96 episodes
The Science of Birds Ivan Phillipsen
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- Wetenschap
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5.0 • 3 Ratings
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The Science of Birds is a lighthearted exploration of bird biology. It's a fun resource for any birder or naturalist who wants to learn more about ornithology. Impress your birding friends at cocktail parties with all of your new bird knowledge! Hosted by Ivan Phillipsen, a passionate naturalist with a PhD in Zoology.
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Answers to Your Questions About Birds - AMA - Vol 4
In this episode—which is Number 96—I’ll be answering questions sent by my listeners. So this is what we call an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) episode. I enjoy doing these, and it’s so interesting to see what sorts of questions people have about birds.The listeners who get to contribute questions for these Ask Me Anything episodes are members of my community on Patreon. There are several tiers of support that people can join, and at the Helpful Hornbill and Awesome Osprey level, one perks is getting...
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Spoonbills
This episode—which is number 95—is all about spoonbills. There are six spoonbill species in the world, all of which belong to the genus Platalea. The unique beak of spoonbills sets them apart from pretty much all other birds. What is the advantage of having a bill shaped like that? We'll answer that question in this episode.~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website Support the Show.
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The Avian Digestive System
This episode—which is Number 94— is all about the Avian Digestive System. That’s right, kids, we’re looking at bird guts today!If you’ve ever wondered what happens to a fish swallowed by a kingfisher or what happened to that piece of bacon swiped off your lunch plate by a cheeky Ring-billed Gull... Well, you're about to find out.I’ll do my best to describe in words the anatomical features we encounter today. But I’ve also drawn a diagram for you. You can check that out on the show notes for t...
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House Sparrow
This episode—which is number 93—is all about the the House Sparrow (Passer domesticus), one of the world’s best known and most abundant birds. It expanded across the planet along with humans over the last 10,000 years, with the spread of agriculture. Today, this plucky little bird is a model organism for the study of basic bird biology. Over 7,000 scientific studies of the House Sparrow have been published. In this episode, we’ll get into what this species looks and sounds like, where it live...
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Bird Habitat: Deserts
This episode—which is Number 92—is all about the value of desert ecosystems as habitats for birds.Deserts are important for the birds that are adapted to live in them—birds that can handle the harsh conditions. Deserts are home to relatively few bird species. Only the polar regions and maybe some parts of the open ocean have less bird diversity.Even if a bird species can handle the extremes of heat and cold in a desert, the desiccating winds, and the lack of water, that bird may not find much...
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Chickadees, Tits, and Titmice
This is Episode 91. It’s all about birds in the family Paridae. These are the chickadees, tits, and titmice—cute little forest-dwelling songbirds known and loved by many people around the world.I’ve had a lot of requests to make a podcast episode about chickadees and their kind. Some species in this family are familiar visitors to backyard bird feeders. They’re highly active, vocal, bold, and sometimes quite confiding with people. It’s possible to gain the trust of tits and chickadees of some...
Customer Reviews
Ivan the Hoopoe
Around a month I ago, I started reading The Conference of the Birds by Attar of Nishapur. A Great poem about a Hoopoe who starts a journey with a group of other birds in search of Simorgh, a mythical Persian bird, that in this poem is a metaphor for god. As the author was a Sufi, during their long journey, the birds tried to be enlightened for the right path.
Now it happened that I started reading the poem around the same time that I started listening to your podcast, and in some way, it seems you became my Hoopoe.
It seems that you, with your well written podcasts full of boring jokes, are showing me the way as the Hoopoe does for the birds (off course they represent man) that get prevented from attaining enlightenment because of bird (human) error.
It is not that I really see you as the messenger of Solomon, spraying feces around, but rather as the Hoopoe of Makor from the book of James A Michiner, The Source.
More as, the clever lad who was always busy and stuck his nose in every hole. Someone who could dedicate an episode on analyzing scientifically how loud people around birding spots can be avoided, as the Hoopoe of Makor masterfully designed a hidden cave, from which the women of Makor could get to their well, even in times of attack from the outside.
During your well prepared and structured episodes, I realized that I am somehow still a baby inside an eggshell of unknown bird with the most crazy pelvis you can imagine, but It is you, that with use of your uropygial gland is filling up my pores with antibiotic protection.
As I work in a refugee center, this is helpful, and the link with avian migration is easy made.
Wishing for enzymes in the eyes of human migrants, that signals for wicked people on the road, one way or round trip, learning new songs and calls, struggling all the way, more and more, thanks to the most intelligent creature.
Giving me insight how this most intelligent creature, that seems not to be intelligent enough to understand the intelligence of lots of other creatures….as my compatriot Hans de Waal explained perfectly well, created artificial intelligence for the good of bird research. You made me dream of installing my own microphones on the top of my roof for monitoring avian species that migrate at night.
It really feels like that every episode confronts me, and as the Hoopoe leads the group of birds to Simorgh they finally find out that he’s not really at where his nest should be, but find a lake and see the reflection of themselves.
I am (and become a better) birder and human (because of you), that would like to hear an episode about flocks as information centers, as investigated by Chavos Campos in antbirds.