Most Blue Jays stay put in winter, but some migrate, by day and in loose flocks, mostly to the south and southwest. Here is what banding shows about which jays go and where, the huge flights along the ...

Male and female Blue Jays look the same. Males average about 3% bigger, too little to see in the field. The clues are behavior: only the female gives the dry rattle call and incubates the eggs, and in ...

Why the Mourning Dove is called that, what American folk beliefs said about its call (rain, love, luck and death), its names in Cherokee, Navajo and Nahuatl, the doves of the Bible, and what modern ...

Baby Mourning Doves hatch blind and thinly covered in down after 14 days of incubation, are fed crop milk and then seeds by both parents, and leave the nest at about two weeks old. The male keeps ...

Magpies build a big domed nest of sticks high in a tree, starting as early as December. In Britain the first eggs are laid around 22 April: usually 5 or 6 pale blue-green eggs, incubated by the female ...

A Collared Dove's song is a soft three-note coo, the middle note the longest, repeated over and over from roofs and wires. Listen to recordings, see the coo drawn as a spectrogram, and learn why ...

In open country with trees. Red Kites live where woods or copses mix with farmland, pasture or heath: they nest and roost in the trees and forage over the open ground. In winter they spread into more ...

Those familiar with the fairytale “The Ugly Duckling” by Hans Christian Andersen may remember how the ‘ugly duckling’ in the story was actually a baby swan and not a duckling at all! In real life, ...

The word flamingo comes from the Portuguese/Spanish word ‘flamengo’ meaning flame-coloured when translated and best describes the striking pink feathers of the adult flamingo. However, newly-hatched ...

Swans embody elegance, beauty and sophistication and are certainly visually impressive enough to match their royal reputation. In addition to their elegant visual appearance, swans are intelligent, ...

The Blue Heron (aka. the Great Blue heron) is a large wading bird of North and Central America. This large, majestic bird can grow to a height of 138cm and has a wingspan of up 200cm! Blue herons can ...

Owls are secretive creatures. In fact, anyone would be lucky to see an owl in the wild - you’re much more likely to hear their distinctive hooting sound instead! To see a baby owl would be even less ...