Birds boast some of the most vibrant colors among terrestrial animals. Our pretty avian friends have inspired our Democrat and Chronicle photographers for years and captured the imaginations of many ...

Birds receive their colors thanks to the pigments in their genetic makeup. All living creatures owe their coloring to ...

“I feel there is no way to avoid thinking of color when you think of hummingbirds”, said Gabriela Venable, who is the lead author of the newly published study of hummingbird color (ref). “We give them ...

When male northern cardinals perch amid evergreens highlighted with a dusting of snow, well, winter doesn't get much more greeting-card gorgeous than that. Because they're so handsome, cardinal images ...

While humans have three color cones in the retina sensitive to red, green and blue light, birds have a fourth color cone that can detect ultraviolet light. A research team trained wild hummingbirds to ...

Some birds are iridescent because of the physical make-up of their feathers, but scientists had never found evidence of this structural color in the group of birds containing ostriches and cassowaries ...

Elaborate feather microstructures allow male tanagers to enhance their colors, making them seem as if they are higher quality mates. By Emily Anthes Male tanagers are meant to be noticed. Many species ...

In a neat experiment on bird interior design, researchers show that finches conceal their nests by deliberately choosing construction materials that blend in with the background of the nest site. The ...