In 1938, the Union Oil Company of California had a problem it could not solve. A 42-mile natural gas line had sprung a leak, and finding the breach by walking the line across rough terrain would be difficult, if not nearly impossible.

Then an engineer in Texas came up with a plan that involved no equipment at all, only birds.

The Idea

The idea was simple: pump a heavy dose of a strong-smelling chemical called ethyl mercaptan into the pipeline, then drive along the route and watch the sky. Wherever the gas was escaping, Turkey Vultures would gather overhead.

And that is exactly what happened. As Union Oil's engineers later described it, Turkey Vultures were seen circling above the pipeline or sitting on the ground at several points along the line. The smell of mercaptan was strong at each of those spots, and every one of them turned out to be a real leak.

The company kept using the method for years afterward. As one of their field engineers later recalled, they had stumbled onto the fact that Turkey Vultures have a remarkably well-developed sense of smell.

Why It Worked

Natural gas has no smell of its own. Gas companies add a warning odor so that leaks can be noticed, and one of the compounds commonly used for that job is ethyl mercaptan.

Ethyl mercaptan also happens to be one of the gases given off by flesh in the earliest stages of decay.

So to a Turkey Vulture, a leaking gas pipeline does not smell like an industrial accident. It smells like dinner, in this case it was spread out across 42 miles of hilly California countryside.

Meanwhile, Scientists Were Still Debating It

Here is the interesting part: while an oil company was quietly using vultures as leak detectors, scientists were still debating whether birds could smell at all, a question that had been open for over a century.

The argument began with a famous shot across the bow. In 1826, John James Audubon published a paper in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal with a title that left no doubt about his intentions: "Account of the habits of the turkey buzzard, particularly with the view of exploding the opinion generally entertained of its extraordinary power of smelling."

Audubon meant to demolish the idea, and for a long time he was widely believed. The naturalist Charles Waterton fought back in print through the 1830s with a series of rebuttals, one of them aimed squarely at Audubon's paper, and John Bachman published a defense of Audubon in response. The dispute rolled on without resolution, and a long succession of loosely controlled field tests followed over the next hundred years without settling anything definitvely.

The Conversation That Solved It

In the late 1950s, an ornithologist at the Los Angeles County Museum named Kenneth Stager was talking with field engineers at Union Oil when a retired engineer named Ralph Openshaw told him the story of the pipeline.

Stager realized he was being handed the answer to a question ornithologists had been arguing over for more than a century, so he set out to test it properly.

The Experiments

Stager's problem was that it was known vultures have superb eyesight, so any test where the bird could see the food would prove nothing, so everything he built was designed to remove sight from the equation.

First he built a machine that could produce a smell with nothing to see. A four-bladed, 20-inch exhaust fan mounted in a wooden housing pushed the odor of fresh and decomposing animal tissue out onto known air currents, with nothing visible at the site, and vultures responded to the scent alone.

Next he hid food in boxes instead. Perforated cardboard cartons were loaded with decomposing fish, abalone, ground squirrels, kangaroo rats, a domestic cat, and snakes, then concealed at test sites, and the vultures found every one of them. In one case a bird came down a canyon on a downwind course, landed, and stood motionless facing upwind toward a bait chamber hidden 75 yards away in a dense grove of pepper trees.

Finally he ran the experiment that settled the matter. Stager set out a mounted, taxidermied yearling mule deer as a purely visual decoy, and no vultures came. He then replaced the mount with a fresh deer carcass of identical size and appearance, and the vultures responded quickly, although they still did not gather to feed until they had picked up the smell.

The deer was the same shape, the same size, and in the same place as the mount before it. The only difference was odor, and odor turned out to be the thing that mattered most.

The Experiment on Old World Vultures

The most interesting part of Stager's work may be the test he ran on the other side of the world, where the study on Old World vultures produced very different results.

In early 1959, on a museum expedition to the Balaghat Forest District of Madhya Pradesh in central India, Stager found himself camped among roughly 150 Old World vultures, drawn in by the skinning of large mammal specimens. Most were White-rumped Vultures, with a scattering of Egyptian Vultures and Red-headed Vultures.

He asked the skinners to set aside more than 200 pounds of muscle from a tiger specimen, then waited until ten o'clock at night, so that no vulture could possibly have watched him do it. He and two assistants carried the meat onto a raised platform in an open, dry paddy field and buried it under a ten-inch layer of thatching straw, and each night afterward he checked that the straw had not shifted enough to expose anything.

