New research finds birds like to forage for fish in the wake of a tidal power plant.
Chicken or rooster? This bird is both – female on the left (dark feathers), and male on the right (white feathers, with larger comb and physique).
Mike Clinton (Roslin Institute)
Birds have some of the most amazing sex differences of any animal. They can control the sex of offspring, and even produce rare half-male, half-females. And their sex genes and chromosomes are quite different from ours.
Osprey on a nesting platform in Massachusetts.
Craig Gibson
Chemical pollution and hunting pushed Ospreys to the edge of extinction in the mid-20th century. Today, they have rebounded and can be spotted worldwide, often nesting on manmade structures.
Male collared flycatcher, singing for multiple females.
Kennerth Kullman/Shutterstock.com
Biologists investigated whether birds that search for multiple mates would evolve ever more elaborate songs to attract them. What they found might have surprised Darwin.
Pink pigeons may make more charismatic subjects for our adoration, but their feral relatives who keep us company in towns and cities are just as deserving.
It can actually be very tricky to define a species, but in the 1900s, scientists found a pretty good way.
Success with conservation of Kangaroo Island’s Glossy Black-Cockatoos can now be compared with other bird conservation efforts around the country.
Ian Sanderson/Flickr
A new type of Archaeopteryx fossil helps build the case for this creature being called ‘the first bird’.
The composition of black and white in a magpie’s poo differs between species. Some splatter more of the uric acid (white), some have more black (indigestible solids). It depends on their diet.
Gisela Kaplan
Like reptiles, birds do not have two separate exits from the body. They have one, called the cloaca. It is quite similar to the human anus but the cloaca expels both indigestible bits and toxins.
The ibis has become an Australian cultural phenomenon. The birds’ tenacity and fearlessness as environmental refugees mean they attract love and hate alike.
Not all birds have eyes on the sides of their heads – but even those that do can see straight in front of them.
Could music one day be something we experience through augmented reality, responding to the way we move through the world? Sound supplemented with colours and shapes?
Mavis Wong/The Conversation NY-BD-CC
Rivers are natural boundaries for evolving populations. But scientists don’t agree whether they create new species or just help maintain them. Research using birds’ molecular clocks provides some answers.