A study explores how birds rearrange feathers after flights through gusts and foliage. The durability of bird feathers is evident in the ease with which birds preen and repair ruffled feathers using ...

The iridescent shimmer that makes birds such as peacocks and hummingbirds so striking is rooted in a natural nanostructure so complex that people are only just beginning to replicate it ...

Quick Take Vulturine guinea fowl’s blue and white plumage comes from feather structure, not pigments, creating vivid, ...

The male desert sandgrouse might not be much to look at, but his belly feathers give him the unique ability to absorb and carry water. Researchers have, for the first time, closely examined the ...

What makes a blue jay blue or a cardinal red? Color, a crucial element in nature, is most evident in the amazing hue and pattern variations in more than 10,000 bird species around the world. How birds ...

More than 99% of birds can fly. But that still leaves many species that evolved to be flightless, including penguins, ...

BRAINERD — I was hunkered in a blind I had placed along the edge of field when a magnificent tom turkey walked into view a mere 50 feet away. I “yelped” softly on a diaphragm turkey call, and ...

Female tanager birds dig flamboyant males. So to build plumage that really pops with orange or red or yellow, a male has to eat fruits and absorb their carotenoids. The fancy feathers he produces then ...

Researchers found that the iridescent shimmer that makes birds such as peacocks and hummingbirds so striking is rooted in an evolutionary tweak in feather nanostructure that has more than doubled the ...

The researchers found an evolutionary tweak in feather nanostructure that has more than doubled the range of iridescent colors birds can display. This insight could help researchers understand how and ...