Okay, But... Birds

E42. Birds get sick too, and a lot of what happens next looks surprisingly familiar. Dr. Andrea Townsend of Hamilton College has spent two decades following American crows through outbreaks, and she walks Scott through what illness really does to a bird, from the family it belongs to down to the clever brain it depends on.
In this episode, you'll hear about:
The surprising way crows choose their partners, and what it costs them when disease comes around
What a stomach bug does to one of the cleverest birds you'll ever meet
Why going it alone can be the riskier move while a virus is spreading
All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
American Crow video contributed by Jay McGowan, ML472843
Common Raven audio contributed by Gerrit Vyn, ML137574
Burrowing Owl audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML188805

E41. Centaurs, mermaids, minotaurs: we have been inventing creatures that are two things at once for as long as we have told stories. Birds do it for real. Dr. Glaucia Del-Rio of the Florida Museum of Natural History studies two Amazonian antbirds that meet where a river runs out, and what their offspring say about where one species ends.
In this episode, you'll hear about:
Why a river can be an impossible barrier for a bird with perfectly good wings, and what researchers found when they carried birds out into the middle of one and let go
How to spot a hybrid antbird at a glance, once you know which colors belong to which parent
The German-Brazilian ornithologist an all-women expedition was named for, and the injury she dealt with herself, a long way from any hospital
All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Red-capped Manakin audio contributed by David L. Ross Jr., ML57360
Streak-headed Woodcreeper audio contributed by Ted Parker, ML21543
American Flamingo audio contributed by Gerrit Vyn, ML172484
Lawrence's Warbler (hybrid) audio contributed by Curtis Marantz, ML113786
Brewster's Warbler (hybrid) audio contributed by Curtis Marantz, ML76906
Additional photos and video courtesy of Glaucia Del-Rio: Marco Rego, Fabio Schunck, Luis Morais, and Angela Prochilo. Harlequin Antbird photo by Hector Bottai, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).

E40. There are only 15 crane species on the planet, and 11 of them are in trouble. Dr. Andy Caven, Director of Central Flyway Programs for the International Crane Foundation, has spent his career on two of them: the sandhill cranes that pour into one stretch of Nebraska's Platte River every spring, and the whooping crane, which came back from the edge and is still nowhere near safe. Scott asks him what it actually takes to keep a bird like that on the landscape, and the answer runs through soggy grassland, private ranches, and one river worth fighting over.
In this episode, you'll hear about:
The number Andy gives for how many cranes stand on that stretch of river, which Scott makes him say twice
How a bird that was down to a couple of dozen individuals ended up stopping a dam
What a wet meadow is, and why one is so much easier to lose than to build back
All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Mallard audio contributed by Mike Andersen, ML136504
Wilson's Phalarope audio contributed by W. Douglas Robinson, ML474658841
Swamp Sparrow audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML94352

E39. Every August the questions start: there is a cardinal at the feeder with no head feathers, and it looks terrible. Nothing is wrong with it. It is molting, which every bird does at least every year. Dr. Ryan Terrill of the San Diego Natural History Museum studies what a feather endures over a year and what it takes to replace one, and he makes the case that the few weeks a bird spends looking its worst may be the most consequential weeks it has.
In this episode, you'll hear about:
Why the cardinal at your feeder in late summer looks like it lost a fight
What a bird quietly gives up during the weeks it is growing new feathers
The hundreds of miles some birds fly for the sake of a new set of feathers
All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Northern Cardinal audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML191165
American Goldfinch audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML94457
Blue Jay audio contributed by Gaetan Dupont, ML173749
Herring Gull audio contributed by Sarah MacLean, ML165927
American Herring Gull video contributed by Steve Kelling, ML540908261
Snow Bunting audio contributed by Gerrit Vyn, ML130973
Red-tailed hawk audio contributed by David McCartt, ML229578
White-throated Sparrow audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML219799
Great Hornbill audio contributed by Linda Macaulay, ML111527
Flightless Cormorant audio contributed by Linda Macaulay, ML237486

E38. You have pulled one out of a jacket sleeve at a bad angle, picked one up on a walk, and you are almost certainly within arm's reach of a few thousand of them right now. Dr. Cody Limber, who recently finished his PhD at Yale, spent it taking growing feathers apart one cell at a time to find out what they are actually made of. A feather is not a fancy scale, it does not grow the way you would guess, and after all this time nobody can say what the first ones were for.
In this episode, you'll hear about:
The strangest things growing out of birds, and which of them actually count as feathers
What a feather is actually made of, once you smash one into individual cells and read what every cell was doing
What a feather actually is, whether it is alive or dead, how it is put together, and the coordination that color and pattern demand
All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Eastern Whip-poor-will audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML195774
Red-bellied Woodpecker audio contributed by Wil Hershberger, ML306064
Indian Peafowl audio contributed by Rounak choudhary, ML621021542
Common Raven audio contributed by Gerrit Vyn, ML132161
Mallard audio contributed by Mike Andersen, ML136504
Double-crested Cormorant audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML233274
Zebra Finch (Australian) audio contributed by Vicki Powys, ML226233
American Herring Gull video contributed by Steve Kelling, ML540908261
Golden-winged Warbler video contributed by Benjamin Clock, ML476422
Great Argus audio contributed by Arnoud B. van den Berg, ML71122
Horned Screamer audio contributed by Paul A. Schwartz, ML58925
Wild Turkey audio contributed by James (Jim) Holmes, ML73964601