Okay, But... Birds

Most people picture a bird-friendly yard and imagine feeder, birdbath, maybe a decorative birdhouse with mortgage vibes. And feeders are great. But a feeder can give you the illusion of helping birds without creating the thing birds need most: habitat.
In this episode, Dr. Doug Tallamy, Professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, joins Scott to explain why your yard is conservation infrastructure in disguise, and what it actually takes to turn it into a place birds can live, breed, and thrive.
In this episode you'll hear about:
Why "plant natives" is just the beginning, and which keystone plants actually move the needle for birds
The surprising reason a beautiful all-native garden can still function like a food desert
What Homegrown National Park is, and how your yard fits into a continent-wide conservation strategy

Ready to do more than feed birds? Join the Homegrown National Park pledge at homegrownnationalpark.org and start shifting your patch of earth.
All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Chestnut-sided warbler audio contributed by Jay McGowan, ML191085
Northern parula audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML79471
Carolina chickadee audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML100756
Oriental pied-hornbill audio contributed by Warren Y. Brockelman, ML170843
Northern cardinal audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML249823
Black-capped chickadee audio contributed by Jay McGowan, ML202239

What do feathers, toothless beaks, and a 66-million-year-old asteroid have in common? Paleontologist Dr. Daniel Field, University of Cambridge, joins Scott to unpack how birds evolved from dinosaurs, and why defining "bird" is trickier than you think.
In this episode you'll hear about:
Why Archaeopteryx had half the features of a modern bird and lacked the other half, and what that tells us about 150 million years of evolution
The "Wonderchicken," a tiny fossil from the border of Belgium and the Netherlands that rewrote what we know about birds surviving the asteroid impact
How micro CT scanning lets scientists digitally peer inside rocks to study fossils at micron scale without ever touching them

Listen wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Great Spotted Kiwi, William V. Ward, ML810
Southern Cassowary, Linda Macaulay, ML57219
Elegant Trogon, David L. Ross, Jr., ML199536
Green Heron,, Bob McGuire, ML229117

Asteriornis imagery and video courtesy of Dr. Daniel Field, University of Cambridge.

Some birds skip having their own families and spend years helping raise their siblings instead. It sounds like altruism, but it's probably more complicated than that. In this episode, host Dr. Scott Taylor is joined by Dr. Nancy Chen, UCLA, to unpack the notion that it takes a village to raise a child chick.
In this episode, you'll hear about:
Why some birds spend years as unpaid helpers before starting families of their own
What the Florida Scrub-Jay's 50-year study at Archbold Biological Station revealed about cooperative breeding
Whether helping your siblings is really altruism or just evolution doing it’s thing

If you enjoy this one, follow Okay, But... Birds and share it with a friend who thinks family is complicated.
All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Florida Scrub-Jay audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML229211
American Crow video contributed by Jay McGowan, ML472843
Superb Fairywren audio contributed by Vicki Powys, ML233810
Superb Starling audio contributed by Myles E. W. North, ML14855
Red-necked Phalarope audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML235440
Northern Jacana audio contributed by Gerrit Vyn, ML140224

Winter isn’t just “cold” for a bird, it’s a nightly survival math problem: generate enough heat, lose as little as possible, and don’t get eaten while you’re fueling up. In this episode, host Dr. Scott Taylor is joined by Dr. Maria Stager, UMass Amherst, to break down the clever physiology and weird little behaviors that let birds ride out freezing temps, from icy duck feet to “feather puffball” mode to energy-saving torpor.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
How birds keep their feet from freezing
How feathers and shivering muscles act like a built-in winter jacket
How birds manage energy overnight, including fat, roosting, and torpor

All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Dark-eyed Junco audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML94361
Purple Martin audio contributed by Arthur A. Allen, ML8086
Willow Ptarmigan audio contributed by Leonard J. Peyton, ML50031
Common Poorwill audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML191125
Snowy Owl audio contributed by Gerrit Vyn, ML138288
Ruffed Grouse audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML216783
Mallard audio contributed by Mike Andersen, ML136504
Tree Swallow audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML233306
Black-capped Chickadee audio contributed by Jay McGowan, ML202239
Redpoll (Common) audio contributed by William V. Ward, ML12745

E11: Okay, but why is a bird’s world more colorful?
Bird vision isn’t just “better than ours,” It’s operating in a different color space, including ultraviolet. In Host Dr. Scott Taylor is joined by Dr. Allison Shultz, Associate Curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, to break down what birds can actually see, how scientists measure color in the real world, and why feather color is one of evolution’s most powerful (and misunderstood) tools.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
How birds see a whole extra dimension of color (including UV) and why we can’t truly experience “bird vision” without the biology to match
How feathers make color through pigments and nano-structures
How studying bird color is changing fast, from spectrophotometers to UV-capable cameras, plus why female coloration and “dirty birds” are reshaping what we think we know

All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Northern Cardinal audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML249823
House Finch audio contributed by William R. Fish, ML12932
Guinea Turaco audio contributed by Mike Andersen, ML140992
Northern Jacana audio contributed by Gerrit Vyn, ML140224
Common Eider audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML235534
Mountain Bluebird audio contributed by Dave Herr, ML47592
Palm Tanager audio contributed by Curtis Marantz, ML88937
Greater Bird-of-Paradise video contributed by Tim Laman, ML465370
King Bird-of-Paradise video contributed by Tim Laman, ML455252
Paradise Tanager audio contributed by Curtis Marantz, ML127399

Additional media used with permission under Creative Commons:
Plum-throated Cotinga (Cotinga maynana) in Peru image contributed by Harsha Jayaramaiah, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Lovely Cotinga (Cotinga amabilis) image contributed by desertnaturalist, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons