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Hosted by evolutionary biologist Dr. Scott Taylor, Okay, But... Birds explores the drama, brilliance, and science behind bird life. Each snackable 30-minute episode blends smart storytelling, expert interviews, and a touch of humor to reveal how birds shape our world. No jargon. No binoculars required. Just real science, quirky insights, and bird-brained drama you’ll want to share at brunch. Because birds aren’t background. Birds are cool.
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Okay, but why are we obsessed with crows and ravens?
E46. Crows and ravens fill our oldest stories, and plenty of us want one as a friend. Dr. Claudia Wascher, professor of behavioral biology at Anglia Ruskin University, explains what makes corvids seem so clever, when clever turns out to be
Okay, but is the lyrebird a liar?
E45. Lyrebirds can copy a chainsaw, a car alarm and a camera shutter, so it is easy to call them liars. Dr. Anastasia Dalziell of Western Sydney University has spent years recording them in the wild, and she explains what the famous Attenbo
Okay, but what's threatening the apex predators of the sky?
E44. An adult eagle has no natural predators, so why are birds of prey declining? Dr. Todd Katzner, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, explains the surprising dangers facing golden eagles and their kin, from spinning wind
Okay, but how terrifying were terror birds?
E43. For millions of years, South America’s top predators weren’t cats or bears. They were birds, some taller than a person. Paleontologist Dr. Federico "Dino" Degrange of the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba joins us to ask whether terror b
Okay, but what happens when a bird gets sick?
E42. Birds get sick too, and a lot of what happens next looks surprisingly familiar. Dr. Andrea Townsend of Hamilton College has spent two decades following American crows through outbreaks, and she walks Scott through what illness really d
Okay, but griffins, and ligers, and birds, oh my!
E41. Centaurs, mermaids, minotaurs: we have been inventing creatures that are two things at once for as long as we have told stories. Birds do it for real. Dr. Glaucia Del-Rio of the Florida Museum of Natural History studies two Amazonian a
Okay, but... cranes!
E40. There are only 15 crane species on the planet, and 11 of them are in trouble. Dr. Andy Caven, Director of Central Flyway Programs for the International Crane Foundation, has spent his career on two of them: the sandhill cranes that pou
Okay, but why does that bird look so rough?
E39. Every August the questions start: there is a cardinal at the feeder with no head feathers, and it looks terrible. Nothing is wrong with it. It is molting, which every bird does at least every year. Dr. Ryan Terrill of the San Diego Nat
Okay, but what's up with feathers?
E38. You have pulled one out of a jacket sleeve at a bad angle, picked one up on a walk, and you are almost certainly within arm's reach of a few thousand of them right now. Dr. Cody Limber, who recently finished his PhD at Yale, spent it t
Okay, but does age bring Wisdom?
E37. A bird called Wisdom was banded on Midway Atoll in 1956 and is still laying eggs today, which makes her at least 75 and the oldest known wild bird on the planet. She has also outlived the man who banded her, and most of the scientists
Okay, but do hummingbirds ever chill?
E36. Hummingbirds run one of the fastest metabolisms of any animal with a backbone, which is why we picture them as permanently buzzing. Scott sits down with Dr. Anusha Shankar (http://anushashankar.weebly.com), assistant professor at the T
Okay, but what's the deal with Darwin's finches?
E35. Eighteen species of small brown bird on a pile of volcanic rock have taught us more about how evolution actually works than almost anything else on Earth. Not because Darwin figured them out. He didn't. Because a handful of scientists
Okay, but what's the deal with nests?
E34. Not all birds build one, but for the ones that do, a nest has a single job and a shockingly wide range of ways to get it done. Dr. Vanya Rohwer, Curator of Birds and Mammals at the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates, joins Scott
Okay, but how do birds handle a heatwave?
E33. When the air temperature climbs past a bird's own body temperature, staying cool stops being free and starts to cost them water they may not have. Dr. Blair Wolf, University of New Mexico, has spent his career studying how desert birds
Okay, but how does wildfire smoke impact birds?
