Apr 1
A very special little bird for a very special day :)
seen from Yemen
seen from France
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from Germany
seen from Australia
seen from Venezuela
seen from Colombia
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
A very special little bird for a very special day :)
🐦“Little-roll-of-the-flatlands”
🇧🇷Rolinha-do-planalto
🇬🇧Blue-eyed Ground-Dove
📖(Columbina cyanopis)
I was delighted to discover this wonderful bird, yet not surprised, since the Brazilian Cerrado holds so many unknown treasures it’s only natural that this amazing dove comes from there. First discovered in 1823, this blue fellow was thought to be extinct from 1941 until 2015, when Brazilian ornithologist Rafael Bessa spotted the first “Little-roll-of-the-flatlands” in years, living in a very particular area of the Cerrado. This species is considered critically endangered by the IUCN list, the reason being the massive destruction of the Cerrado biome by the agribusiness industry. Its scientific name literally means “blue-eyed dove” and I think that’s beautiful. In 2017, only 27 individuals were accounted for in the world (this bird being endemic to the Cerrado biome). This 15cm blue beauty feeds mainly on grains and has a very constant “whoap whoap whoap” kind of call (sorry about my terrible attempt at reproducing it). Both male and female are very similar, but the latter is paler than the former. Considering this blue-eyed preciousness disappeared off the radar for 75 YEARS, we still have loads to learn about them. I just hope we can do it before it’s too late. The cerrado must be protected.
Sources:
https://www.wikiaves.com.br/wiki/rolinha-do-planalto
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2530064421000201?via%3Dihub#sec0010
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-eyed_ground_dove
🐦“Mr. Matchmaker”
🇧🇷 Galo-das-pradarias-grande
🇺🇸 Greater prairie-chicken
📖(𝘛𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘶𝘤𝘩𝘶𝘴 𝘤𝘶𝘱𝘪𝘥𝘰)
Booming season is just over, guys... Those chickens were out there doing their thing, pumping up their yellow neck patches and calling out their mates. "Love is in the air", as they say and now it's time for baby prairie-chicks to thrive. When I first read their latin name, I honestly burst out laughing. I could not imagine Linnaeus checking this bird out and being “yo, this is the most romantic animal I’ve ever seen, imma call it cupido”. Hilarious, right? It does have a reason, though. Apparently, its erectile neck feathers are similar to Cupid’s wings. Similarly, their mating ritual is what they’re famous for. A small town in Minnesota actually adopted Mr. Matchmaker here as their official animal and built the biggest Greater prairie-chicken statue in the whole wide world. To be fair, I don’t believe the competition is very fierce. The statue portrays an adult male, because only them have the inflatable yellow patches to woo the ladies. These fierce territorial boomers mainly feed on seeds and fruits, but they can also eat some insects, if it comes to that. Our love-chickens were actually widespread across the United States, populating the prairies by the thousands. Alas, like many other bird stories we tell here, their numbers have massively dropped due to habitat loss (over 95% of prairies in the US have been turned into agricultural lands) and hunting. During the 19th century, you could see those chickens everywhere, dude. It went from huge population to near extinction in the 1930’s. They are also challenged by the introduction of exotic predators and nest competitors, like the Common Pheasant. Since we’re talking about nests, once the booming season is successfully concluded, the hens lay 5 to 17 eggs that take a bit over 3 weeks to hatch. Our chick Boomers reach sexual maturity around the age of 1, when the booming cycle starts again. By the way, if you live in the states, you can check out their display around sunset time between late March and April!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_prairie-chicken
https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/animals-we-protect/greater-prairie-chicken/
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/world-s-largest-prairie-chicken
👻“Ghost-bird”
🇧🇷Urutau/Mãe-da-Lua
🇬🇧Common Potoo
📖(Nyctibius griseus)
