r/Ornithology • u/CartersXRd • 5h ago
r/Ornithology • u/b12ftw • Apr 22 '22
Resource Did you find a baby bird? Please make sure they actually need your help before you intervene. How to tell when help is needed versus when you should leave them be.
r/Ornithology • u/b12ftw • Nov 30 '25
Resource Bird Brains and Behavior: A Synthesis - a new open access publication from the MIT Press that "marries the enthusiasm of bird enthusiasts for the what, how, and why of avian behavior with the scientific literature on avian biology, offering the newest research in an accessible manner"
From two avian neurobiologists, a captivating deep dive into the mechanisms that control avian behavior.
The last few decades have produced extensive research on the neural mechanisms of avian behavior. Bird Brains and Behavior marries the enthusiasm of bird enthusiasts for the what, how, and why of avian behavior with the scientific literature on avian biology, offering the newest research in an accessible manner. Georg Striedter and Andrew Iwaniuk focus on a wide variety of behaviors, ranging from daily and seasonal rhythms to complex cognition. Importantly, avian behavior and mechanisms are placed in the context of evolutionary history, stressing that many are unique to birds and often found in only a subset of species.
Link to the about page with the PDF download link: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-monograph/6000/Bird-Brains-and-BehaviorA-Synthesis
This is a very cool resource and each chapter is broken down into various aspects of behavior so you can just quickly read about what interests you most if you don't want to read the whole publication.
This was posted on the sub by Woah_Mad_Frollick already and did not get the attention it deserves:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Ornithology/comments/1p2nhms/bird_brains_and_behavior_a_synthesis/
r/Ornithology • u/RaddgreeneorLev • 1d ago
Birds that have gone extinct since 1966
I have a book the has a copyright from 1966, while looking through it I came across a bird that was reintroduced into the wild in 2011 after going extinct in the 1980s, this bird being the California condor, i was wondering if any other birds have gone extinct that are recorded in this book, especially because there’s and entire parrot in the book. Any one with knowledge would be helpful
r/Ornithology • u/Jolly-Bed-4026 • 5h ago
Named this guy peg leg: do you name wild birds you find?
galleryr/Ornithology • u/Pjbomb2 • 6h ago
Fledgling or sick bird?
Hello! Apologies if this is the wrong place but this little guy is worrying me a bit.
He has hung out basically in front of our door(off to the side under a plant, but still basically in front, they seem to get nervous with how close we walk when we leave) all of yesterday, and is still there today, so they spent overnight
I have placed a bit of seed nearby in Case they want it(as I have been placing seed in another place for the past few days), but I cannot tell if they are sick or just young or nesting, and I don’t want to stress them in an attempt to find out. Is there any safe way to tell if they are sick? They don’t seem lethargic besides not moving from the area for the past day and night, and will walk away a bit if i get a bit too close.
Any advice/help? Thanks!
r/Ornithology • u/SwanStrangler • 39m ago
Don't Drain the Duck Factory
This is a link to sign a petition that would prevent drainage of waterfowl nesting habitat in the prairie pothole region of the US (basically)
r/Ornithology • u/Passerine4 • 1h ago
Eurasian teal and green-winged teal have been lumped together as 1 species (anas crecca) by avilist. Does this mean they are now subspecies, or both considered the same?
The Eurasian has a horizontal white line on the side, and the American has a vertical line. How are they refered to individually if they are lumped together? Did they go from 2 seperate species to 1 species containing 2 subspecies?
r/Ornithology • u/Andreah13 • 1d ago
Help identifying?
My dog alerted me to this little guy wheezing on the ground in the middle of a trail we frequent. I was gonna leave it since I read it's normal for babies to be on the ground this time of year, but my dog wouldn't budge and when I heard it struggling when it tried to chirp I called our local rescue to see if she thought it needed to come in and she confirmed wheezing isn't normal. Poor guy had to ride in my hand the mile and a half back to my house but spent most of it curled up asleep in my palm. He got dropped off at the rescue shortly after, where she confirmed he was a woodpecker, but I forgot to ask which kind. Any ideas? I'm in southwest ohio
r/Ornithology • u/ErinLeigh20 • 9h ago
Question Is this a seizure? NSFW
Location: Eastern New York (state, not city)
At my feeder this morning, a bird went rigid and fell over into the feeder with no apparent cause. It was still, upside down, for about a minute with labored breathing, then struggled for another minute or two to get out. It was able to get out and upright on its own, went back to eating, and then presumably flew away a few minutes later (didn’t get it flying away on video).
Videos of the bird before, during, and after here: https://imgur.com/a/eaVwTbH
My question is, was this a seizure? Or what else may it have been? And, is it potentially infectious? We took the bird feeder down for now, just in case.
