I Finally Visited the Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:07]Turn right, then take a slight left turn.

[00:00:21]Just feels so special to be here. And um so Maya Thompson is going to give me an hour tour. She's the co-director of engagement in science and nature. Um I'm super excited. Let's get the tour and see how it goes.

[00:01:04]Heat. Heat.

[00:01:24]I'm in the bird discovery room. Look at this.

[00:01:31]It's cool.

[00:01:37]Vulg cop looferina. It's insane. And it like goes around the female likeoop and does this thing with its feathers. It's crazy.

[00:02:17]So, if you didn't know about owls that they their ears are actually positioned um differently like the one is up, the one is down. As you can see here, this one is more down and then the one is more up.

[00:02:30]And then these here, uh, these skulls, you can see kind of that they're positioned differently.

[00:02:39]Also, if you didn't know, birds can make two sounds at the same time. So, this is the serrinx. Um, it's kind of like their voice box. Um, we have a larynx, but this is a serrin, and it allows them to, it has two membranes in it, and it allows them to make sounds with each membrane at the same time, but different sounds like this wood thrush here.

[00:03:08]So, yeah, as So, you hear So, it does the and then it does like the trill on the other one. It's just crazy that they can make two sounds at once. So, this is an Asian fairy bluebird feather. And then come look in the thing.

[00:03:25]It is so blue.

[00:03:32]So, this thing you can control it by doing this and you could go frame by frame to watch how the birds behave. So, here as you know the osprey is my favorite bird. He comes down So his tail is fanned like that. But once he gets close to the water, you can see it closes up right there. And also his wings do. Then he brings the um the zygodactyl talons out in front of him, goes in, and then flaps up. And he's kind of having a hard time pulling it out cuz that catfish is like massive. Yeah, this thing is cool. You could go slow, fast, whatever.

[00:04:20]This white bellbird is the loudest bird on Earth.

[00:04:33]It just echoes.

[00:04:39]If you ever come to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, definitely go here. It's super fun. Um the bird discovery lab. So when Maya was giving um me the tour, we didn't really film anything because it was just so fun. It was awesome to be um to get a tour and go like behind the scenes of everything. Um we met some awesome people. It was just so cool. But we were just we couldn't film, but yeah, it was awesome. And if you didn't know about it, this is the wall of birds.

[00:05:13]The artist of this, Jane Kim, she painted every single one of these and it took her four months. That's what Maya told me. It just looks awesome. And they're all life-sized, which is the cool thing. The wandering albatross's largest wingspan on Earth. Imagine seeing that. I've never seen one. And the ones that aren't colored in are extinct. Like this dinosaur here. This thing is massive. Imagine just doing every little stroke. It's insane.

[00:05:50]This is insane. Look at this view from upstairs.

[00:05:55]And all the birds are um wherever they are, that's where they live. So, it took a lot of time and effort, but it's it's just so cool.

[00:06:07]One of my favorite birds is the oil bird. Not many people know about it. Um, but you can see here they scanned the whole wall. And let me find the oil bird. I think it Yeah, there. So, it's right there. And then when you click on it, that's it right there. Um and then so the oil bird stator carrapensis I think that's how you say the specific epithet which is the last um part of the scientific name of a bird. Um but statorous means fat bird. Um if you didn't know it's it's funny. Um but they live in caves. They echolocate and they're nocturnal and they eat fruit. It's literally a bat. This thing should be called bat bird or something.

[00:06:56]They're literally bats. And Jane Kim also used like a ladder and went on top so she could get way high up there. Um like that great gray owl over there and everything um up high. So this is a hummingbird display one. Look at number two. How small it is. It's so cute and small.

[00:07:17]But what was that? But what I was going to say is that um when we were doing the tour, I actually went inside of the Macaui Library.

[00:07:29]Sounds, photos, videos, everything. Um mostly the sounds. And I went there and they had all the tapes in there. It was just so cool. All those sounds before there was phones. You had to write a letter to if you wanted to listen to a sound, you had to write the letter to them, then they have then they had to get it. make a copy of the thing, just send it to you. It It was just a whole thing. Um I'm glad we don't have to do that anymore now that there's phones. We can just go on the app, listen to it.

[00:07:59]So, I also met Joel Pop.

[00:08:03]Um he's an awesome artist. I got to go in his office and see what he he's been working on. Right now, he's working on a blue jay at like a water feeder. It's looking really good so far. Um, but he's the official illustrator right now for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. So, super awesome to meet him and he's also working on a raptor poster. Um, I'm excited for that and I think it's going to look really cool. I was also with Melissa Gr. She's an awesome wildlife photographer.

[00:08:38]But I saw this room where there was a bunch of preserved dead birds that they do for science and educating.

[00:08:48]Um, it was really cool in there. And I also saw this elephant heart which was crazy. And speaking of elephants, so Melissa Grew and Maya together back in like 2000 around there. Um, they studied elephants by sound and they could find like how many there were. It's It's just awesome. And I saw the mics they used.