In honor of this awesome square month (february 2026!) and its Friday the 13th, we decided to present to you guys the mysterious voice of the night, the nightmare of bugs and frogs, the scary cry of the dawn, your one and only: The Ghost-Bird! Seriously though, have you heard them vocalizing? Chills, literal chills. Maybe that explains the insane amount of Amerindian folklore surrounding this amazing bird, starting with its name “Urutau”. I really wish I had come up with that name (because it obviously rules), but the credit goes all to the indigenous people of South America, for their name means “ghost bird” in tupi. Legend is that a tupi girl fell in love with a guarani boy and they couldn't be together for their tribes were mortal enemies, so the girl ran into the woods and the loss of her great love turned her into a bird that sings its pain into the night, a painful “hu hu hu”. The urutau is fairly common across South America, but its population is decreasing both to habitat loss and also to stupid people thinking it is actually a bearer of misfortune. Lonely creatures of the darkness (omg batman?), they capture bugs and moths on flight, with a single TOOTH that helps catch the prey. During the day, they mostly stay on a branch, motionless and thanks to their THREE EYELIDS MAGIC EYE SYSTEM they can close their eyes and still see everything! Dope. Monogamous creatures, the couple cares equally for a single egg with lilac spots laid inside a branch. Anyway they are such awesome creatures with big beautiful yellow eyes. Big. Yellow.
Sources:
https://www.wikiaves.com.br/wiki/urutau
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urutau-comum
https://www.oiseaux.net/oiseaux/ibijau.gris.html
https://animalvivid.com/urutau-bird-20-incredible-facts/#easy-footnote-bottom-3-510337
🐦“Pre-pope”
🇧🇷Cardeal do norte
🇺🇲Northern Cardinal
📖(Cardinalis cardinalis)
Ok, I have to be honest, I couldn’t let this one pass without a funny name, but literally translating wouldn’t do, for its name is already the Portuguese translation. I took advantage of the fact that a certain conclave was approaching back when I first wrote about them and tried to stay on theme. These 25cm birds are called like this because their vivid red plumage resembles Catholic cardinal’s outfits. A gorgeous red color that comes from metabolising carotenoids acquired from their diet. Being a sexually dimorphic species, the females are reddish-green with a red tuft on their heads. In some cases, the brighter a male is, the less he helps with nest duty (sounds familiar?) and the ladies are faced with the choice of either good genetics or a helpful hand with the nest. Occurring from the south of Canada, all the way across eastern USA, Mexico and a bit of central america, this bird is very abundant in North America and represents 7 USA states! They basically feed on grains and fruits, but can also eat small insects. Very territorialist individuals, they defend their land with… the power of their beautiful songvoices! But apparently they have a strong bite, so in case you missed the vocal warning, they won’t hesitate. Maybe that’s why they served as inspiration for the main guy from Angry Birds.
If you have bird suggestions for the next ones, we’ll gladly take them!
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_cardinal
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinalis_cardinalis
https://www.oiseaux.net/oiseaux/cardinal.rouge.html
https://animalia.bio/index.php/pt/northern-cardinal
Birds of a Feather Talk Together podcast ep. 10
The Science of Birds podcast: The Northern Cardinal
🐦 “Writer of the snow”
🇧🇷Escrevedeira das neves
🇺🇸Snow Bunting
📖 (Plectrophenax nivalis)
Well here we are. It's almost summer in the northern hemisphere and as a reminder of the good ol’ winter days, we will present to you an Arctic specialist, the Queen Elsa of the birds, the most northerly passerine bird in the world. This snowy fairy princess nivalis bird (nivalis as in latin for “snow-white”) is present all across the circumpolar Arctic under 4 different subspecies. Much like Elsa, when she gets her full-on makeover, the snow bunting also changes its style during breeding season: the male is mainly white, with black wingtips and back. The female, much more stylish in my humble opinion, has a brownish touch to her plumage, on the top of the head, cheeks and chest. During the non-breeding season, they’re quite similar, with brownish plumage a bit diffuse over the white. They actually get rid of their brownish plumage by repeatedly rubbing its feathers in the snow! Quite the singers, those guys, they rely a lot on their vocalizations for communication, mating and protection of their territories, each male having its own unique vocalization. I can already imagine them whistling “Let it go” when they think no one is listening. When winter comes, they all migrate a bit south, using their awesome geomagnet superpowers to orientate themselves. They eat a whole variety of seeds and weeds and small invertebrates, especially right before the breeding season starts, when their overall mass must increase by up to 30%! That’s how they survive those very low Arctic temperatures. In fact, males actually return to the Arctic to find good nesting spots when the temperatures are still very very low! We're talking -30°C, seriously! Females only join them about 4 weeks later. It worries me deeply to think about the future of this species, in sight of climate change.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_bunting
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escrevedeira-das-neves
https://www.biodiversity4all.org/taxa/117059-Plectrophenax-nivalis
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Snow_Bunting/overview
Mullarney, K; Zetterstrom, D. “Le guide ornitho” 3rd edition, 2022.