The bait rotted, and the smell, Stager wrote, became overpowering, noticeable at a considerable distance even to the relatively weak nose of a human being.

For eleven days the vultures swarmed the camp and the surrounding fields, and not one of the three species gave the slightest sign of noticing a quarter of a ton of tiger meat sitting in the open a short walk away.

On the night before the twelfth day, Stager pulled the thatch off, and the next morning a Red-headed Vulture spotted it at once, dropped onto the platform, and started eating.

Old World vultures find their food by sight, and they are superb at it. Uncovered, the meat was spotted within hours, but smell simply does not come into play for these birds.

It Was Not the Flies, Either

There was a rival theory worth ruling out first. Some researchers had proposed that Turkey Vultures do not smell carrion at all, and instead spot the clouds of flies that gather above it.

The India experiment ruled that out too. The hidden bait was, in Stager's words, black with flies and other carrion insects, and the vultures still could not find it. If insects were the visual signal, those birds had it right in front of them for eleven days and never responded to it.

Conservation note: Around 95 percent of the vultures Stager was watching were White-rumped Vultures, then so abundant in India that they filled the great Sal trees around him day and night. Within a few decades the species had lost more than 99 percent of its population to a veterinary drug given to cattle. The flock that failed his experiment would be almost impossible to gather today.

Inside the Skull

Stager then studied vulture anatomy. Working from casts of the inside of vulture skulls, he compared the olfactory bulb, the part of the brain that processes smell, across species. The bulbs were relatively large in the New World vultures; the groups of Old World vultures had smaller bulbs.

Modern methods of study have since taken this theory further. A 2017 study measured vulture brains directly and found that a Turkey Vulture's olfactory bulbs are four times larger than a Black Vulture's, with twice as many of the output cells that carry smell signals onward, even though the Turkey Vulture's brain is about 20 percent smaller overall. These two birds share the same sky over much of the Americas, yet one of them is wired for a sense that the other barely has.

1938-1964

Stager published his study on June 30, 1964, in Contributions in Science, the journal of the Los Angeles County Museum. Sixty-three pages of experiments, results, and retesting finally closed an argument that had been running since 1826.

Union Oil's engineers had already found the answer back in 1938. They knew they were right, and they used that knowledge for years to keep a pipeline safe, even though it did not become part of ornithological knowledge for another couple of decades.

As for why New World vultures have such a strong sense of smell while their Old World cousins do not, that is a much older story. The vultures of the Americas and the vultures of Europe, Africa, and Asia are not actually close relatives at all. They arrived at the same way of life separately, and only in the Americas did any of them evolve a nose for the work, through a process called convergent evolution, which is a story for another day.

Now You Know What to Look For

The next time you see a Turkey Vulture flying low and unhurried over a field, rather than circling high on the warm air, there is a good chance it is working a scent, doing exactly what those engineers drove 42 miles of pipeline to watch for. Tell us where you have spotted one in the comments below!

International Vulture Awareness Day

International Vulture Awareness Day takes place on the first Saturday of September each year. In 2026, we'll be celebrating this special day on September 5th.

A Blue Jay looks blue for the same reason a Northern Cardinal looks red, or so it seems. The cardinal’s red comes from pigment it picks up in its diet and stores in its feathers. Blue, you would guess, works the same way: some blue pigment tucked inside a seed or plant. It is a reasonable guess, but it happens to be wrong. No bird species on Earth has ever been shown to make blue pigment. Every blue feather out there, from a Blue Jay at a backyard feeder to a Spix’s Macaw newly returned to the wild in Brazil, is pulling off a physics trick, not a biological one.

The Physics Trick Hiding in Every Blue Feather

Feathers get most of their color from three families of pigment: carotenoids (the reds, oranges, and yellows birds absorb from food), melanins (blacks, grays, and browns), and porphyrins (found in turacos and a few other birds). None of them make blue. “Blue is different,” wildlife biologist Scott Sillett of the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has explained. “No bird species can make blue from pigments. The color blue that we see on a bird is created by the way light waves interact with the feathers and their arrangement of protein molecules, called keratin.” Blue, in other words, is a structural color: an optical effect built from the physical shape of the feather rather than a dye sitting inside it.