E32. Wildfire smoke is blanketing more of the map every year, and it turns out a smoky sky changes everything for birds, from how they breathe to whether we can find them at all.https://ovsanderfoot.comDr. Olivia Sanderfoot (https://ovsande
Okay, but did birds invent music?
E31. If a bird sings a phrase worthy of Beethoven, is that music, or just biology in a nice outfit? Dr. Hollis Taylor (http://hollistaylor.com), a violinist, composer, and ornithologist, has spent more than two decades recording and transcr
Okay, but is the dawn chorus getting quieter?
E30. That wall of birdsong outside your window at sunrise has a name, a structure, and a surprising amount of drama. This week Scott talks with Dr. Dan Mennill (https://www.instagram.com/dmennill/), a professor at the University of Windsor
Okay, but what's it like as a bird at the top of the world?
E29. Standing at 11,000 feet, lungs burning, Scott watched birds go about their afternoon in the exact thin air that had nearly taken him out. This week he sits down with Dr. Chris Witt (https://bsky.app/profile/msbbirds.bsky.social), evolu
Okay, but does easy living make birds dumber?
E28. A bird's brain is the most expensive thing it owns, and evolution doesn't hand one out for free. Dr. Carlos Botero (https://boterolab.weebly.com), Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has spent a decade tracing wha
Okay, but... pigeons!
E27. They’ve been called "rats with wings," but pigeons are actually elite athletes, historical icons, and evolutionary marvels. Scott chats with Dr. Elizabeth Carlen (http://elizabethcarlen.com), a postdoc at the Living Earth Collaborative
Okay, but did birds originate the open relationship?
E26. We borrowed a phrase from human dating and tried to pin it on birds. Turns out they never needed the rulebook. Dr. Wenfei Tong, biologist and author of Bird Love, joins Scott to unpack what bird partnerships actually look like once you
Okay, but... boobies!
E25. The blue-footed booby has become an internet personality: cartoon feet, a goofy strut, a name that practically begs to be a punchline. But Scott sat down with Dr. Carlos Zavalaga, Universidad Científica del Sur, and one of the people w
Okay, but what about birds that can't fly?
E24. Flight is the thing we associate most with birds, so what does it mean when a lineage gives it up? Dr. Scott Edwards, Harvard, joins Scott to unpack how flightlessness evolves, why it keeps happening across the bird family tree, and wh
Okay, but can a bird really cooperate with humans?
E23. Across sub-Saharan Africa, wild birds and people work together to find honey. No taming, no breeding, no domestication… just a partnership thousands of years in the making. Behavioral ecologist Dr. Jessica van der Wal, FitzPatrick Inst
Okay, but can birds predict the weather?
E22. Folklore says birds know a storm is coming before we do. Scott talks with Dr. Gunnar Kramer, Iowa State University, about what's actually happening when a tiny warbler decides it's time to fly, or time to bail. In this episode: • Why t
Okay, but can birds smell?
E21. We're talking sense and scents with Dr. Danielle Whittaker, Oregon State, and author of The Secret Perfume of Birds (https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Perfume-Birds-Uncovering-Science/dp/1421443473), who spent a decade unraveling a 200-yea
Okay, but what can we learn from a drawer of birds?
E20. Less than 1% of what's in a museum is actually on display. So what's happening with the other 99%? Scott talks with Dr. Sushma Reddy, Breckenridge Chair of Ornithology at the Bell Museum and Associate Professor at the University of Min
Okay, but are bird feeders helping or hurting?
E19. More than 55 million Americans feed birds, and it's not exactly clear the birds asked us to. Dr. Olivia Sanderfoot (http://ovsanderfoot.com), Research Scientist and Project Leader of FeederWatch at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, joins
Okay, but what's in a bird's toolbox?
E18. Turns out "bird brain" is less of an insult and more of a compliment. Scott sits down with Dr. Alex Kacelnik, Emeritus Professor at the University of Oxford, to dig into one of the most mind-bending questions in animal behavior: are bi
Okay, but do birds have culture?
E17. From sparrow songs that go viral across a continent to cockatoos that watch each other to learn how to open bins, Dr. Lucy Aplin, Australian National University / University of Zurich, studies how birds learn from each other and why it