🐦"Anthill-whistler"
🇧🇷Formigueiro-assobiador
🇬🇧White-bibbed Antbird
📖(Myrmoderus loricatus)
I’m pretty sure this bird has some kind of beef with ants, every single name it owns is related to them somehow. Even in latin, his name means “ant-destroyer”. They do in fact feed on ants and other insects, occasionally even spiders. Bro is up for anything. As for its whistling skills, I would say they are quite interesting, for they emit 3 different kinds of chants. One for when there is potential danger approaching, another one for communication and the last one for mating. They also change their chanting slightly depending on the season, adapting their range to the acoustic of the forest. The female only answers to the yapping of the males, never starting a discussion, so I guess the ladies don’t bother talking a lot to the males anyway. Understandable, to be fair. I highly recommend looking it up and listening to their chants, it’s very impressive. They are only found in the southeast region of Brazil, in low altitudes in the middle of what’s left of the Atlantic Forest.
Fun fact: they used to have another latin name (Myrmeciza loricata) but after a study in its genome, they changed its name to regroup them with other species of the same genus.
It was actually a bit difficult to find a lot of information on this dude, I even had to dig up some Latin notions to understand some sources. This most certainly means we still have lots to learn about birds.
Sources:
http://repositorio.ufjf.br/jspui/bitstream/ufjf/1597/1/thiagoorionsimoesamorim.pdf
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/28229292
https://www.wikiaves.com.br/wiki/formigueiro-assobiador
🐦 "Gang-swallow"
🇧🇷Andorinha-de-bando
🇬🇧Barn Swallow
📖(Hirundo rustica)
Every bird has something unique to teach us, and this particular one reminds me of the power of belonging to a group. Having a gang to call your own and protecting each other. In Portuguese we say that “one swallow alone doesn't make summer” (uma andorinha só não faz verão), we need the strength brought by collectiveness. And those birds sure know how to use that power, together they fly all over the world. The barn swallow is found under 6 subespecies, all over the planet and across all continents (spotted even in Antarctica!). Funny thing about birds, they have UNHINGED collective names and a group of swallows is called… a kettle of swallows! I immediately imagine them going like WHIIIIIEEE as white smoke comes out of their beaks. You can spot a kettle of swallows that goes up to thousands of individuals, migrating south together when the winter comes. The female and the male adults are very similar, though the latter have longer tails. They are exclusively insectivorous, catching their yummy lunch (mainly flies) in the middle of the flight. Though they have a good relationship with human activity (they avoid dense forests and prefer open spaces, often using human-made structures to nest), the use of pesticides threatens them deeply and so does climate change, making their migratory journey even more dangerous.
Fun fact: the males will reduce parental care with the chicks if they suspect the kids are not his (men, huh?)
Sources:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirondelle_rustique https://www.audubon.org/magazine/barn-swallow-slowly-conquering-world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_swallow
https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirundo_rustica
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347288800599
https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/barswa/cur/introduction?media=figures