Birds in Paradise

07/19/2024

07/02/2024

Found in northern Venezuela and into Colombia, the yellow-knobbed curassow regularly inhabits forested landscapes along wetland areas, sometimes expanding into valleys and nearby foothills. These beautiful birds can be found in groups of up to 15 individuals, foraging for fruits, seeds, and insects as they move throughout their home range. Photo taken at Sylvan Heights Bird Park.

03/04/2024

First day of Lights Out, Texas! Migration season has started. 1 in 3 birds migrating in the U.S. will pass through Texas this spring. Turn off your non-essential lights between 11pm-6am to help our feathered friends who travel at night.











.y.gente

11/06/2023

07/02/2023

04/25/2023

Oh no! You’ve found a baby bird on the ground, apparently alone and in distress. Its tiny chirps may pull at your heartstrings, but stopping and assessing the situation is essential. Here’s our guide on how and when to assist baby birds: https://bit.ly/3HdXnX0

03/02/2023

A subspecies of great horned owl, this tundra-dependent bird ranges from Mackenzie, British Columbia east to the southern Hudson Bay. This subspecies is the palest form of horned owl, with predominantly white plumage mixed with only a touch of black. It is also considered one of the largest-bodied subspecies, with a wing chord length of almost fourteen inches. Photo taken at Fontenelle Forest.

02/07/2023

01/28/2023

Circuitry of the pallium mirrors the mammalian neocortex

01/26/2023

The Blue-throated Hillstar was only discovered in 2017. It was immediately deemed Critically Endangered: fewer than 750 individuals survive on a few windswept mountains in southwest Ecuador. We're working tirelessly to help it. Learn more: https://abcbirds.org/bird/blue-throated-hillstar/

Photo: Blue-throated Hillstar by Roger Ahlman

01/17/2023

A resident of eastern Australia, the brilliantly colored turquoise parrot nests in the hollows of gum trees and can often be found in grasslands and open woodland areas. Living mostly close to home, these birds will occasionally wander for food, feeding on grass, seeds, flowers, and fruit. Photo taken at .

12/04/2022

Despite scientific obstacles and years of infighting, a reintroduction project is finally poised to release captive-bred birds back to the wild

11/16/2022

It's a perfect shot for this week's Photo Award theme "Raptors".

Here we have a Northern Pygmy Owl captured by Tim Nicol in WA, USA.

Northern Pygmy Owls are purportedly "sit-and-wait" predators, though they in fact hunt somewhat actively, moving from perch to perch with short flights, and pursuing prey at all levels of forest structure.

11/11/2022

"Flowers are like friends, they bring colour to your world."

And we think birds do too! Don't you just love the colour explosion in this capture?

Here we have a Vigors's Sunbird captured by Mahesh Jagdale Patil in India. The male Vigors's Sunbird has a scarlet throat and breast, while the rest of its underparts are uniformly grey. Its wings are grey-brown and lack yellowish-olive edges. However, it is yellow on the lower back, and the tail is bottle green.

The female's upper parts are dark olive, while its underparts are grey. A male who has not yet matured is similar to the female, but it has a dull scarlet throat and breast.

11/07/2022

11/07/2022

Each romantic story shares every detailed feather of the dainty darlings.

10/19/2022

Woowww!!! Impressive image.. 🦉🤎

10/17/2022

It is all due to the diffraction of light through the wings of the Jacobin hummingbird. People find this phenomenon too magical to be true.

10/15/2022

Inspired by Nature.

In the early 1900s, the Shinkansen bullet trains in Japan were conceived as a means of high-speed travel.

However, they encountered a big problem.
When the trains entered a tunnel traveling at a speed of about 320kph they generated noise levels that could be heard 400 meters away. This was due to changes in air resistance when the trains entered tunnels creating low-frequency atmospheric pressure waves.
They needed a structural redesign.
They had to identify how they could deal with abrupt changes in air resistance around them.

Cue, the Kingfisher.

The Kingfisher bird is one that eats fish and therefore has to be unnoticed by its swift-moving prey. To make this possible,
kingfishers have long, pointed, wedge-shaped beaks and heads, limiting water disruption and noise production so as to keep prey unaware.

Tests showed that objects shaped like the Kingfisher’s beak created less pressure waves, and this was therefore the perfect design for the Shinkansen trains. The new Kingfisher beak-style trains produce 30% less air pressure, use 15% less electricity, and are 10% faster.

Reference: Gene Technology Access Centre
Image: Malachite Kingfisher photographed by Kostadin Luchansky in Angola.