A waterfall roars in a box canyon deep in the Cascade Mountains. Just after sunset on a July evening, a slender, dark shape—a Black Swift—arcs into view, just in front of the waterfall. The swift builds its nest in crevices behind waterfalls in the western mountains, from British Columbia…

Wimbledon is legendary: the verdant green of the courts, the throngs of fans in sun hats, sightings of royalty ... and lots of pigeons. Since the tennis tournament began in 1877, pigeons nested in the stands and generally made a mess of things. Today, though, very few pigeons attend…

At less than five inches long, the Red-breasted Nuthatch is the mid-sized nuthatch of the three species in the Northwest, and the most familiar. The White-breasted Nuthatch - like this one here - is the largest of the three, and boasts a louder, honking voice. The smallest of the trio is…

Charles Darwin's insights during his travels on the HMS Beagle in the 1830s revolutionized the natural sciences. And his personal accounts of the journey, such as his encounters with Magellanic Penguins, tell captivating stories. As an experiment, Darwin stood between a penguin and the sea…

Black-headed Grosbeaks and Evening Grosbeaks belong to entirely different families of birds. Both groups evolved oversized bills for opening tough seeds. The Black-headed Grosbeak is closely related to the cardinal, while the Evening Grosbeak is close kin to the goldfinch. The common name…

No song epitomizes the open spaces of the American West like that of the Western Meadowlark. Indeed, the song of the Western Meadowlark can be rightly acclaimed the essential musical theme of much of the West. It's a bird of grass - and sage-lands, fields and pastures, meadows and prairies…

The native birds of Hawaii, like birds of many island groups, have been hit hard by human-induced changes. This Kauai O'o, a forest bird, has not been seen in 20 years. Its bell-like song once rang widely through the mist-shrouded rainforest. There may still be time to save other birds…

BirdNote listener Catherine Alexander recently told of watching a Bushtit, in search of the perfect bit of stuff for its nest. It found a tattered, old sock, hanging from a tree. The Bushtit grabbed a frayed bit of elastic and pulled. The elastic held strong. Bushtit pulled. Elastic held…

African Penguins stand just over two feet tall and weigh up to nine pounds. They nest in burrows six feet deep. The African Penguin now faces severe challenges. But even today, at Boulders Beach near Cape Town, it's possible to walk the beach among these charming birds and hear their…

Roughly 99% of a swallow's diet is flying insects. They gulp down millions of flies, mosquitoes, and agricultural pests, in the course of feeding themselves and their young. The world population of Barn Swallows is estimated to be 190 million. If each ate just 350 insects per day, that…