Birds, features and articles | Educational Science

Jun 29, 2021

This french-fry-stealing seagull is the star of a new Google ad

An astonishing photograph captures the instant a seagull in the United Kingdom gaped its beak to snap up a french fry. The sight of a gull trying to nab human food is all too familiar to beachgoers, but hungry gulls usually move too quickly for people to catch them in...

Jul 8, 2021

Mass bird die-off in eastern US baffles scientists

Hundreds of young starlings, blue jays, grackles and other birds in the eastern U.S. are dying from a mysterious illness. It has the makings of an avian epidemic, but to fight it, scientists first have to find the cause. So far, scientists have ruled out some of the most common...

Jul 22, 2021

'Trash parrots' in Australia have figured out how to open garbage cans (Video)

Wild sulphur-crested cockatoos Down Under have learned how to open residential garbage-can lids and loot the leftovers, a new study finds. And apparently, the birds are learning this trick from one another. One bird in a far-flung neighborhood even invented another lid-opening technique, which quickly spread to cockatoos in nearby...

Aug 4, 2021

Sneaky birds caught on video while yanking hair from live animals

Parents will do almost anything for their young. Bird parents are no exception, and many go to great lengths to build the perfect nest for their chicks. Many birds take this duty to a new level by plucking hair off of living animals in order to fill their nests, an...

Aug 22, 2021

These flesh-eating centipedes hunt and eat baby birds alive. Here's why.

Giant, carnivorous centipedes on a South Pacific island can kill and eat up to 3,700 seabird chicks every year, a new study has revealed. Phillip Island centipedes (Cormocephalus coynei) are ferocious beasties, growing up to nearly 1 foot (30 centimeters) long, clad in armored plates along their segments and equipped...

Aug 23, 2021

Tortoise hunts baby bird in slow-motion, crushes its skull in shocking video

In shocking new video footage, a giant tortoise creeps toward a baby bird perched on a log, slowly and steadily cornering the chick before chomping down on its tiny skull. The footage ends after the lifeless bird tumbles to the ground, but the researcher who captured the video reported that...

Sep 7, 2021

This Australian bird's cry sounds just like a human baby

The wails coming from an enclosure at Taronga Zoo Sydney in Australia may sound like the cries of a human baby. But don't be alarmed. It's just a trickster resident: A brown, long-tailed bird named Echo has learned how to mimic the shrieks and shrills of human babies. Taronga Zoo...

Sep 17, 2021

Bizarre tail on little dinosaur-age bird was literally a drag

A dinosaur-age bird's extravagant tail feathers may have helped it win over mates, but the fluffy rump was also literally a drag during flight, a study of a well-preserved fossil finds. The bird's tail is truly bizarre, the researchers said; it had two lengthy plume feathers that were more than...

Oct 26, 2021

Parasitic birds 'exercise' in their eggs, hatch … and then pulverize their nestmates

Newly hatched birds might seem like delicate, feeble creatures, but some chicks burst out of their eggshells ready to brawl. These little fighters exercise in their eggs before hatching to build up the strength needed to maim and murder their nestmates, a new study suggests. The baby birds are part...

Oct 29, 2021

Critically endangered condor chicks are species' 1st known 'virgin births'

Scientists have reported the first known virgin births in California condors — two chicks that hatched without any males involved in fertilizing the eggs. Researchers recently made the unexpected discovery that the genomes of these two birds contained no DNA from any condor males, according to a genetic database that...

Nov 4, 2021

Fowl play? 'Bird of the Year' winner in New Zealand contest is a bat

When is a bird not a bird? When it's a bat, according to a New Zealand contest that just named a highly endangered bat Bird of the Year. Pekapeka-tou-roa, or New Zealand's long-tailed bat (Chalinolobus tuberculatus), weighs about 0.4 ounces (11 grams) and a fully grown adult is about the...

Nov 4, 2021

How did birds survive the dinosaur-killing asteroid?

When the dinosaur-killing asteroid collided with Earth about 66 million years ago, it triggered a slew of horrific events — shockwaves, wildfires, acid rain, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions and nuclear winter-like conditions — that killed about 80% of all animal species. But, mysteriously, some dinosaurs survived: the birds. But why did...

Nov 14, 2021

Tangled bald eagles crash land on Minnesota street

A pair of bald eagles interlocked their talons during a territorial dispute — or potentially a lover's dance — and crash-landed as a tangled duo onto a Minnesota street early this month. A small crowd soon assembled where the bald eagles fell, near the intersection of 41st Avenue and Nathan...

Nov 15, 2021

How do cuckoos trick other birds?

Cuckoos are masters of deception. When it comes to raising their young, these birds don’t need to build a nest, protect their eggs or feed their offspring. Instead, female cuckoos pass these roles onto unsuspecting victims. Cuckoos are brood parasites, meaning they don’t raise their own young. They lay their...

Dec 1, 2021

Biggest eagle to ever live plunged headfirst into dead prey to eat the organs

The biggest eagle that ever lived hunted like its modern relatives but feasted like a vulture, new research shows. The extinct giant, known as Haast's eagle, gripped and pierced living prey with its sharp talons and beak. But it ate its kills like a vulture would have, slashing into the...