Here is the fun part. Inside every feather barb is a spongy layer of keratin, the same protein your fingernails are made of, packed with tiny air bubbles. Those bubbles are so small you could never see them, even with a magnifying glass. When light hits that bubbly maze, blue light bounces back out toward your eyes, while a layer of dark melanin hiding underneath soaks up the rest. It is actually the same basic trick that makes the sky blue: tiny things scattering light around until mostly blue makes it back to you, as Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s Bird Academy explains. That dark melanin backing matters just as much as the bubbly keratin. Without it soaking up the leftover light, the blue would wash out into a dull, milky gray.

Scientists proved this back in 1998, using a bird of the rainforest, a Plum-throated Cotinga. They studied its blue feathers under powerful microscopes, mapped out the tiny pattern of keratin and air bubbles inside, and showed that the pattern itself was what made the blue color happen. The study was published in the journal Nature by ornithologist Richard Prum and his colleagues. Since then, scientists have found the same trick in blue bird after bluebird, all over the world. The color is not painted onto the feather. It is built into it.

Proof You Can Hold in Your Hand

You do not need a lab to see this for yourself. Blue Jays molt often, and their barred blue-and-white wing and tail feathers turn up under trees year-round. Pick one up and hold it so the sun comes from behind it rather than in front. The blue disappears right in front of you, and the feather turns a flat brownish-gray, because the color only "works" when light bounces back toward you rather than passing through.

Conservation scientist David Wiedenfeld of the American Bird Conservancy compares the structure to a prism: “In a prism you have colored light, and it refracts and divides the spectrum up. You get different colors coming out of different places. The way a bird’s feathers are, it absorbs all of the colors except for blue, which is refracted and comes back.” Blue Jays do carry melanin in their feathers, Wiedenfeld notes, but that melanin is brown, not black. “There are no blue pigments in birds,” he says flatly. Every blue feather on every bird is running some version of the same physics, even though the exact nanostructure differs from species to species.

The Same Trick, Four Times Over

What makes structural blue more than a fun demonstration is how many unrelated birds landed on the identical solution. A jay, a bunting, a kingfisher, and a macaw share almost nothing in body plan, diet, or closely related evolutionary history. What they share is a chemistry problem pigment cannot solve, and evolution found the same nanoscale workaround for each of them, independently.

The Indigo Bunting shows how temporary the trick can be. A breeding male wears full structural blue only through spring and summer. By fall he has molted into mostly brown plumage, with just tinges of blue left in the wings and tail. Cornell’s All About Birds guide puts it plainly: “Like all other blue birds, Indigo Buntings lack blue pigment. Their jewel-like color comes instead from microscopic structures in the feathers that refract and reflect blue light... Bunting plumage does contain the pigment melanin, whose dull brown-black hue you can see if you hold a blue feather up so the light comes from behind it, instead of toward it.” A bird that is only “blue” for half the year, and only from the right angle, is about as clear a demonstration of structural color as nature offers.

The Belted Kingfisher shows the trick is not limited to songbirds. Kingfishers belong to an entirely different order of birds than perching songbirds like jays and buntings, and their blue-gray plumage runs on the same keratin-and-air sponge. Researchers who examined the closely related Common Kingfisher of Europe and Asia found that its cyan and blue feathers are built from that same bubbly nanostructure, while its orange breast feathers get their color the ordinary way, from pigment sitting right next door on the very same bird. 

The Spix’s Macaw takes this trick to the extreme. A jay or a bunting mixes its structural blue with black, white, or brown, but a Spix’s Macaw is blue-gray from its head to the tip of its tail, with nothing else to hide behind. Scientists who studied its close cousin, the Scarlet Macaw, found a tangled 3D lattice of keratin rods inside its blue feathers, each rod only about 100 nanometers thick. That is roughly a thousand times thinner than a single human hair. It is the exact same trick as a Blue Jay’s feather, just built by a totally different kind of bird on the other side of the world.

Spix’s Macaws actually vanished from the wild completely around 2000, and the species was formally declared extinct in the wild in 2019. Then, starting in 2022, scientists began releasing macaws raised in captivity back into a forest in Brazil, and wild-hatched chicks have since taken flight there for the first time in decades. Every one of those famous blue feathers is running on the same tiny "nanotechnology" as a jay’s wing in a North American backyard.

What’s Your Favorite Structurally Blue Bird?

Ours might be the Indigo Bunting, a bird that spends half the year not even bothering to be blue. There's something almost funny about a color that only shows up when it's needed. What's yours?

Here’s a secret that will make you sound like an expert next time you’re at the beach: there is no such bird as a “seagull.”

Not one. Open any bird guide in the world and you won’t find the word. There are Herring Gulls and Ivory Gulls and Laughing Gulls, dozens of species in all, but not a single one of them is called a seagull.

