Ten Mind-Boggling Discoveries About Birds

The term “bird-brained” is often used to describe something simple or dopey. So it might surprise you to learn that our feathered friends are more complex creatures than we frequently give them credit for. From Kenya’s charitable starlings to the toxic avians of Papua New Guinea, there are fascinating birds to be found all over the planet.

The following list covers avians galore, including a gender-splitting honeycreeper, a record-breaking albatross mother, and a scientist using an ultralight to teach ibises how to migrate. The birds in this list aren’t halfwit airheads. Here are some of the most fascinating bird discoveries nature has to offer.

Related: 10 Fascinating Discoveries Made by the Aztecs

10 Laser Peacocks

Peacocks are well known for rattling their feathers in a dazzling display of color. Scientists in the U.S. saw the birds’ lavish plumage and thought, “We can make lasers out of those.” And, remarkably, they did.

Peacock feathers get their iridescence from complex nanostructures that scatter light in a shimmer of color. These ordered patterns are known to physicists as photonic crystals. They allow some wavelengths of light to pass through while blocking others.

In a 2025 paper in Scientific Reports, researchers at Florida Polytechnic explained how they took feathers from male Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus) and used them as a medium to generate laser light. First, the team applied a dye, then fired light pulses at the stained feathers.

Remarkably, they found that the peafowl’s eyespots glowed, emitting several bands of color, including an intense green light. However, researchers are still unsure precisely which structures caused the glow. They hope that one day their work can help build biocompatible lasers that can be used in the human body.^[1]

9 The Split Personality Bird

Birdwatcher John Murillo was astounded to discover a green honeycreeper (Chlorophanes spiza) that was both male and female. Male honeycreepers typically sport blue plumage. Females, on the other hand, live up to their name with a lovely green coat. But this individual was split down the middle—one side blue and the other green.

Scientists say that this trait, bilateral gynandromorphy, is extremely rare in honeycreepers. This bird was the second case ever recorded in that species, and the first in over a century.

Murillo came across the bird in 2021 near Manizales, Colombia. He and a team of zoologists studied the rare creature for nearly two years. They found that it behaved much like a regular honeycreeper, but it was a little more solitary and showed no drive to find a mate.

Scientists believe that bilateral gynandromorphism takes place when an egg undergoes unusual chromosomal division and is fertilized by different sperm, producing both male and female characteristics. They never studied the bird closely enough to learn about its internal organs, but they suspect it likely had both male and female systems.^[2]

8 Supermom Albatross

The headlines were abuzz in late 2024 after Wisdom, the world’s oldest wild bird, laid an egg and prepared for her next chick at the age of 74. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service filmed the veteran Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis) at a Pacific refuge as she and her partner tended to the egg.

Wisdom is already a prolific layer. Experts estimate she has mothered over 30 chicks during her long life. Her last young one emerged in 2021.

Laysan albatrosses typically live up to 40 years. However, Wisdom has defied all expectations and is still thriving well into her seventies. She was first tagged at the age of five in 1956. Her species usually mates for life, although scientists believe she has outlived at least three partners.

Wisdom, her latest partner, and her new chick live a peaceful life at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Hawaiian archipelago, which boasts the largest albatross colony in the world.^[3]

7 Bird Besties

Starling relationships are much more similar to human ones than you might think. The birds are known for breeding cooperatively. Come mating season, some superb starlings (Lamprotornis superbus) choose not to breed and instead help their buddies raise chicks. Now, scientists have found that the relationship goes both ways.

In a 2025 study, a team at the University of Cambridge discovered that the helper birds will receive assistance in return when it’s their turn to raise chicks. They studied over 400 nests in Kenya across nine social groups spanning about 15 years.

Superb starlings tend to pair up. Often, relatives born in the same nest will choose each other. One bird becomes the breeder, and the other takes on the role of helper. Experts say this give-and-take system is essential for surviving in an unforgiving climate with little food and frequent droughts.^[4]

6 Before Birds Were Birds

Over 210 million years ago, strange beings with bird-like feet wandered through southern Africa—60 million years before the earliest known birds.

Scientists examined animal tracks from sites across Lesotho. Geologists from the University of Cape Town studied 163 footprints that date back to the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic periods.

