Sea Birds

Birds Sniff Each Other's Bacteria to Help Choose a Mate

A new study finds the microbiome in a bird's preen oil determines its scent, which can impact its reproductive success

A steppe eagle with an SMS tracker attached.

Text Messages Sent by Roaming Eagles Bankrupt Scientific Study

A steppe eagle named Min spent months out of range before reappearing in Iran and sending hundreds of expensive SMS texts

Why Did Thousands of Rubber Bands Show Up on an Uninhabited Cornish Island?

Nesting gulls have likely been trying to feed the bands found in nearby flower fields to their chicks for decades

Birds are considered an indicator species, representing the health of entire ecosystems.

North America Has Lost Nearly 3 Billion Birds Since 1970

The staggering population loss of 29 percent of North American birds could signal an ecological crisis

Birds given doses of a common pesticide lost significant body mass, fat stores

Common Pesticides Delay Songbird Migration, Trigger Significant Weight Loss

Within six hours of ingesting a high dose of pesticide, sparrows lost six percent of their body weight and 17 percent of their fat stores

A Human-Sized Penguin Once Waddled Through New Zealand

The leg bones of Crossvallia waiparensis suggest it was more than five feet tall and weighed up to 176 pounds

The Scientists Who Stared at Gulls

A new study suggests that watching the birds as they approach will slow them down or scare them off

Members of the control group showed none of the behavioral and physiological changes seen among the experimental clutches

Unhatched Bird Embryos Communicate With Siblings by Vibrating Their Shells

Baby seabirds exposed to nestmates' warnings exhibit behavioral and physiological adaptations designed to help avoid predators

The tough little egg made it all the way through the digestive system of a coscoroba swan like this one.

A Swan Swallowed This Fish Egg, Pooped It Out—and Then 49 Days Later, It Hatched

The new study is one of the first to demonstrate fish egg dispersal via avian fecal matter

A mated pair of horned puffins nest near Bering Sea.

Why Have Thousands of Puffins and Other Seabirds Died En Masse in the Bering Sea?

The cause of the 2016 die-off, according to a new study, was likely climate change

Tiger sharks appear to prey on migrating songbirds that fall into the ocean during autumnal storms

Baby Sharks Do (Do, Do, Do, Do, Do) Eat Songbirds

A survey of 105 tiger sharks’ stomach contents revealed the remains of 11 land-based bird species

There's a lot more pink in the water during the annual flamingo migration to Mumbai this winter.

Why Did Flamingos Flock to Mumbai in Record Numbers This Winter?

More than three times the usual number of migrating pink birds came, possibly attracted by algae blooms caused by sewage

An illustration of what Avimaia schweitzerae and its nest may have looked like.

First-Ever Fossilized Mother Bird Found With Unlaid Egg

The rare 110-million-year-old bits of shell shine light on the reproduction during the age of dinosaurs

Expansion packs featuring birds of every continent are currently in the works

This New Scientifically Accurate Board Game Is for the Birders

"Wingspan" features 170 unique species cards filled with real-world information, life-like illustrations

Drone Captures Thousands of Years of Archaeology on Remote Scottish Islands

A drone survey of Canna and Sanday Islands collected 420 million data points, creating what may be the most detailed 3-D map of islands yet

Adelie Penguins Poop So Much, Their Feces Can Be Seen From Space

Satellite images of the Adelie penguin's pink guano shows how their colony size and diet have changed over the last 4 decades

Plastic on a beach in St. Helena.

Remote South Atlantic Islands Are Flooded With Plastic

In less than ten years, plastic pollution around St. Helena, East Falkland and Ascension Islands has increased tenfold, and 100 times in the last 30 years

How Much Plastic Does It Take To Kill a Sea Turtle?

A new study suggests one piece of plastic has a 22 percent chance of killing a turtle that eats it, and 14 pieces will kill half

Spix's macaw.

In the Last Decade, Four Birds Went Extinct and Four More Are Likely Gone

Habitat loss is the main culprit in killing off the birds, including Spix's macaw, the star of the popular 2011 film <i>Rio</i>

Is it just instinct?

New Zealand Penguins Make an Epic, Pointless, Swim to the Southern Ocean

A new satellite study shows the penguins travel over 4,000 miles to feed, even though their home shores are teeming with food

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