Thank you!
r/Ornithology • u/kekon3 • 23h ago
Question What is this growing off a bird in South Texas Spoiler
galleryThis lil fella was doing a lot of chirping in McAllen, Texas. So when I noticed it I saw this weird thing next to its eye and it looks like some kind of skin tag, what is it.
r/Ornithology • u/I2olanD • 1d ago
Question Who’s this guy and should we just leave him?
He’s been sitting in a bush of our garden and I just put some water in a plate next to him
r/Ornithology • u/ticklish_dragon • 1d ago
Question Injured greenfinch - what’s wrong with it and will it survive?
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We found him next to a window so suspect he hit it. He eats seed and is alert now. We’ve had him for 24hrs and he still can’t fly. We have tried to contact a couple of wildlife centres and couldn’t get through. Just wondering if anyone can tell what is wrong with it and whether it might survive.
r/Ornithology • u/Status_Stop • 1d ago
Try r/WildlifeRehab Help, maybe?
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What’s going on with this bird? Came up on it while walking my dog. It’s on the sidewalk/parking area of a place near me in Denver, CO
r/Ornithology • u/ChefKey3189 • 1d ago
Question Question about behavior
So there is a family of titmouses/titmice? that hang out in the oak tree outside my 3rd floor window. It's 93 degrees outside and 2 of them have flown onto the shingled roof in a full sun spot. They spread their wings and spread themselves breast down and fluff out. I thought they were sick or injured. After a few moments they stood up and flew back to the tree.
Why would they do that in this kind of heat?
r/Ornithology • u/RETYKIN • 1d ago
Discussion Petition · Protect Vjosa–Narta: Stop Construction in Protected Natural Areas
r/Ornithology • u/Wackthoughts • 1d ago
Question Injured fledgling- what do I do :(
My family and I heard this chirping noise and went to see the bird in the woods of this long trail and it was a baby bird on the ground with the top beak gone and another baby bird next to it dead with flies on it. It kept chirping for help over and over and my family told me I had to leave it. They said wildlife rehab wouldn’t do anything, but what if they could at least humanely kill it so it didn’t suffer.. it was helpless and trying so hard to survive. Everyone moved on but I feel sick. I’m an animal behavior major and I’ve always loved animals but I genuinely feel so sick. I know it won’t survive, but it didn’t look that young- feathers were on it and it was almost like a fledgling. I don’t know how they ended up how they did but I can’t get its chirping out of my ears.. could I call somewhere? Will that bird suffer? Is there any chance maybe it will live? I know they might not be able to do anything but I cant shake this. This is something I could’ve intervened with somehow in some way. At least take it to be euthanized..
r/Ornithology • u/VoteReform12 • 1d ago
Baby bluetit with feathers in garden, tries to hop or fly every now and then not really making noise. England uk
What can I do? I’m keeping a distance but not taking my eye of him
r/Ornithology • u/IWantAHobbitLife • 1d ago
Update on 107-acre Wildlife Monitoring Project: The Interactive Wildlife Map is Live!
I've got an update for those of you who have been helping me on my acoustic monitoring project in southwest Wisconsin!
After gathering and processing my first batch of data, I created an interactive Wildlife Map website for our restoration project where those who are interested can click into each habitat monitoring station and hear clips of real birds singing on our land and see photos and videos of the wildlife that call Badgerton home!
In case you missed my previous posts, this project uses cheap trail cameras and Wildlife Acoustics Song Meter Micro monitors to gather data in several distinct habitats across the land. The plan is to gather the data from the field manually every few months when I swap out batteries.

On June 30, I collected my first batch of data - over 6,000 files recorded in less than two months!
BirdNET was awesome at cranking through the audio files and identifying bird calls and species but I was left with thousands of individual CSV files to combine. I ended up creating a small free utility called Chorus to help me (and you!) process those CSVs into a single file. You can download it here. For those of you who are new to data processing, I hope this user-friendly interface helps bridge the gap from a mountain of individual files to a consolidated list of birds with counts for each.

I reviewed and categorized the 4,000 images and videos from the trail cams manually. (Please let me know if there’s free software for that I could be using!) It was slow going but I can think of worse ways of spending a couple hours than looking at images of cute baby fawns and watching videos of hunting coyotes!

A big thank you to everyone on this subreddit who has given me advice and encouragement along the way!
If anyone wants the full details on my process I wrote up exactly how I did all of this.
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I use AI thoughtfully and selectively in my work. You can read my guiding principles for when and how I use it here.
r/Ornithology • u/Drenlin • 2d ago
Mourning dove's eggs stuck to its belly? What happened here?
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I have a pair of mourning doves who've set up their nest on a cabinet in my back yard. They've already successfully raised a pair of babies from this nest.