Fossil evidence suggests that birds first evolved around 150 to 160 million years ago. Scientists are unsure if these new tracks were made by some sort of unknown early ancestor or by a separate species that developed bird-like feet long before birds themselves evolved.^[5]

5 Shrinking Birds, Growing Wings

The animal kingdom is constantly changing. Just look at the Amazon, where birds are shrinking while their wings are growing longer. Scientists have reported that both migratory and non-migratory birds are dwindling in size. Some species have dropped nearly 10% over the past 40 years.

Experts at the Amazon Biodiversity Center near Manaus have been studying birds for decades. They use mist nets to capture birds from a set area, then weigh them and measure their wings.

The team found that almost every one of the 77 species caught had shrunk over the last 40 years. In about a third of cases, the birds also had longer wings.

Scientists are now trying to work out why this unusual change has occurred. They believe it may be linked to climate shifts, arguing that changing temperatures and rainfall patterns are driving these strange new body adaptations.^[6]

4 Fly Away Home for Real

The Northern bald ibis (Geronticus eremita) has been given a new lease on life thanks to conservationists. The species, also known as Waldrapps, once roamed the skies over three continents, feasting on worms and insects and nesting in crags and cliffs. They were so revered that they even appeared in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

But the ibis vanished from Europe 300 years ago. By the 1990s, just 59 pairs remained in the wild in Morocco. A recent push by conservationists has brought that figure up to over 500 birds. In 2018, the IUCN reclassified the species from critically endangered to endangered.

Now, scientists in Europe are bringing the Northern bald ibis back to the continent for the first time since the 17th century. Biologist Johannes Fritz uses an ultralight aircraft to teach the birds to migrate from Germany to Spain. Inspired by the movie Fly Away Home, he leads the way, and the ibises follow in his wake.

There are now around 270 Waldrapps living in Europe, most of whom have learned to migrate without Fritz’s guidance.^[7]

3 Spicy Birds of the Pacific

The Pacific island of Papua New Guinea is home to birds like none other. Locals describe them as “spicy” due to the toxic chemicals stored in their feathers and skin.

The exotic birds carry potent substances known as batrachotoxins, which are also found in some beetles and frogs. The toxins latch onto nerve cells, forcing them to send out a deluge of electrical signals. Large doses can lead to paralysis or even death.

Biologists have known about Papua New Guinea’s toxic inhabitants for decades. Recently, researchers have confirmed two additional bird species as toxic.

Experts found that both species evolved independently of each other to be able to produce toxins.^[8]

2 Birds That Swap Sexes

Researchers in Australia were stunned to discover just how common sex reversal is among the country’s wild birds. Studies revealed that around one in twenty common species have reproductive organs that do not match their genetic sex.

Sex reversal impacts many wild birds, including lorikeets and kookaburras. The issue is that scientists have no real understanding of why it is so widespread.

The team tested 480 birds from five common species at a hospital in southeast Queensland. First, they used a DNA test to determine the bird’s genetic sex, then examined its organs. The experts found 24 sex-discordant birds, the majority of which were genetically female with male organs.

The researchers were so surprised by the results that they rechecked them multiple times before they could believe it. Co-author Dominique Potvin told reporters that she shared the findings with her bird-loving friends. “They were mind-blown,” she said.^[9]

1 Revenge of the Crows

Crows and magpies in Europe have found an unlikely new material from which to craft their homes. Buildings often stick up strips of long metal barbs known as anti-bird spikes, designed to stop birds from nesting on rooftops and ledges.

But now, in an ironic twist, corvids have been spotted taking the deterrent strips and using them to build their nests. Experts discovered nests made from anti-bird spikes in the Dutch cities of Amsterdam and Enschede, as well as Antwerp, Belgium, and Glasgow, Scotland.

Some birds have even been seen using the anti-bird spikes to fend off other species. Magpies arrange some of the barbs on top of their nests to ward off weasels and other predators.

“I really thought I’d seen it all,” explained Kees Moeliker, the director of the Natural History Museum Rotterdam. “I didn’t expect this. These anti-bird spikes are meant to deter birds—they are supposed to scare them off—but on the contrary, the birds just utilize them.”^[10]