Birds

Exhibitions

Girls looking in a drawer at a fossil as a couple in background looks at birds in case

Exhibition | NHM

Hall of Birds

Get up close with hundreds of species of birds in the Ralph W. Schreiber Hall of Birds.

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A group of birds make use of the feeds at the Museum's bird watching platform

Wildlife Viewing

Take a break and watch some of the animals that visit our Nature Gardens.

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A swallowtail butterfly on purple verbena

Welcome wildlife to your garden

Some tips and tricks.

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Events

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Opossum on a stick sculpture with an audience in the background

nhm

Tours & Activities

Meet a Live Animal

Get up close and personal with the Museum's resident animals! Hear amazing stories about critters that are often misunderstood or overlooked.

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daily

3:00 pm

nhm

Tours & Activities

Meet a Live Animal

Get up close and personal with the Museum's resident animals! Hear amazing stories about critters that are often misunderstood or overlooked.

Learn more

daily

3:00 pm

nhm

Tours & Activities

Meet a Live Animal

Get up close and personal with the Museum's resident animals! Hear amazing stories about critters that are often misunderstood or overlooked.

Learn more

daily

3:00 pm

nhm

Tours & Activities

Meet a Live Animal

Get up close and personal with the Museum's resident animals! Hear amazing stories about critters that are often misunderstood or overlooked.

Learn more

daily

3:00 pm

nhm

Tours & Activities

Meet a Live Animal

Get up close and personal with the Museum's resident animals! Hear amazing stories about critters that are often misunderstood or overlooked.

Learn more

daily

3:00 pm

Stories

A woman in a maroon ball cap holds a bright red-headed and yellow bird

Fly the Bird Migration Super Highway at Bear Divide Banding Station

Discover the spectacle and the science happening at Bear Divide Banding Station

Bobwhite, a brown quail-like bird with small black and white accents, on the ground

Scientists and Engineers Measure How Birds Send Heat into Space for the First Time

A new study from scientists at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, UCLA, Indiana University, and Cal State University, Dominguez Hills reveals the hidden reflectance of bird feathers through the prism of light, heat, and color

A yellowish-green Sapayoa bird on a branch in a tropical forest

One Tropical Bird's History Through the Lens of Lice

NHM's new Ornithology Collections Manager, Juliana Soto-Patiño, discovers the evolutionary origins of the mysterious Sapayoa aenigma through its parasitic louse

Blue, green, and yellow border around skulls and a hummingbird

Dinosaur Discussions

The Evolution of the Bird Brain and the Origins of Flight with Dr. Amy Balanoff

A paradise tanager looks directly into a camera with its green head cocked, visible red spot on its back, and stunningly bright blue breast.

Hidden black and white feathers are the secret behind songbirds' dazzling colors

Colorful songbirds like tanagers use a painterly technique to make their colors pop

Vintage illustration of various feathers and specimen skins of birds

How Bird Feathers Work

A brief look at the structure of feathers—and what they mean to birds

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Ornithology

Ornithology, the study of birds, is one of the founding disciplines of the Natural History Museum. At the core of the program is a research collection of 121,000 bird specimens, representing over 5,400 species. Our collections are particularly strong for North America, Africa, South America, and the Pacific Ocean.

Past Projects

While NHM is not currently working on these projects, they have influenced our current community science projects.

Community Science

Community science (sometimes called citizen science) mobilizes volunteers to work alongside scientists to help answer questions about the world.

News & Press

How Birds Send Heat into Space Measured for the First Time: A New Study Reveals Hidden Reflectance of Bird Feathers Through the Prism of Light, Heat, and Color

Scientists at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, UCLA, Indiana University, and Cal State University, Dominguez Hills, flock together to measure the reflectance of mid-infrared in bird feathers for the first time.

Vibrant songbirds share a technique with painters: using white and black (feathers) to make their colors pop, NHM scientist finds

The exceptionally rare fossil skull of a new bird species from the Age of Dinosaurs reveals that avian skulls achieved their recognizably modern shape using archaic structures—an unexpected but stunning example of parallel evolution—while also unearthing a missing link in the long evolutionary history of the bird brain.