The announcement of the discovery of a new bird comes with a twist: It’s a white-eye, but its eye isn’t white. Still, what this new bird lacks in literal qualities it makes up for as one of the surprises that nature still has tucked away in little-explored corners of the world.

Though they perch far apart on the avian family tree, birds with the ability to learn songs use similar brain structures to sing their tunes. Neurobiologists at Duke University Medical Center now have an explanation for this puzzling likeness.

Research investigates remarkable survival of birds in contaminated Indian waters

In humans, as in all mammals, sleep consists of two phases: deep, dreamless slow-wave-sleep (SWS) alternates with dream phases, called Rapid Eye Movement (REM)-sleep. Although several studies suggest that information is processed and memories are consolidated during sleep, this remains a hotly debated topic in neurobiology.

Ski tourism is raising stress levels among capercaillie, which could harm the birds’ fitness and ability to breed successfully, ecologists have found.

New research from the University of Exeter in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin published in the journal Science (22 February 2008) questions claims that EU conservation policy has been successful in protecting endangered birds.

Considerable attention has been paid to the effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals in aquatic environments, but rather less attention has been given to routes of contamination on land.

Hare coursing, bird trapping and the UK's role in the illegal global trading of wildlife will be discussed by a member of the Metropolitan Police at Wolfson College this Thursday (February 21).

How young migratory birds choose the nesting location of their first breeding season has been something of a mystery in the bird world.

According to the Chinese proverb, a bird sings because it has a song, not because it has an answer. A team of French and Brazilian researchers, however, may have the answer as to how the song of Brazilian white-browed warbler has become so well-adapted to the acoustic properties of the rainforest environment.

Keep feeding the birds over winter: that’s the message from research by the University of Exeter and Queen’s University Belfast, published today (6 February 2008) in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. The study shows for the first time that the extra food we provide garden birds in winter makes for a more successful breeding season in the spring.

Did modern birds originate around the time of the dinosaurs' demise, or have they been around far longer?