It’s that time of year here in our neck of Pennsylvania when it’s prime nesting season for our feathered friends. Case in point: Our home in Northbrook is now surrounded by nesting birds. These ...

Bird feathers are among nature’s most extraordinary creations — engineered for flight, designed for survival and often ...

A Fork-tailed Flycatcher. Credit: Valentina Gómez-Bahamón, Field Museum Bird feathers have many different functions. Softer down keeps a bird warm and stiffer wing feathers are used for flight.

Female tanager birds dig flamboyant males. So to build plumage that really pops with orange or red or yellow, a male has to eat fruits and absorb their carotenoids. The fancy feathers he produces then ...

Explore the colors of songbird migration in a photo essay that displays the ways distance and timing affect plumage. In late summer and autumn, millions of birds fly above our heads, often at night, ...

What makes a bird a bird? For starters, it has to be covered with a collection of branching, hair-like structures known as feathers. If you add a toothless beaked jaw, a four-chambered heart, a strong ...