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Okay, But... Birds
30 episodes
Okay, but what's the deal with Darwin's finches?
Ep 35 · Aug 13, 2026 · 36 min
E35. Eighteen species of small brown bird on a pile of volcanic rock have taught us more about how evolution actually works than almost anything else on Earth. Not because Darwin figured them out. He didn't. Because a handful of scientists went back, banded every bird on one island, and watched it happen in real time. Scott heads to the Galapagos with Dr. Erik Enbody, Assistant Professor of Computational Biology at Cornell University, to find out how one ancestor became eighteen, why the beak is…
Okay, but what's the deal with nests?
Ep 34 · Aug 6, 2026 · 29 min
E34. Not all birds build one, but for the ones that do, a nest has a single job and a shockingly wide range of ways to get it done. Dr. Vanya Rohwer, Curator of Birds and Mammals at the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates, joins Scott to walk the far end of that spectrum, from nests made entirely of spit to a colony structure heavy enough to snap the tree it sits in. In this episode you'll hear about: The complete and comical inventory of one hamerkop nest, read aloud, contents included Wha…
Okay, but how do birds handle a heatwave?
Ep 33 · Jul 30, 2026 · 26 min
E33. When the air temperature climbs past a bird's own body temperature, staying cool stops being free and starts to cost them water they may not have. Dr. Blair Wolf, University of New Mexico, has spent his career studying how desert birds survive heat that should kill them, and what happens when it finally gets too hot. In this episode you'll hear about: Why some backyard birds can shrug off oven-like temperatures while others just a few feet away don't make it The strange, water-saving trick…
Okay, but how does wildfire smoke impact birds?
Ep 32 · Jul 23, 2026 · 31 min
E32. Wildfire smoke is blanketing more of the map every year, and it turns out a smoky sky changes everything for birds, from how they breathe to whether we can find them at all. Dr. Olivia Sanderfoot, Research Scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, is back to walk Scott through what all that haze is doing to the birds living in it. In this episode: Birds don't breathe the way we do, and that single fact shapes everything about how smoke hits them Stay, shift, or go: the framework for what…
Okay, but did birds invent music?
Ep 31 · Jul 16, 2026 · 30 min
E31. If a bird sings a phrase worthy of Beethoven, is that music, or just biology in a nice outfit? Dr. Hollis Taylor, a violinist, composer, and ornithologist, has spent more than two decades recording and transcribing the songs of the Pied Butcherbird, an Australian songbird whose vocal life keeps blurring that line. In this episode: How a single pied butcherbird can sing for seven hours through the night, almost never repeating itself, then return the next spring with a brand new repertoire W…
Okay, but is the dawn chorus getting quieter?
Ep 30 · Jul 9, 2026 · 35 min
E30. That wall of birdsong outside your window at sunrise has a name, a structure, and a surprising amount of drama. This week Scott talks with Dr. Dan Mennill, a professor at the University of Windsor who wires whole forests with microphones to eavesdrop on the entire neighborhood at once, about what the dawn chorus is actually for, and what it means when it starts to thin out. In this episode: Why dawn, why so loud, and who gets to sing first (hint: it's not about who's the best singer) What 1…
Okay, but what's it like as a bird at the top of the world?
Ep 29 · Jul 2, 2026 · 34 min
E29. Standing at 11,000 feet, lungs burning, Scott watched birds go about their afternoon in the exact thin air that had nearly taken him out. This week he sits down with Dr. Chris Witt, evolutionary biologist at the University of New Mexico and curator of birds at the Museum of Southwestern Biology, who has spent his career figuring out how birds make a living in the thinnest air on Earth. From the hummingbird blood that rewrites itself to match a mountainside to a five-pound coot that has no b…
Okay, but does easy living make birds dumber?
Ep 28 · Jun 25, 2026 · 33 min
E28. A bird's brain is the most expensive thing it owns, and evolution doesn't hand one out for free. Dr. Carlos Botero, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has spent a decade tracing what variable, unforgiving environments actually do to bird cognition, and the answer flips a lot of conventional wisdom on its head. In this episode: Why the harshest places on Earth produce two kinds of birds: the puzzle-solving geniuses and the brute-force survivors, with almost nothing in…
Okay, but... pigeons!
Ep 27 · Jun 18, 2026 · 33 min
E27. They’ve been called "rats with wings," but pigeons are actually elite athletes, historical icons, and evolutionary marvels. Scott chats with Dr. Elizabeth Carlen, a postdoc at the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis, to look past the common stereotypes and uncover the remarkable biology of the Rock Pigeon. In this episode, you’ll hear about: The deep historical bond between humans and pigeons and how domestic birds successfully transitioned back into the wild. H…
Okay, but did birds originate the open relationship?