[00:09:12]the one uh they had to climb up a tree and put it there because um the elephants would like try to break it and stuff and they actually had one that was broken from an elephant. But yeah, this tour was awesome and I'll never forget it. So this is a quiz. Let's see if you could do it.

[00:09:38]Wood peewe turkey or eastern metal rock.

[00:09:42]Okay, let's see. I'm going to do eastern wood peewee. That was all right.

[00:09:48]Okay, next one.

[00:09:55]Okay, that was a Carolina run.

[00:10:00]Now that was a Buick run.

[00:10:10]Um All the Eber checklists and global bird observations. S.

[00:10:55]This is pretty cool.

[00:11:16]right there. Let's go photograph them.

[00:11:35]All right. So, I'm right here and the feeder is super active. There's a lot of redwing blackbirds and blue jays. I'm going to see if I could get some cool shots.

[00:11:50]Chickity, there's a goldfinch. You just landed right here. Right above me. Oh my god, this is so cool. All there is is redwing blackbirds. So, I think we're going to move on. Um, but I did get some cool shots of that goldfinch. All right, so it's a little too bright. There are a lot of a lot of birds, but I don't think that um I can get any good photos. So, we're going to go eat and then come back and hopefully the light will be lower and more cloudy and I could get some cool shots. But, let's go eat.

[00:12:31]Here's everything that I got. So, she gave me this support birds with bird friendly garden plants.

[00:12:45]So, she gave me that. She also gave me these cards with birds on them, and it also has their name, American Goldfinch.

[00:12:52]I got a bunch of these. Um, she gave me those. And, uh, I think Liz Clayton Fuller drew these. Um, I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that was her. So, I got those cards. And then I also got this, um, hummingbird poster, gems of the Western Hemisphere. So, she gave this one to me.

[00:13:13]It's really cool. It has some hummingbird stuff on the back and then a bunch of hummingbirds here. And I actually met um the artist who drew all these things and they're so good. It's crazy. Um, so I met her and I got that.

[00:13:28]And I also got this owl poster, which I've seen before and I wanted it, so I finally got it today.

[00:13:37]She gave this one to me. And then the sapsucker woods mats so we could find birding spots or whatever. So I got that. And then I got these um Peterson's woodpecker assortment. I thought the art looked really cool, so I got these those cards. I got this pad. Um, it's really nice. This wood pen and the wood book.

[00:14:01]Um, yeah, it comes with this pen. So, that's cool. And then I got I've been wanting this for a while, but I've never had one.

[00:14:11]This Hummer ring. So, uh, you put the hummingbird food in it and then you wear it as a ring. Um, I'll take the tag off, but you wear it as a ring and then the hummingbirds come right here. So, that's cool. And then I got a bunch of these um stickers. I got EIRD stickers, Cornell Lab stickers, Merlin stickers. I also got this um the logo for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. I got this pin. As you know, I have that owl hat and I put all pins and patches and bird stuff on it. So, I'll definitely put this so I can remember this day cuz it's been awesome so far.

[00:14:50]And I took one more thing. Uh yeah, I got this birding 101. Um when I was at the raptor trust at Spring, I saw this, but I saved it to get um here. So yeah, I got that. It's this brochure thing. It has habitat, bird ID skills, field marks, listening to birds, attracting birds to your backyard, about this guide, beginning birding, size and shape, color pattern, behavior, everything. So it's really cool.

[00:15:19]And yeah, that's all I got. Uh I'll I'll never forget this um Friday. It was awesome.

[00:15:31]Let's go.

[00:15:34]Robin here.

[00:16:55]Please, no, don't leave.

[00:17:06]So, there's a bunch of ospreys flying over here and when before they dive, they do this and then they go down and they keep doing it and they never go down. It's so annoying. I think it's going to do it and then it doesn't.

[00:17:20]They're like, "Nope." They keep doing that. Um, but I just got this one. It pooped. That was super funny.

[00:17:35]There's a bunch of chickities. We decided to move on from the ospreys.

[00:17:57]Think we're going to get it?

[00:18:00]Okay. Hopefully.

[00:18:03]Look at my dad right here.

[00:18:09]Go, go, go.

[00:18:12]We found him. Finally.

[00:18:28]Heat. Heat.

[00:19:40]There's a yellow warbler right here.

[00:19:54]Oh my god, there's a ruby crown kinglet with the ruby crown.

[00:20:24]I've never seen a kinglet not move for so long in my life.

[00:20:30]Oh my god.

[00:20:33]It's actually insane.

[00:20:38]This guy was here for literally 10 minutes not moving. Like kinglets never do that. But I got him opening his mouth. I heard him sing.

[00:20:51]Wow. He did it. That's so cool. And he just came over here when my mom it like almost hit my mom.

[00:21:03]It just touched my mom. Literally, it flew right