Green herons don't do Facebook, and they certainly don't use Twitter. They don't play bridge or read novels. Not that they don't have time to fill. We've often had green herons visit the swampy pond ...

Beautiful bird plumage these days matches the color pallet of wildflowers — cardinals as red as Indian paintbrushes, andbluebirds as blue as bluebonnets. It’s not happenstance. Wildflowers attract ...

You are able to gift 5 more articles this month. Anyone can access the link you share with no account required. Learn more. A down feather illustrates the varied assortment of barbs that allow it to ...

On the open savannas of East Africa, a flock of vulturine guinea fowl looks almost unreal. Bodies are patterned with crisp ...

Feathers define birds. Other critters, like insects, fly; but no other critter wears feathers. And what amazing structures they are, these feathers. They allow birds to fly, perform mating displays, ...

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 ...

The answer is not as simple as saying, “because birds fly.” Birds such as penguins, emus and kiwis don’t fly at all despite having complex feathers. But most birds do fly, and their entire bodies, ...

Each Canada goose that you see flying around in formation around Lancaster County these days has between 20,000 and 25,000 feathers, most hidden from sight. A typical songbird at your backyard feeder ...

Emperor penguins eat, sleep and breed in one of the harshest environments in the world -- icy Antarctica, in temperatures that can dip below -40 in the winter. It would be easy to assume that they ...

A small group of birds, the sandgrouse, that dwell in Africa’s forbidding deserts have long mystified and delighted observers because they absorb and carry water in their breast feathers whilst flying ...