he became enamored with birds.As he grew up, Glenn witnessed how coal mining devastated the Australian countryside — and the birds that lived there. He’s since become an environmental philosopher. He’s developed a new vocabulary to describe human relationships with the natural world.

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The Canyon Wren makes its home on the steep rocky outcrops and vertical stone cliffs of the coulees and mesas of the West. The birds are found from Mexico all the way through southern British Columbia. They live among the rocks all year long, nesting in rock piles and beneath overhangs, their songs bouncing off the sheer rock faces.

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In this episode of BirdNoir, the Private Eye sees some suspicious activity: a House Sparrow tries to steal a nestbox from Tree Swallows, but then flees the scene in terror. He stakes out the nestbox to see what the Tree Swallows are doing to keep intruders away.

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For some of us, it’s hard to get excited about gulls. But they are just as fascinating – and have as much to tell us – as other birds. Take the Herring Gull, for example. Its appearance is striking, and its voice is unforgettable. Along the Atlantic coast of North America, the nesting population of Herring Gulls numbers in the hundreds of thousands. But as recently as 1900, feather and egg hunters had wiped out virtually all nesting Herring Gulls south of Maine. Fortunately, conservation laws have enabled the gulls to recover. 

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