Now, this is the point where a certain kind of birdwatcher gets smug about it, but that’s not what we’re here for. “Seagull” is a perfectly good everyday word, and nobody needs to be corrected while they’re eating an ice cream. But it is a word that hides something, and what it hides is genuinely interesting. Packed into those two little syllables are two mistakes, and the bird underneath is far more surprising than the word lets on.

Mistake One: Most of Them Aren’t Sea Birds

Let's start with “sea,” because that’s the half that goes wrong first.

Plenty of gulls hardly bother with the ocean at all. Franklin’s Gull nests in colonies on prairie lakes in the middle of Canada and the northern United States, building nests on the ground or floating them on the water. In spring, flocks feed on newly hatched insects over inland water bodies and across wet pastureland. Come autumn they leave the continent entirely for Argentina, Chile and Peru. It's only in the off-season that you'll find them on ocean coastlines.

And the gulls you do see at the seaside are often somewhere else the rest of the week. Black-headed Gulls spend much of the year hunting invertebrates in plowed fields. Gulls follow tractors, patrol reservoirs, roost on playing fields, and work landfills and supermarket parking lots a hundred miles from salt water.

If we’d named them for where most of them actually spend their time, we’d be calling them fieldgulls, parking-lotgulls, or landfillgulls.

Mistake Two: They’re Not All the Same Bird

The second mistake is sneakier. “Seagull” suggests a single generic bird: white, gray, noisy, and after your lunch. One word, one bird.

Let's consider a few of them side by side.

The Ivory Gull lives on the pack ice of the high Arctic and is pure white all over, with no gray back at all, a blue bill with a yellow tip, and black legs. It makes its living in a way no seaside scavenger would recognize: it follows polar bears across the ice and feeds on what is left of their kills. (It also eats polar bear droppings and seal placentas, which is the sort of fact that either delights you or does not.)

The Glaucous Gull is the second-largest gull on Earth, big enough to rival a Great Black-backed Gull, and it’s a serious Arctic predator that takes eggs, chicks and other birds. Nearly every gull has black wingtips; this one has no black anywhere at all, on wing or tail. It is a pale ghost of a bird.

The Slender-billed Gull of the Mediterranean has a long neck and a long tapering face, dark red bill and legs, and in the breeding season a soft pink blush across its white breast.

The Silver Gull is the bright-red-billed Australian that will absolutely steal your chips.

And the Black-headed Gull? Its head isn’t black. It’s chocolate-brown; it only looks black from a distance. The hood isn’t there most of the year either, appearing around March and fading by July. The rest of the time the bird has a white head with two dark smudges, one above and one behind the eye.

A polar-bear scavenger, an Arctic predator, a pink Mediterranean beauty, an Australian food thief, and a bird whose name is wrong twice over. That’s not one bird, a "seagull". That’s not even close.

So Why Do Gulls Seem So Alike?

Partly because in most places the ones we see really are alike, and partly because lots of gulls are genuinely difficult to identify.

We tend to meet the same few species. The gulls that do well around people are a handful of big, adaptable ones. You could spend years visiting seaside towns in Britain or North America and mostly cross paths with only three or four species, all of them white and gray and much the same shape.

And gulls change their looks as they grow up. This is the part that catches nearly everyone out. Small gulls take about two years to grow into adult plumage, and the big ones like Glaucous, Caspian and Herring can take four. A young gull may be a mottled brown bird that looks nothing like its parents. So one flock might hold a single species wearing four different plumages, alongside several other species that closely resemble each other.

Experienced birdwatchers find this hard too. The Caspian Gull was taxonomically treated as a subspecies of the Herring Gull until relatively recently, and separating the two is one of birdwatching’s classic puzzles (in fact, the entire Herring Gull complex is somewhat fraught and complicated). The clues are all in the shape: a long slender bill, a sloping forehead, a small dark eye, long pale legs. Individuals may be carefully studied and still be noted by the birder as "probably.”

What the Word Costs

Here’s why it’s worth a bit of care.

The Herring Gull is the archetypal “seagull”: the big pink-legged one from the seaside, the one making lighthearted newspaper headlines about stolen food. It is also Red-listed in the UK, the highest level of conservation concern, after long-term declines estimated at around 60%. Britain and Ireland hold a substantial share of the entire world population.