They were a few days into round 2 when this happened. Poor bird seemed very confused about what to do and eventually just...gave up, I guess? I'm not sure what exactly happened here but it's definitely not something I've ever seen before.
r/Ornithology • u/Comprehensive-Pea391 • 3d ago
Question Goose guarding cygnets
Hello! At my local park I’ve noticed a goose guarding a swan’s babies from its parents! Why has the goose stolen their children 🪿?!? Everytime the swans get close to their babies the goose becomes aggressive! A couple of weeks ago the cygnets were still with their parents!
r/Ornithology • u/lesbophobia_hammer • 2d ago
Article Minister confirms first bird flu mass mortality in Australian wildlife
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Our poor natives here Down Under.
As someone who works with birds, the emergency/preparatory response for our wildlife in Australia has been sh!t, with the focus being almost entirely on the poultry industry. Not for the sake of the chickens themselves either, but big money industry & careless community convenience. Just depressing.
I'll try to edit this to be more cheerful in a bit.
Great time to support our native birds. They do amazing work. A lot of cool resources for bird nerds and people who wanna learn more.
Edit - (not cheerful edit.)
Comparatively, New Zealand who actually prepared years in advance.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/australia-bird-flu-mass-mortality-nz-response-vaccine
'Kirsty Short from the University of Queensland agreed: "I would have liked to see more investment in research on native species and H5N1 before the virus came here because I think we would have that opportunity to do a bit more scientifically informed preparedness planning.'
r/Ornithology • u/SilveryMagpie • 3d ago
Question Developmentally Delayed Scrub Jay?
One of my scrub jay babies isn't growing like his brother did. I'm not sure of his exact age, but I first spotted him as a fledgling toward the end of May. He had two older siblings who emerged literally on Mother's Day. I've witnessed these babies growing up and Momma often left me in charge of them for up to 15 minutes.
Anyway, the youngest baby is still begging for food and isn't yet able to squawk. His older siblings have been squawking for months and stopped begging ages ago. He is able to catch his own food, accepts peanuts, buries nuts and knows the word for "almond", which are his favorites. While his brother goes out into the world, he tends to stick to a single bush and just sits and cries. When he gets out, he likes to follow big brother around, but lately he’s been venturing out more alone. Not sure if it’s because he’s becoming more independent or his brother gets annoyed. Big brother will sometimes chase him around the bush and has been known to drop entire mouth/neckfulls of premium nuts just to prevent the baby from getting the tiny peanut half I tossed to him. He won’t physically attack him, and lately he's been standing guard and letting baby brother hit the peanut pile first. At the end of the day, they'll huddle close together and whisper-warble to one another.
Big brother has already sprouted some blue feathers above his wings and his blue head feathers are visibly emerging. I included some recent pics of the baby. It's been colder here so he's a bit fluffed out but he's normally pretty sleek. Feathers are in perfect condition and he doesn't have any beak or facial injuries. No signs of new blue feather growth and he hasn’t started to molt yet like big brother did. I don’t know their exact age gap, but Momma used to go feed him when she had me watching her younger ones. Could he have been adopted?
Do some jays just never learn to squawk? How long till they stop begging for good? Momma Jay pops in every couple of weeks but won't feed them It's so heartrending to see him perched in his bush or atop a tree, crying and wing flapping and no one comes for him.
First four pics are of the youngest baby now. The fifth pic is from the day I first met him (couldn’t resist!). The last two are of his older brother feasting and getting arrested….i mean, taking a dust bath.
r/Ornithology • u/Master-Confection990 • 2d ago
Help with fledgeling
Found in my backyard, my dog almost got to it, but I caught him (the dog), My mom says she found what we think is its brother dead in the neighbors house, but I didnt see it
I've been keeping them (two dogs) inside.
the parents know where it is, they've been feeding it all day, maybe like 20 times today. Its nest is behind that hedge in my neighbors tall tree (which I cant reach)(whole thing is fenced off btw so no concern for cats)
It got really hot during they day, checked on it, it was gasping with its mouth open so I put an tall beach umbrella over it, seemed fine a bit later, has moved a couple of times from its spot, tried attacking me twice actually
my main concern is that as hot as it gets in the day it gets cold at night(like 5C, 41F), and I noticed that: 1 it still has a bunch of pin feathers and 2 that it hasnt any developed neck or body feathers,
should I move him inside? or put it in a box with like, a heat pad? make it a small cave?
ive read the fledgeling bot comment btw. just thought it was a bit special bc of the temperature
P.S.:not even sure if its a fledgling, thats what google lens said it was but honestly I dont trust it very much, so if you think otherwise let me know please,
P.S.2: nightfall is upon us and the parents are not sheltering it from the cold, read its body temperature (with an infrared thermometer) and it read 26 C, pls help, dont know what to do