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BirdNote
BirdNote Daily
Natural Sciences
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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.
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Episodes
300
28 September 2025
Chickadee Line-up
Chickadees are tiny songbirds named for their characteristic song and there are seven species found in North America. You'll find the Black-capped Chickadee across the northern U.S. into Canada. The Carolina Chickadee holds sway in the Southeast. Hear the husky voice of a Mountain Chickadee in the Rockies. Travel to Canada for the Boreal Chickadee. This Chestnut-backed Chickadee calls the Pacific...
1 min
27 September 2025
Sapsuckers
Sapsuckers drill small holes in the bark of favored trees, then return again and again to eat the sap that flows out. And hummingbirds, kinglets, and warblers come to the sap wells to eat the insects trapped in the sap. Although a sapsucker (like this Red-breasted Sapsucker) may suck a tree's blood, so to speak, the drilling usually doesn't damage an otherwise healthy tree.More info and...
1 min
26 September 2025
An Ever-Growing Library of Bird Sounds
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 the world.Support for BirdNote is provided by Marjorie and Ed Ringness from Seattle, Washington —...
1 min
25 September 2025
Moon-Watching for Migrating Birds
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 Gulf of Mexico and organized the first continent-wide survey of migration in North America. Learn more...
1 min
24 September 2025
How Jays Helped Restore an Oak Forest
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 part of Channel Islands National Park where native shrub oak habitats were largely decimated by...
1 min
23 September 2025
Migrations: Indigo Bunting, Master Stargazer
The stars appear to rotate in the sky, raising the question of how birds can use stars to navigate during migration. Ornithologist Stephen Emlen brought Indigo Buntings to a planetarium, tracking their movements as the simulated night sky changed above them. The buntings oriented themselves using star patterns that appear to rotate the least — especially the North Star, Ursa Major and...
1 min
22 September 2025
Lee Ann Roripaugh: Utsuroi
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.More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.Want more BirdNote? Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Sign up for BirdNote+ to...
3 min
21 September 2025
Southern Lapwings Defend Their Nest
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 opponent, using a secret weapon – sharp, bony spurs on the bird’s “wrists.”More info and transcript at...
1 min
20 September 2025
T and Dart
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...
1 min
19 September 2025
Williamson's Sapsucker
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 holes — or sapwells — in the trunks of trees. The sap provides food for the sapsuckers and snags...
1 min