Meanwhile, the Ivory Gull is classed as Near Threatened and falling, and the main reason is the loss of the sea ice its whole life is built around. The Canadian population dropped by roughly 80% between the 1980s and the early 2000s.

And the Silver Gull? Booming. It has adapted so well to towns and beaches that its numbers have risen wherever people gather.

Three birds. One collapsing, one in serious long-term trouble, one thriving. And one word, “seagull,” that flattens all three into the same slightly annoying bird at the beachside snack bar. When every gull is the same bird, a species quietly disappearing looks exactly like a species doing fine.

You Only Have to Learn One

You don’t need to identify every gull in the flock. Honestly, nobody does. But learning to name one can change how the rest look.

Start with what’s easy to see:

• Legs. Pink, yellow, red, or black? Often the fastest clue there is.
• Bill. A red spot, a black ring, a plain yellow bill, or bright red all over?
• Wingtips. How much black, or is there any at all?
• Size. Compare it to the gulls standing next to it, not to a bird in a book.

Pick the most distinctive bird in the flock and work out what it is. Next time, you’ll more easily spot it, and everything around it will suddenly look different by comparison.

That’s the whole trick. Not knowing every gull, just knowing that there’s something there to know.

What’s Your Favorite Gull?

Ours might be the Ivory Gull, following polar bears across the sea ice at the top of the world. Or the beautifully plumaged Heermann's Gull, with its subtle gray gradients. Which one would you pick? Tell us in the comments below!

Do birds have ears? You might think about birds like Great Horned Owl, with their ear-like feather tufts. But those aren't ears. What about birds with 'ear' in their name, like the Eared Grebe, named for the golden feathers breeding adults have at the side of the head. Those golden feathers aren't their ears, either.

But of course all birds definitely have ears—they're just not easy to spot. Unlike mammals, birds don’t have external ear flaps (called pinnae). Instead, their ears are small openings located on the sides of their heads, usually hidden under feathers. These openings lead to an internal ear structure that helps them process sound very efficiently.

Most birds rely heavily on their sense of hearing for survival. Whether it's detecting predators, communicating with flock members, or navigating during flight, hearing plays a vital role in their daily lives. Some birds have even evolved specialized adaptations to improve their hearing abilities.

One of the most fascinating examples of this is found in owls. Many owl species have asymmetrical ear openings, with their ears positioned at different heights on their heads. This unique feature allows them to pinpoint the exact location of a sound in three-dimensional space. When an owl hears a noise, such as the rustling of a mouse in the grass, the sound reaches each ear at slightly different times and volumes. The owl’s brain processes this information to zero in on the prey with incredible accuracy, even in complete darkness.

The shape and placement of feathers around a bird’s face also help with hearing. Again in owls, the facial disc can act like a satellite dish, collecting and funneling sound toward the ears. This gives them an edge in hunting by ear alone.

Birds that live in noisy environments, like cities, may have adapted to filter out background noise. Some songbirds can change the pitch or volume of their calls to be heard over traffic or other urban sounds. 

Not all birds have super-sensitive hearing, though. Species that rely more on sight, like hawks or hummingbirds, may not have the same auditory adaptations as owls or nightjars. But even these birds still depend on their hearing to some extent, for detecting threats, finding mates, or raising chicks.

Interestingly, some studies suggest that certain birds can hear infrasound (very low-frequency sounds), which helps them detect distant storms or earthquakes. Pigeons, for example, might use low-frequency sounds to navigate during long flights. This type of hearing ability is still being researched, but it points to just how diverse and specialized avian hearing can be.

Another cool fact: bird ears are involved in keeping their balance, just like in humans. The inner ear contains structures that help birds stay upright and steady during flight, landings, and perching.

While the ears of birds with feathered heads are not usually visible, the ears, or rather ear holes, on birds with bare heads might be easier to find. Can you spot the ears on these three birds? Do you recognize the species? (Hint: you can click on each bird to learn more).

Australia is famous for its unique wildlife, and its birds are no exception. While many birds are known for their songs and chirps, some Aussie species stand out for their unusual, surprising, or downright strange vocalizations.

Here are four Australian birds you might hear before you see, each with a sound that's anything but ordinary.

😂 Laughing Kookaburra

The Laughing Kookaburra’s call is one of the most iconic sounds of the Australian bush. It starts with a chuckle and builds into full-blown laughter, echoing through forests, suburbs, and even city parks.

Despite its comical sound, this bird is a serious predator, feeding on insects, lizards, and small snakes. Early mornings and evenings are the best times to hear their territorial "laugh battles."

