BirdNote

Important Bird Areas (IBAs) are vital habitats for birds around the world. Pete Pumphrey of Eastern Sierra Audubon describes the power of this designation for Owens Lake in Eastern California – and birds like these Least Sandpipers. “When we did our bird count in April . . .

Fossils discovered in China reveal the largest feathered animal yet known. Gigantoraptor was a very birdlike dinosaur, yet tall enough to look a Tyrannosaurus rex in the eye.

Who among us hasn’t almost walked into a glass door? Birds though, especially when migrating, run the risk of colliding with reflective glass in urban areas.

Imagine the nesting cliff of Common Murres, 100 feet above the ocean. Suddenly, a small murre chick, only three weeks old and just one-quarter the weight of an adult, lunges off the cliff, gliding clumsily to the water below. Soon other chicks follow, splashing into the sea.

Woodpeckers - such as this Williamson's Sapsucker - eat far more ants than do most birds. Although many other vertebrates avoid ants because of their stings or the foul taste, the Northern Flicker is known to have ingested over five thousand ants in one sitting!

Here they come! Kindergartners are entering the Maxwelton Outdoor Classroom on Washington’s Whidbey Island to learn about birds. “It’s critical for our students to get into a practical application of what they’re learning in their classroom,” says Dr.

It’s late August, and BirdNote is imagining the bird life at Garrison Keillor’s mythical Lake Wobegon. The loons are now quiet. And the Purple Martins that nested outside the Chatterbox Café? They’re headed for South America.

August 28th is the birth anniversary of Roger Tory Peterson. He was born in 1908 and died in 1996. RTP, as he was known, wrote A Field Guide to the Birds. His favorite bird? The King Penguin.

As the sun sets off Maui, a pair of Hawaiian Petrels calls. Crow-sized seabirds with long, slender wings, the petrels sit at the mouth of their nest burrow, dug high in the rim of Haleakala volcano.

Hurricanes bring tragedy not only to people, but also to birds and other wildlife. Severe storm winds may kill many birds and blow others far from their normal range. Although many individuals die, most populations of birds are resilient, able to spring back from disaster if conditions allow.

For us, an eagle in flight is an image of beauty and power. But for the ancient Greeks, an eagle in flight was an omen - a message from the gods. In Homer's epic, The Iliad, the Greeks have vowed to conquer Troy.

Long ago the tide stayed close to shore. The people went hungry because the clams lay hidden under water. Then Raven had a plan. He put on his cloak and flew along the shore to the house of the old woman who held the tide-line firmly in her hand.

Nature is evolving constantly. Dr. Mike Webster of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology describes an example of rapid evolution and adaptation from the world of birds. He says the European Blackcap, a species of warbler, used to breed in Germany during the summer and migrate to Spain in the winter.

Is there any doubt about the identity of America's best known red bird? Surely it's the cardinal or, as you'll find it in a bird book, the Northern Cardinal. The beautiful bird seen on so many bird feeders takes its name from the cardinals found in the Vatican, whose hats and robes are red.

The voice of the Laughing Kookaburra is so distinctive, it's one of the best known sounds in nature. Its exotic call has been a Hollywood standard for decades, that unseen creature in the depths of the jungle, with heroes ranging from Tarzan to Indiana Jones.