Ep 26 · Jun 11, 2026 · 35 min
E26. We borrowed a phrase from human dating and tried to pin it on birds. Turns out they never needed the rulebook. Dr. Wenfei Tong, biologist and author of Bird Love, joins Scott to unpack what bird partnerships actually look like once you stop projecting our scripts onto them, from females who run the territory to males who guard their paternity in deeply weird ways. In this episode you'll hear about: Why the drabbest little brown bird in the garden has one of the wildest sex lives in the anim…
Okay, but... boobies!
Ep 25 · Jun 4, 2026 · 34 min
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…
Okay, but what about birds that can't fly?
Ep 24 · May 28, 2026 · 33 min
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…
Okay, but can a bird really cooperate with humans?
Ep 23 · May 21, 2026 · 33 min
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 a…
Okay, but can birds predict the weather?
Ep 22 · May 14, 2026 · 34 min
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…
Okay, but can birds smell?
Ep 21 · May 7, 2026 · 34 min
E21. We're talking sense and scents with Dr. Danielle Whittaker, Oregon State, and author of The Secret Perfume of Birds, who spent a decade unraveling a 200-year-old myth that started with John James Audubon and a dead pig under a bush. In this episode: The bird that smells like a fresh-baked sugar cookie Why preen oil is a dating profile written in chemistry, and how seabirds use the same chemical cue that's now leading albatross parents to feed their chicks plastic The bonus myth Danielle wan…
Okay, but what can we learn from a drawer of birds?
Ep 20 · Apr 23, 2026 · 35 min
E20. Less than 1% of what's in a museum is actually on display. So what's happening with the other 99%? Scott talks with Dr. Sushma Reddy, Breckenridge Chair of Ornithology at the Bell Museum and Associate Professor at the University of Minnesota, about the extraordinary scientific afterlife of a specimen in a drawer. In this episode: How birds collected 150 years ago are answering questions their collectors never imagined, from air pollution to insect decline Why falcons turned out to be closer…
Okay, but are bird feeders helping or hurting?
Ep 19 · Apr 16, 2026 · 33 min
E19. More than 55 million Americans feed birds, and it's not exactly clear the birds asked us to. Dr. Olivia Sanderfoot, Research Scientist and Project Leader of FeederWatch at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, joins Scott to unpack what four decades of data tell us about whether feeding birds helps them, hurts them, or is really just for us. In this episode you'll hear about: Why bird feeding is mostly for us, and the handful of moments when it actually tips the scales for birds What forty years…
Okay, but what's in a bird's toolbox?
Ep 18 · Apr 9, 2026 · 32 min
E18. Turns out "bird brain" is less of an insult and more of a compliment. Scott sits down with Dr. Alex Kacelnik, Emeritus Professor at the University of Oxford, to dig into one of the most mind-bending questions in animal behavior: are birds actually building and using tools, or are we just projecting? In this episode you'll hear about: The experiment that left researchers completely flabbergasted and rewrote what we thought we knew about animal intelligence Why flexibility, not raw smarts, is…
Okay, but do birds have culture?
Ep 17 · Apr 2, 2026 · 35 min
E17. From sparrow songs that go viral across a continent to cockatoos that watch each other to learn how to open bins, Dr. Lucy Aplin, Australian National University / University of Zurich, studies how birds learn from each other and why it matters. Doing it for the culture? Yep. Birds are that impressive! In this episode you'll hear about: How a new white-throated sparrow song spread over 3,000 kilometers in just two decades, replacing a tune that had been stable since the 1950s The experiment…
Okay, but why put eggs in another bird’s basket?
Ep 16 · Mar 26, 2026 · 31 min
E16. What if the secret to raising more babies was to never raise a single one yourself? Dr. Chris Balakrishnan, Associate Adjunct Professor of Biology at East Carolina University and co-founder of Nerd Nite, has spent his career studying the strangest birds on the planet: the ones that outsource parenthood entirely. In this episode you'll hear about: The evolutionary arms race between brood parasites and their hosts, from mimetic eggs to alien-looking chick mouth patterns How the "password hypo…
Okay, but what makes a yard a bird paradise?
Ep 15 · Mar 19, 2026 · 24 min
E15. Most people picture a bird-friendly yard and imagine feeder, birdbath, maybe a decorative birdhouse with mortgage vibes. And feeders are great. But a feeder can give you the illusion of helping birds without creating the thing birds need most: habitat. In this episode, Dr. Doug Tallamy, Professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, joins Scott to explain why your yard is conservation infrastructure in disguise, and what it actually takes to tu…
Okay, but what makes a bird… a bird? Hint: Dinosaurs!
