The Science of Birds

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Rating
4.8
from
536 reviews
This podcast has
91 episodes
Language
Publisher
Explicit
No
Date created
2020/09/19
Average duration
54 min.
Release period
18 days

Description

The Science of Birds is a lighthearted exploration of bird biology. It's a fun resource for any birder or naturalist who wants to learn more about ornithology. Impress your birding friends at cocktail parties with all of your new bird knowledge! Hosted by Ivan Phillipsen, a passionate naturalist with a PhD in Zoology.

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Podcast episodes

Check latest episodes from The Science of Birds podcast


Chickadees, Tits, and Titmice
2024/02/15
This is Episode 91. It’s all about birds in the family Paridae. These are the chickadees, tits, and titmice—cute little forest-dwelling songbirds known and loved by many people around the world. I’ve had a lot of requests to make a podcast episode about chickadees and their kind. Some species in this family are familiar visitors to backyard bird feeders. They’re highly active, vocal, bold, and sometimes quite confiding with people. It’s possible to gain the trust of t**s and chickadees of some species by feeding them seeds out of the palm of your hand. These birds not only visit bird feeders regularly, at least in winter, but they’ll also happily lay eggs in artificial nest boxes. All of these traits make birds in the Paridae family great subjects for scientists who want to study bird behavior and ecology. So chickadees, t**s, and titmice are among the most well-studied songbirds on the planet. Lucky for us here on The Science of Birds podcast, that means there’s a lot we can learn about them   Links of Interest  Ground Tit [VIDEO]  ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Flowers and Feathers: The Importance of Birds as Pollinators
2024/01/19
This is Episode 90 and it’s all about the importance of birds as plant pollinators. If I had to use only one word for the topic of this episode, it would be ornithophily. The definition of ornithophily is “the pollination of flowers by birds.” Today, I’ll be focusing mostly on the ecological relationships between plants and the birds that pollinate them. Another way to look at all of this would be through the lens of evolution—the fascinating ways that plants and birds have co-evolved with respect to pollination. I’ll make another podcast episode, at some point, about bird and plant co-evolution. We’ll touch on it today, but the main focus is ecology.  Pollination ecology is actually an entire subdiscipline that many scientists have dedicated their careers to studying. It’s really interesting stuff!   ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Fascinating Things We Learned About Birds Last Year
2024/01/06
This is Episode 89. I’m publishing it right at the beginning of 2024, and it's a review of some fascinating things that happened in the world of ornithology and bird conservation over the last 12 months, in 2023. Naturally, this isn’t an exhaustive review of every scientific discovery about birds in 2023. That would be too much. An exhaustive review would be, well, exhausting. Maybe not for you, but definitely for me. Instead, I’ll tell you about a handful of studies and projects that I think you’ll find interesting. These gems were hand-selected by me for your educational pleasure. Links of Interest Colossal BiosciencesBirds, Not MosquitoesHow Wolbachia Can Save Forest Birds [VIDEO]Puzzle-solving caracaras [VIDEO] ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Owls
2023/12/16
This episode—which is number 88—is all about owls. Owls are fascinating birds that have captured our imaginations since the dawn of humankind. They have amazing camouflage that allows them to blend in with their surroundings, and they have several other avian superpowers that set them apart from all other birds. Owls are divided into two families—Tytonidae and Strigidae—and we'll be discussing both of them today. Links of Interest Owl Notes–Denver Holt Shares the Short eared Owl's Courtship Flight [VIDEO]Long-whiskered Owlet (Xenoglaux loweryi) [VIDEO]The silent flight of an owl [VIDEO]Pellet.comWhat an Owl Knows [BOOK] ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Avian Rebrand: New Names for Many North American Birds
2023/11/26
This episode—which is Number 87—is all about some big news in the birding world. The common names for about 150 North American bird species are going to change in the not-too-distant future. This comes from an announcement made by the American Ornithological Society just a few weeks ago, on November 1st. I couldn’t pass up the chance to talk about this. It’s a hot topic among birders right now. People have been asking me what I think about all these birds getting renamed. And so here we are. If you’re hearing about this for the first time, and you don’t know what I’m talking about, don’t worry—I’ll explain. Yes, this is primarily relevant to birds and the humans who love them in the Western Hemisphere. Mostly North America for now. But similar changes may be on the horizon for your local birds, wherever you live. So I think you’ll find this interesting, even if you don’t live in the US or Canada.   Links of Interest American Ornithological Society (AOS) Council Statement on English Bird NamesAOS Community Congress on English Bird Names [VIDEO]   ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Bird Beaks: The Right Tool for the Job
2023/11/10
This episode—which is Number 86—is all about bird beaks. This will be an overview of beak anatomy, function, evolution, and diversity. The head of every bird on Earth is adorned with a beak. A bill. And to the delight of us all, those beaks come in a wild variety of shapes and colors. Just picture the mugs of toucans, vultures, ducks, parrots, flamingos, and pelicans. The diversity of beak shapes like these is one of the fascinating things about birds. Birds use their beaks for all sorts of tasks. These appendages are vital tools, used for getting food, for grooming, for communication, and more.   Links of Interest  The Mark My Bird Project   ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Meadowlarks
2023/10/19
This episode—which is Number 85—is about the Meadowlarks of the world. And it’s not just those three North American species: the Western, Eastern, and Chihuahuan. There are actually 8 bird species we call meadowlarks. The other five are found primarily in South America. We’ll be talking about them today, too. Meadowlarks belong to the New World Blackbird family, Icteridae. This family includes birds like Red-winged Blackbird, Baltimore Oriole, and the Great-tailed Grackle. There’s a lot to admire about meadowlarks. The 3 yellow-breasted and 5 red-breasted meadowlark species bring color and music to the windswept grasslands of the Americas.  ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Saving Bird Species From the Brink of Extinction
2023/10/09
This is Episode 84. Our topic today is the challenge of saving bird species that are very close to extinction. Species like the Spix’s Macaw, which have tiny global populations—whether in the wild, or in captivity. Other familiar examples are the California Condor and the Whooping Crane, whose populations bottomed out at 22 and 23, respectively. Rigorous conservation programs have since given these two North American species a fighting chance at long-term survival. This episode is about species that we almost lost forever, but with great effort we’ve kept them from disappearing. Many of these species, like the California Condor, aren’t out of the woods yet. They may be in better shape now than they were a couple of decades ago, but they still need lots of help. In this episode, we’re first going to look at some of the biggest challenges faced by conservationists as they try to save species on the brink. Second, we’ll talk about the tools and methods used to save birds. ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Quails of the New World
2023/09/25
This is Episode 83. It’s all about birds in the family Odontophoridae. These are the New World quails. Why is this the family of "New World" quails? Because there’s a whole mess of birds we call quails that live in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. But those birds all belong to the pheasant family, Phasianidae. New World quails are shy birds ground-dwelling birds that walk or run around in the daytime, looking for tidbits of food in the leaf litter. If they sense any kind of stranger danger, they hunker down and hide in bushes or other vegetation. Their first instinct is to sit still and rely on their camouflage, rather than to fly away. These birds may be shy around strangers, but they’re generally very social with members of their own kind. They’re gregarious little buggers. In this episode, I go into detail about what New World quails look and sound like, about their diversity, and about the ways they live their lives.   ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Tracking Methods: How We Know Where Birds Go
2023/09/14
This is Episode 82. It's all about the ways that scientists track the movements of individual birds. The focus of today’s episode is not so much about the behaviors of birds, but about the technologies used by researchers to study bird behavior—the methods used to reveal the movements of birds. And our focus will be on the tracking of individual birds. There are other methods scientists use to record the mass movements of birds, like using radar to track flocks of migrants.  But today we’re looking at techniques that can reveal the unique paths taken by an individual bird—a sandpiper, a hawk, albatross, pheasant, penguin, or whoever.  Links of Interest  Motus    ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Sunbirds and Spiderhunters
2023/08/17
This is Episode 81. It’s all about birds in the family Nectariniidae. These are the sunbirds and the spiderhunters. If you live in or have gone birding in places like Africa, India, Southeast Asia, or Indonesia, you’re probably familiar with sunbirds. Consider yourself lucky. But if you have no idea what a sunbird or a spiderhunter is, or if you have only a vague idea, I’m excited to introduce you to this group of wonderful birds today. Links of Interest These sunbirds keep singin' their song [VIDEO]   ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Earthbound: How Birds Become Flightless
2023/08/03
This is Episode 80. It's all about flightless birds, and about the evolutionary processes that lead to flightlessness. Flightlessness in birds is, in my opinion, a fascinating scientific topic. And so here we are with this episode. Alive on the planet today, there are about 60 bird species that can’t fly. That’s only about 0.54 percent of the world’s approximately 11,000 species. It turns out there were way more flightless bird species out there before humans started exploring and colonizing every corner of the Earth. It wasn’t just the Dodo that was killed off by people. In today’s episode, we’ll look at the wonderful diversity of flightless bird species—in both the present and the past.  We’ll also talk about conservation and—perhaps the most interesting thing—the evolutionary process that leads to flightlessness. How does this weird thing happen in nature? What causes a bird species to give up its greatest superpower?   ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~ Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website  Support the show
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Podcast reviews

