The emphatic hoots of a pair of Barred Owls resonate in the still of a winter's night. Like many owls, Barred Owls initiate their vocal courtship in winter. And they're among the most vocal. These owls have more than a dozen calls, ranging from a "siren call" to a "wail" to a wonderfully…

Bluebirds can bring flashes of azure color and mellow songs to where you live. The best way to bring them close to home is with nest boxes. You’ll need an untreated wood box with a one-and-a-half inch hole five feet above the ground. Finding the right place for the nest box is important…

Most baby birds are adorable little floofs — but not all of them. The tongue and palate of estrildid finch chicks are strangely spotted and ringed. They display these markings while they beg for food. Most species’ chicks have mouth markings in colors ranging from black or white to bright…

Great Horned Owls excel at nocturnal hunting, thanks to their acute senses and stealth — but their feet let them secure squirming prey. The outermost of their four toes can rotate forward or backward, an advantage that most other birds of prey lack, letting them capture animals as large as…

Red-bellied Woodpeckers are bold, conspicuous, and vocal, thriving in rural and urban areas east of the Mississippi. Like most woodpeckers, Red-bellieds eat lots of insects. But they also like nuts, berries, and seeds. They can be attracted to back yards with suet cakes, berry bushes, or…

Blackbird songs have a strange music. The Red-winged Blackbird can be heard in nearly every marsh on the continent — bold, brassy, and piercing. The songs may not seem musical, but they definitely get your attention. Brewer’s Blackbirds, which live in open habitats like farms and…

It's winter, and apples litter the ground. A few still hang, frozen and thawed again and again. Suddenly a flock of hundreds of birds rises from the ground beneath the trees, swarming in tight formation, wing-tip to wing-tip. Bohemian Waxwings are erratic winter visitors from their nesting…

The Tui is one of New Zealand’s most remarkable birds, intelligent and with iridescent feathers. Its down-curved beak fits perfectly into native flowers. But the Tui is best known for its voice. Each Tui’s complex song is slightly different, a colorful mix of musical notes and offbeat…

The nuthatch’s beak is all business. Long, slender, sharp: it can pluck a tiny spider from a crevice in the bark or carve a nest hole right through the outer hide of a tree. And the Brown-headed Nuthatch is even known to use tools! Picking up a flake of pine bark in its beak, the bird uses…

The Common Murre is among the few species of birds that can "fly" under water. When above the water, the 18"-long murre must flap frantically to stay aloft. But beneath the waves, with its flipper-like wings partly extended, it is a streamlined, masterful swimmer. Common Murres, black and…