Okay, But... Birds

E25. The blue-footed booby has become an internet personality: cartoon feet, a goofy strut, a name that practically begs to be a punchline. But Scott sat down with Dr. Carlos Zavalaga, Universidad Científica del Sur, and one of the people who first taught him how to study seabirds in Peru, and the "fool" reputation falls apart fast. Get a booby in the air or underwater and you're watching one of the most specialized hunters in the bird family tree.
In this episode you'll hear about:
How six-plus booby species carve up the same ocean without starving each other out
What 20 years of GPS loggers, depth tags, and bags of fresh fish revealed about who eats what
Why El Niño, avian flu, and overfishing keep stacking the deck against these birds

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. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Blue-footed Booby audio contributed by Robert I. Bowman, ML85906
Red-footed Booby audio contributed by Robert I. Bowman, ML85911
Brown Booby audio contributed by Gerritt Vyn, ML136211
Masked Booby audio contributed by Chandler Robbins, ML32604
Nazca Booby audio contributed by Oliver H. Hewitt, ML31543
Peruvian Booby audio contributed by Ted Parker, ML29399

E24. Flight is the thing we associate most with birds, so what does it mean when a lineage gives it up? Dr. Scott Edwards, Harvard, joins Scott to unpack how flightlessness evolves, why it keeps happening across the bird family tree, and what the genome reveals about how a bird loses the ability to fly.
In this episode you'll hear about:
How losing flight reshapes a bird's body, from feathers to forelimbs to that one famously enormous egg
Why the answer wasn't where geneticists expected to find it
What an extinct giant and a tiny tropical relative can tell us about where moa actually came from

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. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Falkland Steamer-Duck audio contributed by Maurice A. E. Rumboll, ML4114
Great Tinamou audio contributed by David L. Ross, Jr., ML57320

E23. Across sub-Saharan Africa, wild birds and people work together to find honey. No taming, no breeding, no domestication… just a partnership thousands of years in the making. Behavioral ecologist Dr. Jessica van der Wal, FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, joins Scott to unpack what's actually happening when a honey hunter calls and a greater honeyguide answers.
In this episode you'll hear about:
What each side gets out of one of the only known mutualisms between humans and a wild animal, and why this bird in particular evolved to seek us out
The remarkable signal the honeyguide uses to communicate with people, and what playback experiments revealed when researchers tested it across very different communities
What happens to a partnership built over generations when one side starts buying honey at the store

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. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Greater Honeyguide audio contributed by Jennifer F. M. Horne, ML55972

Additional media courtesy of Dr. Claire Spottiswoode and Dr. Jessica van der Wal

E23. Across sub-Saharan Africa, wild birds and people work together to find honey. No taming, no breeding, no domestication…  just a partnership thousands of years in the making. Behavioral ecologist Dr. Jessica van der Wal, FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, joins Scott to unpack what's actually happening when a honey hunter calls and a greater honeyguide answers.

In this episode you'll hear about:

What each side gets out of one of the only known mutualisms between humans and a wild animal, and why this bird in particular evolved to seek us out

The remarkable signal the honeyguide uses to communicate with people, and what playback experiments revealed when researchers tested it across very different communities

What happens to a partnership built over generations when one side starts buying honey at the store

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. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:

Greater Honeyguide audio contributed by Jennifer F. M. Horne, ML55972

Additional media courtesy of Dr. Claire Spottiswoode and Dr. Jessica van der Wal.

E22. Folklore says birds know a storm is coming before we do. Scott talks with Dr. Gunnar Kramer, Iowa State University, about what's actually happening when a tiny warbler decides it's time to fly, or time to bail.
In this episode:
Why the question itself might be slightly wrong, and what's really going on inside that bird
A storm, some missing warblers, and a discovery nobody set out to make
What 300 birds falling out of the sky over Texas can tell you about how much fuel is in the tank

Listen, follow, and tell a friend who’s a little superstitious.
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. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:
Yellow-billed cuckoo audio, Wil Hershberger, ML94446
Barnacle goose audio, Bob McGuire, ML235525
Golden-winged warbler video, Benjamin Clock, ML476422
Blue-winged warbler video, Eric Liner, ML469433
Yellow-billed cuckoo video, Larry Arbanas, ML466566
Eastern kingbird audio, Wil Hershberger, ML534398
Tennessee warbler audio, Wil Hershberger, ML85236
Tennessee warbler video, Eric Liner, ML466381
Wood thrush video, Benjamin Clock, ML471755