🎧 Sounds like: Maniacal, human-like laughter

🦜 Gang-gang Cockatoo

With a scruffy crest and a cute, chunky beak, the Gang-gang Cockatoo might not look intimidating, but its call is unforgettable. When flying or perched, it makes a sound that many Aussies compare to a creaky door or a cork being pulled from a bottle.

These birds live in cooler forests of southeastern Australia and are often seen in pairs or small groups.

🎧 Sounds like: A rusty hinge or squeaky garden gate

🎭 Superb Lyrebird

The Superb Lyrebird is a true mimic master. This shy forest bird has one of the most complex vocal repertoires in the world, copying other bird species, and even artificial sounds like camera shutters, chainsaws, and car alarms.

During breeding season, males put on elaborate vocal and visual displays, mimicking dozens of birds in rapid sequence while fanning out their incredible tail feathers.

🎧 Sounds like: Everything! Other birds, machinery, even human-made noises

🕶️ Black Currawong

Found mostly in Tasmania, the Black Currawong is a large, all-black bird with bright yellow eyes and a powerful bill. Its calls are loud, varied, and often have a flute-like or croaky tone, sometimes compared to a crow trying to sing opera.

They’re clever, curious birds, often seen patrolling picnic areas or scavenging in parks.

🎧 Sounds like: Flute-like whistles, warbles, and croaks

🐧 Little Penguin

Found along southern Australia’s coastlines, Little Penguins may look cute, but their vocalizations are loud and bizarre, ranging from braying donkey-like calls to guttural growls and honks. Their vocal style is harsh and surprising, especially when heard at night in a penguin colony!

These calls help individuals recognize their mates and chicks in the noisy crowd.

🎧 Sounds like: A baby donkey, a grumbling stomach, or something out of a cartoon horror movie.

🎧 Why Do These Birds Sound So Weird?

Bird calls serve all kinds of purposes: marking territory, attracting mates, or warning off predators. In Australia's varied ecosystems, birds have evolved unique sounds to stand out in the crowd, or blend in cleverly by mimicking others.

Want to explore more strange and beautiful bird calls? Visit a local nature reserve with your ears open -- you never know what you’ll hear! Meanwhile, we'll be listening out for these birds during our travels through Australia. We hope we can hear some of them!

Every October, millions of birds take to the skies as they travel thousands of miles toward their wintering grounds. To celebrate World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD), one week from today on October 11, 2025, we’re spotlighting some birds that are true champions of long-distance travel.

These species make epic journeys across oceans, continents, and time zones—and many return to the same place every year!

Arctic Tern: The Ultimate Globe-Trotter

The Arctic Tern holds the record for the longest migration in the animal kingdom. These sleek white seabirds breed in the Arctic and fly all the way to Antarctica for the southern summer—a round trip of over 44,000 miles (71,000 km) each year!

That means an Arctic Tern sees two summers every year and experiences more daylight than any other animal on Earth.

Bar-tailed Godwit: Nonstop Flight Record-Holder

In 2022, a satellite-tagged Bar-tailed Godwit flew from Alaska to Australia nonstop—a journey of over 8,400 miles (13,500 km) in 11 days. No food, no rest, just pure endurance.

These shorebirds rely on healthy wetlands to fuel up before their flights, making habitat conservation vital to their survival.

Swainson’s Hawk: From Prairie to Pampas

Swainson’s Hawks breed in the grasslands of western North America and migrate to Argentina for the winter. That’s a trip of nearly 6,000 miles (9,600 km)—each way!

They form large flocks during migration, sometimes called “kettles,” and ride thermals across the sky like gliders.

What You Can Do to Help Migrating Birds

Migration is dangerous. Birds face threats from habitat loss, window collisions, and light pollution. Here are 3 easy things you can do at home to help birds on the move:

1. Make windows bird-safe
   Use decals, tape, or screens to prevent deadly collisions. Birds often don’t see glass.

2. Turn off outdoor lights at night
   Bright lights disorient migrating birds. Go dark, especially during peak migration.

3. Plant native plants
   Native trees and shrubs provide natural food and shelter. Bonus: You’ll attract more birds to your yard!

Whether it’s flying from pole to pole or crossing entire oceans, migratory birds are some of the most incredible travelers on the planet. This World Migratory Bird Day, let’s celebrate their journeys—and do our part to help them get there safely.

Which migratory bird is your favorite? What will you do to celebrate migratory birds next weekend? Let us know in the comments!

