93 episodes

The Science of Birds is a lighthearted exploration of bird biology. It's a fun resource for any birder or naturalist who wants to learn more about ornithology. Impress your birding friends at cocktail parties with all of your new bird knowledge! Hosted by Ivan Phillipsen, a passionate naturalist with a PhD in Zoology.

The Science of Birds Ivan Phillipsen

    • Science
    • 4.8 • 554 Ratings

The Science of Birds is a lighthearted exploration of bird biology. It's a fun resource for any birder or naturalist who wants to learn more about ornithology. Impress your birding friends at cocktail parties with all of your new bird knowledge! Hosted by Ivan Phillipsen, a passionate naturalist with a PhD in Zoology.

    House Sparrow

    House Sparrow

    This episode—which is number 93—is all about the the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), one of the world’s best known and most abundant birds. It expanded across the planet along with humans over the last 10,000 years, with the spread of agriculture. Today, this plucky little bird is a model organism for the study of basic bird biology. Over 7,000 scientific studies of the House Sparrow have been published.

    In this episode, we’ll get into what this species looks and sounds like, where it lives, its behavior, its breeding biology, and more.

    Links of Interest
    World Sparrow Day
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    • 49 min
    Bird Habitat: Deserts

    Bird Habitat: Deserts

    This episode—which is Number 92—is all about the value of desert ecosystems as habitats for birds.

    Deserts are important for the birds that are adapted to live in them—birds that can handle the harsh conditions.

    Deserts are home to relatively few bird species. Only the polar regions and maybe some parts of the open ocean have less bird diversity.

    Even if a bird species can handle the extremes of heat and cold in a desert, the desiccating winds, and the lack of water, that bird may not find much food.

    Because where there are few plants, there are few invertebrates. So a bird in the desert can have a hard time finding any leaves, seeds, fruit, or bugs to eat.

    And yet, an assortment of bird species from many disparate families have managed to carve out an existence in the world’s most arid lands. There may be nowhere near as many of them as in, say, a tropical rainforest or a temperate woodland…

    BUT, the birds we do find in the desert are, I think, a particularly fascinating and admirable bunch. They’re tough little buggers. They’re resilient. Desert birds have interesting adaptations and behaviors that allow them to survive in places that would kill most other birds in a day.

    CORRECTIONS: I realized after I recorded this episode that I mispronounced the names of the Namib and Thar deserts. Namib should be pronounced "NAH-mib." Thar is pronounced "Tar."
     
    Links of Interest
     Grayish Miner in the Atacama Desert [VIDEO]   ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~


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    • 1 hr 4 min
    Chickadees, Tits, and Titmice

    Chickadees, Tits, and Titmice

    This is Episode 91. It’s all about birds in the family Paridae. These are the chickadees, tits, and titmice—cute little forest-dwelling songbirds known and loved by many people around the world.

    I’ve had a lot of requests to make a podcast episode about chickadees and their kind. Some species in this family are familiar visitors to backyard bird feeders. They’re highly active, vocal, bold, and sometimes quite confiding with people. It’s possible to gain the trust of t**s and chickadees of some species by feeding them seeds out of the palm of your hand.

    These birds not only visit bird feeders regularly, at least in winter, but they’ll also happily lay eggs in artificial nest boxes. All of these traits make birds in the Paridae family great subjects for scientists who want to study bird behavior and ecology.

    So chickadees, t**s, and titmice are among the most well-studied songbirds on the planet. Lucky for us here on The Science of Birds podcast, that means there’s a lot we can learn about them
     
    Links of Interest
     Ground Tit [VIDEO] 
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    • 1 hr 5 min
    Flowers and Feathers: The Importance of Birds as Pollinators

    Flowers and Feathers: The Importance of Birds as Pollinators

    This is Episode 90 and it’s all about the importance of birds as plant pollinators.

    If I had to use only one word for the topic of this episode, it would be ornithophily. The definition of ornithophily is “the pollination of flowers by birds.”

    Today, I’ll be focusing mostly on the ecological relationships between plants and the birds that pollinate them. Another way to look at all of this would be through the lens of evolution—the fascinating ways that plants and birds have co-evolved with respect to pollination.

    I’ll make another podcast episode, at some point, about bird and plant co-evolution. We’ll touch on it today, but the main focus is ecology. 

    Pollination ecology is actually an entire subdiscipline that many scientists have dedicated their careers to studying. It’s really interesting stuff!


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    • 44 min
    Fascinating Things We Learned About Birds Last Year

    Fascinating Things We Learned About Birds Last Year

    This is Episode 89. I’m publishing it right at the beginning of 2024, and it's a review of some fascinating things that happened in the world of ornithology and bird conservation over the last 12 months, in 2023.

    Naturally, this isn’t an exhaustive review of every scientific discovery about birds in 2023. That would be too much. An exhaustive review would be, well, exhausting. Maybe not for you, but definitely for me.

    Instead, I’ll tell you about a handful of studies and projects that I think you’ll find interesting. These gems were hand-selected by me for your educational pleasure.

    Links of Interest
    Colossal BiosciencesBirds, Not MosquitoesHow Wolbachia Can Save Forest Birds [VIDEO]Puzzle-solving caracaras [VIDEO]
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    • 43 min
    Owls

    Owls

    This episode—which is number 88—is all about owls. Owls are fascinating birds that have captured our imaginations since the dawn of humankind. They have amazing camouflage that allows them to blend in with their surroundings, and they have several other avian superpowers that set them apart from all other birds.

    Owls are divided into two families—Tytonidae and Strigidae—and we'll be discussing both of them today.

    Links of Interest
    Owl Notes–Denver Holt Shares the Short eared Owl's Courtship Flight [VIDEO]Long-whiskered Owlet (Xenoglaux loweryi) [VIDEO]The silent flight of an owl [VIDEO]Pellet.comWhat an Owl Knows [BOOK]
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    • 1 hr 28 min

Customer Reviews

4.8 out of 5
554 Ratings

554 Ratings

Olpit3 ,

Bird Central

I’m starting at the beginning to glean everything I can from this podcast. Every episode is packed with information about birds that connects the listener to their habits, beauty, history and importance in their ecosystems. As a casual observer of backyard dinosaurs I’m grateful for the opportunity to expand my knowledge and appreciation of birds.

Scarletminded ,

Polar desert birds?

Great show! The host’s voice is so calming and the writing is both informative and funny. Can you do any shows on peacocks, hornbills or secretary birds? Polar desert birds? I just found out there are polar deserts talking to you Podcast with my bf.

Ramble-on-Rose ,

Science and Humor

I mean who doesn’t like a few movie clip metaphors from Star Wars mixed with their bird science. This is an absolutely entertaining approach to the science of birds that includes ecological relationships with plants posed in a language we can all understand.

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