Image: The Ultimate Bird Drawing Throwdown Showdown Graphic featuring images of David Sibley and H. Jon Benjamin

Join BirdNote tomorrow, November 30th!

Illustrator David Sibley and actor H. Jon Benjamin will face off in the bird illustration battle of the century during BirdNote's Year-end Celebration and Auction!

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Shows With Contributions by Conor Gearin

A Hooded Oriole perches on a bunch of fruits hanging below

All Those Colorful Orioles

The Baltimore Oriole is a standout bird. With adult males’ electric orange and jet black feathers, and females and immature birds in various shades of yellow and orange, it’s no surprise that these birds show up in art, illustrations, and on the uniforms of Baltimore's baseball team. But…
A Purple Martin flies up to a birdhouse mounted on a pole

Studying Climate Change by Watching Bird Nests

Organized by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and by Birds Canada, volunteers for Project NestWatch observe local nesting birds and track whether they’re successful in raising their young. Because the nest-watching volunteers monitor birds over a huge area, they cover way more ground than a…
Closeup of a singing Yellow Warbler perched in a tree

Chipes amarillos en un mundo cambiante

En primavera y verano, los chipes amarillos cantan desde lo alto de los árboles hasta las orillas de los arroyos. Si bien sus bellas canciones iluminan normalmente nuestros meses más vibrantes, también enfrentan retos inminentes. Las poblaciones de chipes amarillos se han adaptado…
A Common Nighthawk in flight with wings outstretched and vertical white wing stripes visible

Common Nighthawks at the Ballgame

An evening baseball game isn’t the only thing illuminated by the bright stadium lights. High in the air, countless flying insects are drawn to them. And those insects are a perfect snack for the game’s avian attendees! Common Nighthawks swoop with their wide mouths open to hoover up the…
A bright orange and black American Redstart sings from a perch

Setting the Thermostat with Birds in Mind

If you’ve already done things around the home with birds in mind, consider one more action that might be less obvious. Turning the thermostat down a degree or two in the colder months and up a degree in the warmer months might seem more about personal preference or energy bills than birds…
Two Burrowing Owls painted on a business's security fence with their heads tilted, and a person walking past on the sidewalk

Emily Raboteau on New York City's Bird Murals

Emily Raboteau’s book, Lessons for Survival, begins with a painting of two Burrowing Owls on the security gate of a local business in West Harlem, near where she teaches. Intrigued, she found more bird murals nearby, later learning that they are part of a collaborative effort between the…
A Blue-gray Tanager looking to its left, showing pale blue breast and head with more vivid blue wings, and a dark eye.

Spark Bird: Dara Wilson and the Blue-gray Tanager

While Dara Wilson was working at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in D.C., she introduced visitors to the Amazonia exhibit. She would describe the song of a bird she’d never had the chance to see in the wild, the Blue-gray Tanager. But when Dara moved to Panama, she heard the song that she…
A female Baltimore Oriole on a leafing branch. Seen in profile, she shows a dusty orange color body, brown back and wings with white tips, and slender sharp beak.

Celebrating Female Bird Day

In 2019, several co-workers at the National Audubon Society formed a team for the World Series of Birding that focused on identifying female birds. Called the Galbatrosses, they sought to highlight how female birds have been understudied and unfairly written off as quieter and less…
A Gray Catbird perches on a branch with tail cocked with leaves in the background

BirdNoir: The Catbird That Wasn't

In this episode of BirdNoir, Private Eye Michael Stein gives a word of advice to Ollie, an up-and-coming gumshoe. Ollie thinks he has heard his first Gray Catbird, a species that yowls like a cat, but he didn’t lay eyes on the bird making the noise. Things aren’t always what they seem when…
American Robin standing on grass, facing forward, beak open while singing

Singing Under Streetlights

Some birds have always called nocturnally, but other species are relative newcomers to the nighttime music scene, specifically in urban areas. Birds such as American Robins often sing well into the night. Scientists are studying what environmental cues might lead to this behavior. While…