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, evolutionary biologist at the University of New Mexico and curator of birds at the Museum of Southwestern Biology, who has spent his career figuring out how birds make a living in the thinnest air on Earth. From the hummingbird blood that rewrites itself to match a mountainside to a five-pound coot that has no business existing, this one is about the birds thriving where our bodies would quit.

In this episode:

• Why a single Andean slope can stack dozens of hummingbird species right on top of each other, each locked to its own band of elevation
• How the same oxygen-grabbing protein keeps evolving the same way, over and over, in a pattern so predictable it runs in reverse
• The record-holders pulling off things up high that sound like they shouldn't be possible

Chris doesn't just tell us about these birds, he shows us, so you may want to watch this one.

All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:

• House Finch audio contributed by William R. Fish, ML12932
• Giant Coot audio contributed by Steven L. Hilty, ML56377

E28. A bird's brain is the most expensive thing it owns, and evolution doesn't hand one out for free. Dr. Carlos Botero, Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin, has spent a decade tracing what variable, unforgiving environments actually do to bird cognition, and the answer flips a lot of conventional wisdom on its head.

In this episode:

• Why the harshest places on Earth produce two kinds of birds: the puzzle-solving geniuses and the brute-force survivors, with almost nothing in between
• How big brains might not have evolved for the reasons we always assumed
• Why being one of the smartest birds in the sky can come with a hidden cost

All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:

• Willow Ptarmigan audio contributed by Leonard J. Peyton, ML50031
• American Crow audio contributed by Bob McGuire, ML229089
• Blue Jay audio contributed by Gaetan Dupont, ML173749
• Black-capped Chickadee audio contributed by Jay McGowan, ML202239
• Snowy Owl audio contributed by Gerrit Vyn, ML138288

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, a postdoc at the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis, to look past the common stereotypes and uncover the remarkable biology of the Rock Pigeon.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

• The deep historical bond between humans and pigeons and how domestic birds successfully transitioned back into the wild.
• How pigeons navigate the constant threat of specialized hunters like Peregrine Falcons and Red-tailed Hawks.
• How mapping the DNA of feral pigeons across the Northeastern US revealed that their population structure surprisingly mirrors human geography, and what flight distances can tell us about their urban evolution.

If you enjoy this one, follow Okay, But… Birds and share it with a friend who needs to give pigeons a second look.

All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:

• Blue Jay audio contributed by Gaetan Dupont, ML173749
• Rock Pigeon (Feral Pigeon) audio contributed by James Kimball, ML3891
• Peregrine Falcon audio contributed by Mike Andersen, ML136378
• Red-tailed Hawk audio contributed by David McCartt, ML229578