Close up of finches on a bird feeder

Browse by Topic

Birds

Stories

View More

A paradise tanager looks directly into a camera with its green head cocked, visible red spot on its back, and stunningly bright blue breast.

Hidden black and white feathers are the secret behind songbirds' dazzling colors

Colorful songbirds like tanagers use a painterly technique to make their colors pop

Vintage illustration of various feathers and specimen skins of birds

How Bird Feathers Work

A brief look at the structure of feathers—and what they mean to birds

An silhouette of a bird filled with naming words like 'black' 'western' etc

A First Step to Bird Names as Simple as ABC

First-of-its-kind Avian Lexicon Atlas maps how bird species get their names

Illustration of ice age bird, the teratorn.

Meet Teratorn, the Largest Bird Found at La Brea Tar Pits

The teratorn was undoubtedly big, but was it a big vulture or something else?

A male house finch with a little red plumage around its beak and breast alongside otherwise gray feathers being held still by a person's hand

Bird banding, Wildfire Smoke, and the Nature Gardens

Researchers band birds and collect feathers in the Nature Gardens to study the impacts of wildfire smoke on birds.

House Finch Collection Drawer

Wildfire Smoke in Bird Feathers

NHM researchers look at dirty feathers to understand the effects of wildfire smoke on birds