Birds

A newly described extinct giant penguin from New Zealand has unusually long legs and a long, slender beak, and it dates to a time when much of the region was underwater.

Wild cockatoos have figured out how to open garbage can lids, and the practice is spreading due to social learning.

A mysterious illness is spreading throughout bird populations in the eastern U.S.

When a photographer snapped the moment a herring gull caught a french fry midair, the image quickly went viral. Now, the photo is appearing on Google billboards in Ireland and the U.K.

Lifesaving surgery gives a rare bird a leg up.

The egg of a dwarf emu that's been extinct for 200 years was found in a sand dune on King Island, Australia.

More than a dozen condors have been paying daily visits to a home in Tehachapi, California (and destroying nearly everything in sight).

Researchers scoured more than 27,000 bird photos on Instagram to see which ones consistently got more likes than expected. The big winner was the owl-like frogmouth.

Scientists began tracking the bird in 2016.

Even today, the Gulf Coast still suffers from the effects of the oil spill. But a remarkable cleanup effort has helped the pelican return home.

In Iron Age boat burials, 1,400-year-old feathers filled comfy cushions under warriors' bones. Down in the bedding belonged to different birds and may have had symbolic importance.

High-speed cameras and arrays of microphones helped researchers draw an acoustic map of hummingbirds' distinctive hum.

Scientists have finally solved a 25-year-old mystery surrounding a neurodegenerative disease killing bald eagles and other lake animals in the U.S.

Officials are urging people to take down their feeders, where birds are congregating and spreading a bacterial infection.

Scientists recently captured video documenting the first reported instance of a fish preying on a newly-hatched baby bird, in a flooded nest in coastal Georgia.

A rockhopper penguin in the Falkland Islands needed a little guidance after getting separated from his penguin group.

Australia's avian celebrity Joe the Pigeon is getting a new lease on life after authorities determined he is not a biosecurity threat.

According to legend, six ravens must inhabit the Tower of London or the kingdom will fall. Now, one of the ravens, a matriarch named Merlina, is missing.

A rose-breasted grosbeak that was captured in a Pennsylvania nature reserve is a bilateral gynandromorph — male on the right side and female on the left side.