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BirdNote

Escape the daily grind and immerse yourself in the natural world. Rich in imagery, sound, and information, BirdNote inspires you to notice the world around you. Join us for daily two-minute stories about birds, the environment, and more.

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An Ever-Growing Library of Bird Sounds

BirdNote ·

2025/09/26

Most of the bird sounds you hear on BirdNote come from the Macaulay Library, a vast collection of over one million bird calls and songs curated by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The library relies on both professional field recordists and dedicated volunteers to capture the sounds of birds all over

Moon-Watching for Migrating Birds

BirdNote ·

2025/09/25

Before the high-tech gadgets used to track bird migration today, there was moon-watching: a technique dreamed up in the 1940s by ornithologist George Lowery. Using telescopes pointed at the moon to see the silhouettes of migratory birds, Lowery helped show that birds regularly migrate across the

How Jays Helped Restore an Oak Forest

BirdNote ·

2025/09/24

Corvids, like crows and jays, are known for caching seeds instead of eating them immediately. Sometimes, those seeds take root before the birds return. Mario Pesendorfer, a forest and behavioral ecologist at BOKU in Vienna, says that’s what happened on Santa Cruz Island in southern California. It’s

Colorín Azul, Navegante de las Estrellas

BirdNote ·

2025/09/23

Las estrellas parecen girar en el cielo, lo que plantea una gran pregunta: ¿cómo logran las aves usarlas para orientarse durante la migración? El ornitólogo Stephen Emlen llevó azulillos índigo ( Passerina cyanea), también llamados colorines azules, a un planetario y observó sus movimientos mientras

Lee Ann Roripaugh: Utsuroi

BirdNote ·

2025/09/22

Today is the Autumnal Equinox, when the sun crosses the equator and day and night are of approximately equal length across the globe. In her poem ‘Utsuroi’, writer Lee Ann Roripaugh reflects on how, as the days grow shorter, the remaining light feels that much more beautiful.

Southern Lapwings Defend Their Nest

BirdNote ·

2025/09/21

Nature educator Johanne Ryan shares her observations of Southern Lapwings, shorebirds that make their nests on the ground in open areas and vigorously defend them. If a potential predator approaches, the parent will sound a piercing alarm call. If that doesn’t work, the lapwing will charge the

T and Dart

BirdNote ·

2025/09/20

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

Williamson's Sapsucker

BirdNote ·

2025/09/19

Williamson's Sapsuckers nest in western mountain forests. The radically different plumages of the male and female so confounded 19th-century naturalists that, for nearly a decade, the birds were thought to be of different species. Sapsuckers are unique among woodpeckers in drilling neat rows of tiny

A Lost Hummingbird is Found Again

BirdNote ·

2025/09/18

The Santa Marta Sabrewing is a hummingbird species so rare, they’ve only been documented twice in recent years. Native to the mountains of Colombia, they were officially described in 1946. No one reported another sighting until 2010. They became a “lost” species, eluding every attempt to find them

Thick-billed Euphonia – Deceitful Mimic

BirdNote ·

2025/09/17

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

Migración y grasa

BirdNote ·

2025/09/16

Si los vuelos migratorios de larga distancia ya son asombrosos, lo que ocurre dentro del cuerpo de un ave durante esos vuelos parece, sencillamente, increíble. Para almacenar grasa, muchas aves comen hasta tres veces más de lo normal y buscan alimento durante muchas más horas, mientras se preparan

The Delightfully Odd Magellanic Plover

BirdNote ·

2025/09/15

The Magellanic Plover is known for being a bit of an oddball. These shorebirds have a round body like a dove and even feed their young with milk produced in a part of their digestive system called the crop — a rare trait they share with doves. But genetic data revealed that Magellanic Plovers are

Where Birds Sleep

BirdNote ·

2025/09/14

All birds need to sleep — or at least snooze — sometime during each 24-hour period. And most sleep at night. A bird, like a Mallard duckling, may turn its head around and warm its beak under its shoulder-feathers. Songbirds find a protected perch, sheltered from rain and nighttime predators. Small

The Music of Birds Migrating in the Night

BirdNote ·

2025/09/13

Ornithologist Bill Evans has helped us better understand the sounds that birds make as they migrate at night. Known as nocturnal flight calls, many species can be identified based on their signature sound. Using special handmade microphones left outside overnight, Evans, his colleagues and many

There's a BirdNote for that!

BirdNote ·

2025/09/12

Do you have a question about birds? BirdNote’s Content Director Jonese Franklin says that when people bring her bird queries, she often finds the answer in a BirdNote Daily episode. Over the last 20 years, BirdNote has produced more than 2,400 episodes covering tons of topics – and there are still

Helping BirdNote Continue Its Journey

BirdNote ·

2025/09/11

When you provide places for migratory birds to rest and refuel, you’re helping them complete their long journeys and reach their destination safely. In a similar way, BirdNote also relies on your generosity. As an independent nonprofit, we depend on support from listeners like you to keep us going

Bird Books with BirdNote

BirdNote ·

2025/09/10

For many of us nature nerds, books and birds go hand in hand. That’s why BirdNote brings you conversations with award-winning writers about how birds inspire their work. This week, we are asking you to support the show so that we can keep providing daily stories about birds – and the books they’ve

Acicalamiento para principiantes

BirdNote ·

2025/09/09

Si las plumas de un ave se secan demasiado, se vuelven frágiles. Para evitarlo, la mayoría de las aves tienen una glándula situada encima de la base de la cola que produce un aceite. Usan sus picos para masajear el aceite desde la glándula hacia las plumas, para mantenerlas flexibles. Un ave primero

The Multiplier Effect

BirdNote ·

2025/09/08

This summer, the U.S. Congress revoked more than $1 billion in previously allocated funding for public media. Because BirdNote provides its shows to stations for free, a gift to BirdNote has a multiplier effect: It helps produce a show you love and it helps provide free programming for the local

Darwin's Birds

BirdNote ·

2025/09/07

The finches of the Galapagos Islands are famous in the history of evolutionary theory. But Charles Darwin spent four years studying other birds as well, as the Beagle circumnavigated southern South America before reaching the Galapagos in 1835. It was not just the birds, but a lifetime of attending

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