BirdNote Daily

When a Carolina Wren like this one sings, something remarkable happens. These birds can sing so loudly that you almost have to shout to be heard over their songs!

How can a bird like a Carolina Wren – at just 5½ inches long and weighing only as much as four nickels – produce so much sound? The answer lies in the songbird’s vocal anatomy. 

More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. 

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There are fifteen species of cranes across the globe, found everywhere but Antarctica and South America. During the winter, cranes forage and rest together by the thousands. Listen in to the voices of cranes from all over the world. Nothing evokes the spirit of the wild like the voices of these majestic birds.

More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. 

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In the 1980s, mining companies made plans for huge open-pit mines in the mountains of Puerto Rico. An organization called Casa Pueblo successfully campaigned to make open-pit mining illegal in Puerto Rico. Since then, Casa Pueblo has continued to hold cultural events in the town of Adjuntas, including a festival for Julián Chiví — a beloved songbird that lives in the region’s forests. Casa Pueblo’s radio station even has a theme song that’s a tribute to the Julián Chiví.

More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. 

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Do vultures detect carrion by sight or by smell? The lightbulb moment came to ornithologist Kenneth Stager when a Union Oil employee told him of vultures congregating at the spots along pipelines where gas leaks were occurring. Why would they do that? Because a key ingredient in the odor of carrion is ethyl mercaptan — the same substance companies add to odorless natural gas in their pipelines, so they could smell if there was a leak. So now we know that vultures can spot carrion by either sight or smell.

More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. 

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Great Blue Herons nest in colonies, in adjoining trees or with several nests in one tree. But by autumn, the adults and gangly young have left the nests to take up solitary lives, a pattern that is the reverse of many other species. After all the "togetherness" of the nesting colonies, the Great Blue Herons spend the off-season by themselves.

More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. 

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It’s easy to imagine that putting up a birdhouse or nestbox is a relatively recent practice. But in Turkey, it has a long history. Since at least the 13th century and continuing through the period of Ottoman rule, birdhouses were placed on all sorts of structures: mosques (like this one – the Yeni Valide Mosque in Üsküdar, Istanbul, Turkey), schools, libraries, houses, tombs, bridges, and palaces. In this culture, birdhouses were viewed as an expression of love and compassion for animals. The Ottomans even endowed charities to provide food and water for birds and to care for sick birds.

More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. 

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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. 

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Tucked away in southeast Texas is one of the most remarkable enclaves of nature. Known as The Big Thicket, this region is home to ten different ecosystems, including cypress bayous, arid sandylands, palmetto thickets, pine forests, marshes, and grasslands. The variety of natural landscapes provides habitat for a broad array of birds, including this Prothonotary Warbler.

More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. 

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Thousands of years ago, giant raptors lived on what is now Cuba. Gigantohierax is an extinct genus of eagles whose fossils have been found in local cave deposits and tar seeps. With an estimated weight of nearly 30 pounds, Gigantohierax suarezi, the larger of the two named species, would’ve been the biggest raptor known from the Americas.

More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. 

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Of the four nuthatch species living in the United States, the most common are the Red-breasted Nuthatch, seen left here, and the White-breasted Nuthatch, on the right. The nuthatch's insistent call matches its aggressiveness. As it works its way down a tree trunk, the nuthatch can spot-and eat-all the tasty morsels missed by the rest of the birds working their way up the tree.

More info and transcript at BirdNote.org. 

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