Curated playlist
Birds of the United States
- MallardThe deep quack people imitate as a duck sound belongs to the female mallard.
- Canada gooseThe largest wild goose ever recorded was a male Canada goose. It weighed 10.9 kilograms and had a wingspan of 2.24 metres. That bird came from the giant subspecies, whose males rarely exceed 8 kilograms. This documentary follows a bird…
- Wild turkeyThe wild turkey, Meleagris gallopavo, is the heaviest member of the order Galliformes, the group of ground-dwelling game birds that includes pheasants and grouse. By the late 1930s, game managers believed that fewer than 30,000 of these…
- Golden eagleThe golden eagle spends most of the day sitting still. In Idaho, adult males perched for an average of 78% of the day.
- House sparrowThe house sparrow, a bird about 16 cm long, has been recorded breeding in an English coal mine 640 m below ground. It has also been seen feeding at night on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Few wild animals turn up in…
- Turkey vultureA male turkey vulture named Lord Richard lives at the Lindsay Wildlife Experience in Walnut Creek, California. As of 2025 he is 51 years old, the oldest captive bird of his species on record in the source. He hatched in 1974 at the Randall…
- Bald eagleBy the 1950s, only 412 nesting pairs of bald eagles remained across the 48 contiguous states of the United States. In the early 18th century, the population is estimated to have stood between 300,000 and 500,000. The bald eagle, Haliaeetus…
- Blue jayThe blue jay, Cyanocitta cristata, produced a surprise in 2023. Near San Antonio, Texas, a hybrid of a male blue jay and a female green jay was found and photographed. The green jay is Cyanocorax luxuosus. The offspring was given the…
- OspreyThe osprey, Pandion haliaetus, eats almost nothing except fish. Fish account for 99 percent of its diet. Older names capture the habit: sea hawk, river hawk and fish hawk. This large daytime bird of prey lives on every continent except…
- Common starlingThe common starling, Sturnus vulgaris, once convinced a famous composer to buy it on the spot. Mozart heard one in a shop singing a phrase from a piece he had finished only six weeks earlier. No audience had yet heard that piece. He took…
- Northern cardinalThe northern cardinal, a crested red songbird of eastern North America, will sometimes pick a fight with itself. A male that catches his image in a reflective surface may take it for a rival male. He then fights the reflection…
- California condorOn Easter Sunday in 1987, a bird tagged AC-9 was caught, and with it the last wild California condor disappeared from the sky. The person who caught it was Jan Hamber, an ornithologist who had spent years studying these birds. The capture…