BirdNote Daily

Emily Dickinson: "The Birds begun at Four o'clock..." As the first rays of sunlight fill the trees on a spring morning, a symphony of birdsong erupts. As early morning light extinguishes the stars, male birds begin to belt out their songs. One of the magical gifts of spring is the dawn song. Early in the morning, sparrows, chickadees, thrushes, finches, wrens, blackbirds, and warblers - like this Yellow Warbler - all sing at once. Learn more at BirdNote.org.

One of the biggest threats to birds is the decline in biodiversity due to habitat loss — and the traditional, manicured lawn isn’t helping. Growing native plants in your yard allows you to protect birds at home, says ecologist Douglas Tallamy, who co-founded an organization called Homegrown National Park® to help people transform their lawns into havens for wildlife.

Homegrown National Park® is a grassroots call-to-action to regenerate diversity and ecosystem function by planting native plants and creating new ecological networks. Learn more at BirdNote.org.

The vernal equinox, the first day of spring. The moment when the sun is directly above the equator, and day and night are nearly equal all over the world. Yet birds sense the growing hours of daylight through a surge of hormones. It’s time to sing! Both science and folklore tie spring to the renewal of nature, as the world awakens from the long cold winter. Listen carefully, and you might hear the bubbling song of a tiny Ruby-crowned Kinglet, or a Bewick’s Wren tuning up, or a towhee — like this beautiful Eastern Towhee — shouting out its whistled notes. Learn more at BirdNote.org.

The rainforests of Eastern and Northeastern Australia harbor many species of birds found almost nowhere else. This Eastern Whipbird — which is more often heard than seen — hangs out in the dense understory. Easier to lay eyes on is the large, pigeon-like Wompoo Fruit-Dove. Feathered in a stunning combination of green, purple, and yellow, this bird is clearly named for its voice. And a pig-like grunting on the forest floor tells us we’re in the company of the Southern Cassowary. Its helmet — called a casque — makes it look as much like a dinosaur as any living bird. Learn more at BirdNote.org.

A captive breeding program has helped set California Condors on the path to recovery. But when biologists reviewed the family tree for the breeding program, they found a big surprise. Two chicks had DNA that linked them perfectly to their mothers but didn’t match a single male. They arose through parthenogenesis, developing from unfertilized eggs without sperm from a male. These condors are the first case of parthenogenesis in a wild bird species where the females had access to fertile males. Learn more at BirdNote.org.

Darvin Gebhart is a champion goose-caller. But there are also birds that use human language. Sparkie Williams was a famous parakeet, or budgerigar, that lived in England in the 1950s. He recorded commercials for bird seed and released his own hit single "Pretty Talk." Alex, the African Grey Parrot, was another notable talking bird, with amazing cognitive abilities.  Watch a video interview with Sparkie Williams and learn more about him at the British-Library.UK. Learn more at BirdNote.org.

Author Kira Jane Buxton loves crows — so much that she’s written two novels about a crow named S.T. navigating the extinction of humanity. When she was writing those books, she tried befriending the crows in her neighborhood, and wound up bonding with a pair of them. She named them T and Dart. T, the female, is clumsy and playful. Dart, her mate, is more aloof towards Kira but always shares his food with T. This crow couple helped inspire the fictional crows in Kira’s books. Learn more at BirdNote.org.

Visit a shallow wetland in summer, and you might see this slender, black-and-white shorebird with outrageous red legs. The Black-necked Stilt uses its long legs for wading as it feeds on tiny insects and crustaceans on the surface of the water. Stilts are sensitive to drought, which has increased with global climate change. But they readily move to new breeding areas and respond quickly when new wetlands are created.  Learn more at BirdNote.org.

On this episode of BirdNoir, the Mayor of Bricksville calls the Private Eye with a bit of a problem: “several dozen giant bird-punks loitering on top of City Hall!” The detective figures out the most likely reason why these birds have chosen the top of a building as their hangout, and reveals a side of the story that the mayor hadn’t considered before. Learn more at BirdNote.org.

Gordon Hempton is a sound recordist who has spent his life capturing the sounds of the natural world. He’s learned to be a deep listener, kind of like a sonic meditator. And after a lifetime of traveling the world and listening and recording, he still is amazed by what he hears. Find the whole thing at BirdNote.org/SoundEscapes.