The Wright Brothers studied bird flight before they designed the first airplane. Now modern aircraft fly higher and faster than any bird, yet no manufactured device matches the graceful movements and ...

“Awkward” would probably be the most benevolent word I could use to describe the explosive launch into flight of the California quail. Certainly, the words graceful or athletic do not come to mind. A ...

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

Birds tend to be more colorful in the tropics, and scientists wanted to find out how they got there: if colorful feathers evolved in the tropics, or if tropical birds have brightly-colored ancestors ...

Researchers examined dozens of bird species in museum collections looking for differences in the feathers and bodies between birds that can fly and birds that can't. They found that when birds evolve ...

Imagine staring out your back window, watching the birds come to your feeder. You see Carolina wrens, Carolina chickadees, and a northern cardinal. Wait, is it a cardinal? You see what appears to be a ...

“Awkward” would probably be the most benevolent word I could use to describe the explosive launch into flight of the California quail. Certainly, the words graceful or athletic do not come to mind. A ...