If you’ve seen BBC’s Planet Earth, you may recall of one of its sillier scenes: the superb bird-of-paradise mating dance. A female hops up to a male, who unveils a mane of feathers and puts on a ...

Feathers define birds. Other critters, like insects, fly; but no other critter wears feathers. And what amazing structures they are, these feathers. They allow birds to fly, perform mating displays, ...

Dec. 8, 2003 – University of Utah biologists twirled louse-infested bird feathers on an electric fan and flew pigeons and doves like kites on strings in a study that found small lice stick to small ...

Green herons don't do Facebook, and they certainly don't use Twitter. They don't play bridge or read novels. Not that they don't have time to fill. We've often had green herons visit the swampy pond ...

Why are some songbirds so brightly colored? A new study finds that a hidden layer of black and white feathers help their colors pop. Have you ever looked at a bird and wondered, how can it be so red ...

Sitting in the sunlit garden room, a small, light green parakeet gently climbs onto the outstretched finger of Gabe Cooper. Mr. Pickles, he’s called. The little bird is known at the facility for ...

Female tanager birds dig flamboyant males. So to build plumage that really pops with orange or red or yellow, a male has to eat fruits and absorb their carotenoids. The fancy feathers he produces then ...

Long before Britain’s National Physical Laboratory first developed a super black coating for its instruments to absorb stray light photons reflected from surfaces, birds invented it through the magic ...