If you live in Australia, it’s not unusual to spot native parrot species foraging in your yard. New South Wales resident Jayde Parrey, for one, is used to seeing rainbow lorikeets, but one member of a recent flock of 20 parrots certainly stood out for it was an unusually colored rainbow lorikeet. Learn more about this special lorikeet.

Central Park in New York City recently saw the return a fluffy white visitor after a 130-year hiatus—a majestical snowy owl! On January 27, a popular birder tweeted the arrival of a snowy owl hunkering down behind a fenced area near the park’s baseball fields. Soon after, local birders flocked to the park for the sighting of a lifetime. Read on to learn more about the snowy owl and how this owl’s brief New York City appearance made headlines.

There’s birding, and then there’s an extreme form of birding referred to as “twitching,” where enthusiasts are willing to brave the elements, the costs and other obstacles to catch a glimpse of a rare bird in the wild. Learn the story behind the “twitchers” name and the lengths they are willing to go to see a feathered beauty in nature.

A starling murmuration is a sight to behold. Those lucky to stumble upon a murmuration are witness to an aerial ballet of thousands of birds moving in unison, individual birds blending into a moving mass that appears to morph into different shapes.

A new study affirms what many of us bird enthusiasts already sense—wild birds give us an emotional boost. Seeing and hearing the variety of birds in our neighborhoods can make us happier, especially when we choose to engage with them by offering food and creating a safe and inviting habitat to visit.

Andrea Garcia, a library aide in the Los Angeles area, has found parrots to be the perfect assistants when it comes to story time. Garcia hosts up to 32 Zoom virtual reading sessions a week for elementary school children.

The tiny Saw-whet owl rescued from the 75-foot-tall Norway spruce tree that was brought from upstate New York to Manhattan’s Rockefeller Center takes flight after being treated at a wildlife rehabilitation facility.

Leila Jeffreys is an artist from Australia who uses the tools of photography to create incredible portraitures of birds of all kinds The result is large prints that reveal immaculate details of the bird subject she is working with

The thick-billed parrot (Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha) is the only surviving parrot species native to North America. This special parrot once thrived in its Arizona mountain habitat and was last seen in the wild there in 1938. It has since settled in Mexico, but a team of wildlife researchers in Arizona are working with counterparts in northern Mexico to reintroduce the bird to the state’s wild.

A parrot’s penchant for chewing things up is nothing new. Think of all the cardboard and/or wood items your bird has destroyed throughout your time together! What is new is a famed artist turning a parrot’s “masterpiece of destruction” into museum-quality sculptures. Joseph Havel, whose works have been exhibited in prestigious galleries around the world, looked no further than his African grey companion, Hannah, to create a collection of pieces that are now on display at a gallery in Houston. Learn how this collaborative effort between an artist and parrot came to be.

Biggy Pop is not your average cockatoo. This ‘too’s companion is Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Iggy Pop, frontman for the influential punk band The Stooges. A fan of both Iggy Pop the rocker and Biggy Pop the bird recently reached out to the duo to see if they’d help bring awareness to Australia’s plight in the aftermath of devastating fires that wiped out an estimated three billion animals, including 180 million birds.

The effects of light pollution—being exposed to artificial light at night—is shown to disrupt our circadian rhythms and potentially wreak havoc on our sleep-wake cycles. Artificial light also affects wildlife in ways many of us might never have imagined. See how city lights can interfere with the lives of wild birds’ and even affect their migratory patterns.

Sirocco, the personable and friendly kakapo parrot, is back in the spotlight. New Zealand’s national treasure and face of conservation is social media star, with 235,000 followers and counting.

Mumbai-based musician Jatin Talukdar had two unexpected admirers when he began to play guitar and whistle out his window — two wild parrots.

A new study on kea parrots, New Zealand’s native alpine parrot species, shows just how smart these famously intelligent birds are. With favored treats at stake, keas demonstrated a keen ability to act on their sense of probability to get treats. They even outperformed primates on some tasks. See how the parrots’ grasp of statistics fared when researchers put them to the test.

An ambitious conservation project to help save the grey-breasted parakeet saw its first success with the hatching of three nestlings in 2010, which has now led to 130 hatchings per year! See what the secret to their success has been and where this colorful parakeet might be headed in terms of its population status in the wild.

An increasing number of people have taken up birding as a way to feel connected with the world around us and expand their knowledge of nature. Now is the perfect time to become a birder. Many top bird-centric organizations are making it easier than ever for families to learn birding basics.

We give our babies names, but do parrots also “name” their young by using distinct chirps specific to an individual chick? One scientist decided to listen more closely to what might really be going on when birds chatter. He constructed nests in Venezuela and recorded the peeps of green-rumped parrotlets. The results suggest that parrot parents give their chicks individual names.

Louie the parrot did a miraculous thing when a fire began to rage in his home; he screeched “Fire!” for the first time and alerted his household to a raging fire. Read more about Louie, his life-saving act, and his bittersweet ending.

Do parrots cough? Cough-like noises can indicate an underlying medical issue in our feathered companions. See how parrots’ coughs are different from ours, and when to call the vet.