The Science of Birds

👕 Bird Merch — Get yourself some bird shirts! ~~~ Some places matter more to birds than others, and Important Bird Areas, or IBAs, are the sites scientists have flagged as places birds can't afford to lose. In Episode 140, host Ivan Phillipsen starts at Horse Creek Meadows, a sunlit mountain meadow in southwestern Oregon, and asks what it takes for a spot like this to earn that official designation. Who decides, and what does it actually do for the birds? Along the way, the episode cov...

In each Random Bird Thursday (RBT) episode, the goal is to highlight a bird species that probably isn't going to get featured in a full-length podcast episode. These are birds we might overlook, even though they certainly deserve some appreciation and attention. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ⚠️ SPOILER ALERT! The featured species in this episode is the Lesser Antillean Tanager (Stilpnia cuculata). Sound Citations: Jesse Fagan, XC42716. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/42716. Support the show

👕 Bird Merch — Get yourself some bird shirts! ~~~ Episode 139 of The Science of Birds takes listeners into prehistory to meet the Terror Birds: giant, flightless predators of the family Phorusrhacidae. Standing as tall as 10 feet, with axe-like beaks and sickle-clawed feet, these birds ruled South America for tens of millions of years after the dinosaurs disappeared. Host Ivan Phillipsen explores how an isolated continent, some empty ecological niches, and the amazing process of evolu...

In each Random Bird Thursday (RBT) episode, the goal is to highlight a bird species that probably isn't going to get featured in a full-length podcast episode. These are birds we might overlook, even though they certainly deserve some appreciation and attention. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ⚠️ SPOILER ALERT! The featured species in this episode is the Himalayan Prinia (Prinia crinigera). Sound Citations: Rajeev Lochan, XC797143. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/797143. Support the show

👕 Bird Merch — Get yourself some bird shirts! ~~~ In this episode, host Ivan Phillipsen steps back from bird facts themselves to explore the process behind them: the Scientific Method. He breaks down how scientific understanding is built, from that first spark of curiosity in the field all the way through hypothesis testing, data collection, and peer review. To provide a simple example, Ivan walks through a real published study on a familiar backyard bird, tracing how scientists questi...