Ep 14 · Mar 12, 2026 · 33 min
E14. What do feathers, toothless beaks, and a 66-million-year-old asteroid have in common. Paleontologist Dr. Daniel Field, University of Cambridge, joins Scott to unpack how birds evolved from dinosaurs, and why defining "bird" is trickier than you think. In this episode you'll hear about: Why Archaeopteryx had half the features of a modern bird and lacked the other half, and what that tells us about 150 million years of evolution The "Wonderchicken," a tiny fossil from the border of Belgium an…
Okay, but why do some birds babysit?
Ep 13 · Mar 5, 2026 · 32 min
E13. Some birds skip having their own families and spend years helping raise their siblings instead. It sounds like altruism, but it's probably more complicated than that. In this episode, host Dr. Scott Taylor is joined by Dr. Nancy Chen, UCLA, to unpack the notion that it takes a village to raise a child chick. In this episode, you'll hear about: Why some birds spend years as unpaid helpers before starting families of their own What the Florida Scrub-Jay's 50-year study at Archbold Biological…
Okay, but how do birds stay warm?
Ep 12 · Feb 26, 2026 · 31 min
E12. Winter isn’t just “cold” for a bird, it’s a nightly survival math problem: generate enough heat, lose as little as possible, and don’t get eaten while you’re fueling up. In this episode, host Dr. Scott Taylor is joined by Dr. Maria Stager, UMass Amherst, to break down the clever physiology and weird little behaviors that let birds ride out freezing temps, from icy duck feet to “feather puffball” mode to energy-saving torpor. In this episode, you’ll hear about: How birds keep their feet from…
Okay, but why is a bird’s world more colorful?
Ep 11 · Feb 19, 2026 · 33 min
E11. Bird vision isn’t just “better than ours,” It’s operating in a different color space, including ultraviolet. In Host Dr. Scott Taylor is joined by Dr. Allison Shultz, Associate Curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, to break down what birds can actually see, how scientists measure color in the real world, and why feather color is one of evolution’s most powerful (and misunderstood) tools. In this episode, you’ll hear about: How birds see a whole extra dimension of colo…
Okay, but can birds keep up with climate change?
Ep 10 · Feb 12, 2026 · 33 min
E10. Seasons used to feel predictable. Winter showed up, spring arrived on cue, and birds could run their annual schedules like clockwork. But now the timing is weird: early heat, late snow, shifting green-up, and food peaks that don’t always line up. In this episode, host Dr. Scott Taylor is joined by Dr. Morgan Tingley, Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UCLA, to unpack what “keeping up” with climate change actually means for birds, how scientists measure it, and what gives birds…
Okay, but is birdwatching the original Pokémon?
Ep 9 · Feb 5, 2026 · 36 min
E9. Birdwatching, birding, twitching… whatever you call it, it’s got everything: quests, rare finds, elaborate gear, a sprawling universe of characters, and a deeply committed fandom. Sound familiar? In this episode, host Dr. Scott Taylor is joined by NYT best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ed Yong to explore how modern birding became more accessible than ever (hello, Merlin and eBird), why it can feel like an open-world RPG, and what the Pokémon comparison misses. In this…
Okay, but why do some birds thrive in cities?
Ep 8 · Jan 29, 2026 · 31 min
E8. Cities can look like a concrete nightmare for wildlife… yet some birds are absolutely crushing it, while others vanish. In this episode of Okay, But... Birds, host Dr. Scott Taylor is joined by Dr. Fran Bonier, Professor at Queen’s University, to unpack what “urban birds” really are, why cities create winners and losers, and what it actually costs a bird to live the high-rise life. In this episode, you’ll hear about: Which birds tend to become “city birds,” and why some species thrive in urb…
Okay, but what does it take to record a bird? The inside scoop on Merlin!
Ep 7 · Jan 22, 2026 · 26 min
E7. Every bird song you’ve ever heard on a hike, through an open window, or sampled in a nature documentary has a story behind it. In this episode, host Dr. Scott Taylor is joined by Linda Macaulay, Chairman of the Board of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, to explore how bird sounds get recorded, preserved, and shared with the world, and why audio might be one of the most powerful tools we have for understanding and protecting birds. And yes, it’s THAT Macaulay; the one with the library named aft…
Okay, but how do chickadees never forget?
Ep 6 · Jan 15, 2026 · 25 min
E6. While chickadees look cute, they are also running one of the most impressive memory systems in the animal world. They hide food across the landscape, then somehow return to an insane number of individual spots later, even after snow, wind, and chaos try to erase the evidence. In this episode, host Dr. Scott Taylor is joined by Dr. Vladimir Pravosudov, Professor at the University of Nevada, Reno, to dig into how chickadee brains pull off this feat, what we know from decades of experiments. In…
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