Birds

Exhibitions

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

Hall of Birds

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

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Events

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Child in yellow t-shirt with a name tag and holding up an insect encased in a yellow block on a stick

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Kids & Family Youth

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Insect Investigators

Join us for bug-themed projects, up-close encounters with live bugs, time in the Museum’s expansive Nature Gardens and Nature Lab, and the chance to meet real museum entomologists!

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weekly through 07/02/26

12:00 am

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Kids & Family Youth

Adventures in Nature Day Camp: Insect Investigators

Join us for bug-themed projects, up-close encounters with live bugs, time in the Museum’s expansive Nature Gardens and Nature Lab, and the chance to meet real museum entomologists!

Learn more

weekly through 07/02/26

12:00 am

Opossum on a stick sculpture with an audience in the background

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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

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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Red-tailed Hawk in Cedar Creek smoke - 2 cropped(

Project Phoenix: Investigating Bird Responses to Smoke

This groundbreaking community science project seeks to understand how wildfire smoke is impacting birds.

NHM Virtual Field Trip

Image of complete DIY bird feeder in a tree.

Comedero Para Pájaros

Comedero Para Pájaros: Atraiga pájaros a su jardín construyendo su propio comedero para pájaros.

DIY Bird Feeder

DIY Bird Feeder: Attract birds to your garden by building your own bird feeder.

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.