Vultures and condors come with a host of quirky nicknames—some endearing, some downright odd. Exploring these names is like uncovering a mini time capsule of cultural, historical, and regional perspectives on these misunderstood birds.

Ossifrage and Lammergeier

The Bearded Vulture goes by a couple of striking names. The name Lammergeier comes from German, meaning lamb‑vulture. This stems from old beliefs that these magnificent birds preyed on young lambs. Another name, no longer in common use, Ossifrage, means bone-breaker. 

Pharaoh’s Chicken

The Egyptian Vulture is also known by the playful nickname Pharaoh’s Chicken. In ancient Egypt, the species was revered as sacred, and associated with the goddess Nekhbet, seen as a protector of the pharaoh and families. Its image even appeared in hieroglyphs and royal symbolism, earning it this memorable moniker. The bird was both common and royal, giving it the funny nickname.

Monk Vulture

The largest Old World species, the Cinereous Vulture, is sometimes called the Monk Vulture, or simply Monk. This alternative name refers to the bald head and the hood-like ruff of feathers that evoke a monk’s cowl. 

John Crow

In some parts of the Caribbean, the Turkey Vulture is also known as John Crow. You can learn more about the meaning behind this name and other lore shared through generations in Jamaica about this common bird from the post on 10,000 Birds: Headman John Crow.

Buzzards, Vultures, and Hawks, Oh My!

In North America, New World vultures are sometimes called buzzards, a term historically reserved for Old World buteos like hawks. For instance, the Turkey Vulture may be called a Turkey Buzzard, or even Red-necked Buzzard. This mix-up arises because buzzard actually refers to a different group of birds in Europe. It's technically a mislabel, but entrenched in the vernacular.  Early North American settlers from the Old World may have mistaken soaring vultures for the familiar buzzards they knew back home, and the name stuck.

Why These Names Matter

Nicknames offer a peek into the culture and history surrounding a species. Some reflect ancient beliefs, others regional habits, and even glimpses into human creativity -- or misunderstanding.

Late summer is a great time for berry-loving birds. As wild berries ripen, many species take advantage of the sweet, energy-rich food source. These fruits provide a boost for birds preparing for fall migration or molting. Here are five birds that especially enjoy berries this time of year.

Cedar Waxwing

Cedar Waxwings are perhaps the most famous berry-eaters in North America. These sleek birds with silky plumage and bright red wing tips are often found in flocks near fruiting trees and shrubs. In late summer, they gorge on dogwood, serviceberry, and elderberry. Cedar Waxwings are such fruit fanatics that they’re one of the few North American birds that can survive almost entirely on fruit for weeks at a time. They’re also known to pass berries to one another as part of their courtship behavior.

American Robin

Though often associated with earthworms, American Robins are also big fans of fruit. In late summer, their diet shifts toward berries like chokecherries, mountain ash, and wild grapes. Robins are commonly seen in backyards hopping between berry-laden bushes or perched in fruiting trees. These berries help fuel their southward migration and also support young birds, just learning how to be a bird, that fledged earlier in the season.

Baltimore Oriole

Bright and bold, Baltimore Orioles are nectar and insect feeders in spring, but they also go crazy for berries later in the summer. They’re especially attracted to dark fruits like mulberries and blackberries. If you live in the eastern U.S., you might spot them plucking ripe fruit with their pointed bills. At this time of year, orioles are getting ready for a long migration to Central and South America, and berries give them the energy they need.

Gray Catbird

Gray Catbirds are noisy mimics that love dense shrubs—especially those loaded with fruit. Late summer is prime time for catbirds to load up on berries like elderberry, viburnum, and honeysuckle. They’re often heard before they’re seen, giving their signature mew call. If you want to attract catbirds, planting native berry-producing shrubs is a great way to start.

Northern Mockingbird

Northern Mockingbirds are known for their ability to mimic other birds’ songs, but they also have a strong preference for berries, especially in late summer. They’ll fiercely defend berry bushes from other birds, claiming the food for themselves. Look for them around fruiting trees like holly or firethorn, where they may perch conspicuously and chase away intruders. Mockingbirds often remain on territory year-round, so plants that offer late summer berries are important for both feeding and defending their space.

If you want to support berry-loving birds in your yard, consider planting native fruiting shrubs and trees. Species like serviceberry, elderberry, dogwood, and chokecherry are excellent choices. Avoid invasive plants like multiflora rose and bush honeysuckle, which can do more harm than good to local ecosystems.

