Image: The Ultimate Bird Drawing Throwdown Showdown Graphic featuring images of David Sibley and H. Jon Benjamin

Join BirdNote tomorrow, November 30th!

Illustrator David Sibley and actor H. Jon Benjamin will face off in the bird illustration battle of the century during BirdNote's Year-end Celebration and Auction!

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Shows With Contributions by Chris Peterson

Northern Pintail

Earth Day

Northern Bobwhite ... Evening Grosbeaks ... Boreal Chickadees ... Common Terns ... and Northern Pintails, like this one ... the populations of all are in decline, mostly due to habitat loss. On Earth Day, join those who are finding ways to conserve the natural resources that sustain the…
A Red Bird-of-Paradise swings beneath a branch, showing its long sweeping red wing feathers and tail

Kingdom of Rarities - Featuring Eric Dinerstein

Why are some creatures rare and others common? What forces – natural and manmade – cause rarity? Eric Dinerstein travels far and wide for answers. He wonders how different the world could be with a few changes: “. . . what if we started caring about rare wildlife with the same intensity as…
Winter Wren

Winter Wren in a Carolina Cathedral, With Gordon Hempton

Gordon Hempton, the Sound Tracker, records the sounds of nature in pristine places. Mesmerized by a Winter Wren singing in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest of the Carolinas, Gordon chased the bird up and down a mountain before capturing its song at close range. But when he listened to the…
Geese in flight over a marsh

Spring, The Sky Rippled with Geese - With Maria Schneider

Birds provide a lot of inspiration for composer Maria Schneider, whose album titled Winter Morning Walks won three Grammy awards in 2014. One song from that album, “Spring, The Sky Rippled With Geese,” features Ted Kooser’s poem of the same title. Here’s what Maria says about spring: “That…
Varied Thrush

Secretive Varied Thrush

Except in winter, when it gathers in loose flocks to move to lower elevations, this shy bird prefers solitude. The intricate pattern of color on its wings resembles dappled sunlight on the forest floor. Naturalist Louis Agassiz Fuertes called the song of the Varied Thrush, "... as…
Crows at a crow funeral - illustration by Tony Angell

Crow Funeral - with Tony Angell

Tony Angell, along with Professor John Marzluff of the University of Washington, wrote the book, Gifts of the Crow: How Perception, Emotion, and Thought Allow Smart Birds to Behave Like Humans. Tony says, "A crow 'funeral' is where the deceased bird is surrounded by members of the same…
Saw-whet Owl

Northern Saw-whet Owls - Common but Unknown

Northern Saw-whet Owls reveal we have much to learn about the world of birds. Author and naturalist Scott Weidensaul shares his insight: “Here’s a species that up until the early to mid-1990s was considered to be rare in most of its range . . . It turns out this is one of the most common…
Black-crowned Night Heron

Habitat and the Tipping Point Part II

As our climate changes, restoring coastal wetlands will be increasingly important for the welfare of people and birds. As manager of the McKinney National Wildlife Refuge in Long Island Sound, Rick Potvin oversees coastal and island habitat for wildlife. Rick and communities along the…
Patrick Comins holding owl

Patrick Comins, on Being a Conservationist

Patrick Comins, executive director of Connecticut Audubon, explains what being a conservationist means to him. "If you've ever seen a Scarlet Tanager you don't even have to describe how wonderful they are. It's this variety and diversity of birds that really got me interested. While a lot…
Sandhill Cranes

Sandhill Cranes - Interview with Hank Lentfer

Hank Lentfer, author and lifelong Alaskan, helped establish a 4,000-acre refuge for Sandhill Cranes—the Gustavus Forelands Preserve. Today, some 20,000 Sandhill Cranes use the preserve to rest and refuel. Along the way, they've helped Hank make his own journey—one from despair to hope. "It…