Read The Science of Birds podcast reviews


4.8 out of 5
536 reviews
marketpop 2024/02/16
Chickadees Titmouse
Don’t miss this episode!
Fozzy Q Bear 2024/02/12
Excellent!
Excellent podcast! I have learned a lot. Ivan obviously loves what he does and it cones through in every episode.
MarinJeanne 2023/12/29
So informative
Wonderful podcast about birds especially for beginning birders like myself. The information is presented in an easy to understand and engaging format....
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asilyellek 2023/12/29
Very fun and informative.
I like how there is a format for each podcast about individual bird species, so I know what to listen for and expect. But I love the interjections of ...
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NemoTheUPSMan 2023/12/28
Top notch
Top notch podcast about everything birds! Binge listening right now. Audio quality is superb which sometimes makes or breaks a podcast!
mituska2 2023/11/26
New names
My husband and I are new birders. I often listen to this informative podcast. Regarding renaming common birds, I am all for it. Names that are descrip...
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T&E-M 2023/11/25
Perfectly Informative
This podcast is the perfect mix of scientific background, fun facts, humor, and excitement about birds. I would highly recommend to anyone looking to ...
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emmmala 2023/11/07
Captivating
To be honest, I started listening to this podcast for lighthearted background noise to fall asleep to. Wow, did that backfire. It’s so funny and inter...
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laustur 2023/11/04
For the Love of Birds
I have tried many podcasts about birds, but this one is my favorite. Perhaps it’s due to the podcaster’s passion for birds or maybe it’s because of hi...
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MobiusTief 2023/10/30
Amazing!!!
As a bird lover this podcast gets a 10/10 from me. Funny and informative.
check all reviews on aple podcasts

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