Here in Florida and across the southeast, American Beautyberry shrubs provide good fuel for migratory birds that spend the winter here, and for the many migrants that stop off in the Sunshine State before heading further south for the season.

Watching birds feast on berries is a late-summer treat. Whether you're in a city park, backyard, or forest edge, keep an eye out—you might see these birds at their hungriest and most active.

If you’ve ever watched a pigeon strut across a sidewalk, you’ve probably noticed its distinctive head-bobbing walk. It looks quirky, even a little funny, but there’s an important reason birds like pigeons move this way—it helps them see the world clearly as they move.

Birds rely heavily on vision to find food, avoid predators, and navigate their environments. For most bird species, sharp vision is critical. But unlike humans, birds don’t have the same head and neck structure to stabilize their view with eye movements alone. Instead, they use a clever trick: they move their heads in a way that keeps their vision steady while their body moves forward.

The key is a process called head stabilization. When a pigeon walks, it pushes its head forward, then holds it still in space as its body catches up. This pause creates a moment of stable vision, allowing the bird to clearly see objects in its environment. The head then snaps forward again, repeating the cycle. So what looks like a bobbing motion is actually a well-timed system of keeping the head still for just long enough to take in a clear image.

Studies using high-speed video have shown that the “bob” is made up of two phases: a hold phase, where the head stays in place, and a thrust phase, where it quickly moves forward. During the hold phase, the bird gets a steady view of the world. This is especially helpful for depth perception and detecting motion, both of which are harder if the entire field of view is constantly shifting.

Not all birds bob their heads, though. Species that fly a lot or hunt in the air, like hawks or swallows, tend to rely more on rapid eye movements and other methods of visual stabilization. But for ground-dwellers, especially those with relatively long necks, head-bobbing is an efficient solution. It’s even been observed in cranes, herons, and some parrots.

Interestingly, if you were to place a pigeon on a treadmill moving at the right speed, it will stop bobbing its head entirely. That’s because the bird’s body isn’t moving forward in relation to the ground, so there’s no need to stabilize its vision. The head remains still because the view doesn’t change.

This behavior gives a window into how birds have adapted their bodies and behaviors to suit their environments. It’s a great example of how something that looks funny to us serves a vital purpose in the wild. Next time you see a pigeon walking down the street with that familiar bob, you’ll know it’s not just being quirky—it’s using a built-in visual system to make sense of the world.

Did you know that the White Ibis is sometimes called the "hurricane bird"? This coastal wader, known for its bright white feathers, pinkish-red bill, and curved posture, has a reputation for behaving in ways that seem to predict the weather. The nickname comes from a mix of science and folklore, especially in hurricane-prone states like Birdorable's home here in Florida.

One of the main reasons White Ibises have earned this nickname is their tendency to change locations before a storm. Observers have long noted that large flocks will move inland from the coast before a hurricane or severe weather hits. It's as if they can sense the shift in atmospheric pressure or other environmental cues, prompting them to seek safer ground. This behavior isn’t just a fluke—many coastal birds have evolved to respond to changing conditions, but the White Ibis seems to do it in especially noticeable numbers.

In southern communities, this behavior has turned into local lore. People say that when they see White Ibises gathering in unusual numbers, flying away from the coast, or changing their feeding habits, it's time to keep an eye on the weather forecast. In this way, White Ibises have become an unofficial early-warning system. While not a replacement for meteorology, they add a natural signal that some folks still trust.

Adding to their "storm bird" reputation is the fact that White Ibises are often among the first birds to return to coastal wetlands after a hurricane has passed. Their return can be seen as a small sign of recovery, a symbol of the ecosystem beginning to bounce back. Seeing them wade through flooded marshes or forage in newly settled areas can be a comforting sight to people living in storm-hit regions.

White Ibises are common in southeastern wetlands, often foraging in groups in shallow water. They use their long, curved bills to probe for insects, crustaceans, and small fish. They nest in colonies, often with other wading birds, and their social nature makes their movements more noticeable to birdwatchers and locals alike.

Hurricane season in the southeastern U.S. runs from June through November, so it's the perfect time to watch White Ibis behavior closely. Whether you're a birder keeping field notes or just someone who enjoys spotting birds in your neighborhood, the presence—or sudden absence—of these birds might hint at changes ahead.

At Birdorable, we love sharing fun facts like this with our readers and fans. Our Birdorable White Ibis might not predict a storm, but it's ready to brighten your day no matter the weather!