• You may know that eagles mate for life, Canada Geese mate for life and others… but did you know Carolina Wrens mate for life?

• European Starlings are an invasive species to North America. Do you know the story of how they came to North America? - In 1890 Eugene Schieffelin decided it would be nice to have all the birds mentioned in the works of Shakespeare live in Central Park. So, he released 60 (the number varies) starlings in Central Park, New York. He followed that with multiple other releases and they flourished. - Is the story true? Depends on who you ask.

• 99.9% of the time you will find at least one white feather in the nest of a Tree Swallow. It is not their own feather, but one lost from another bird.

• House finches were originally a bird you would only see in Western United States and Mexico. They were also sold in pet stores under the name of Hollywood Finches. This was illegal under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. In 1940, to avoid prosecution pet store owners released their inventory. Over the next 50 years they expanded their territory across the eastern United States and southern Canada.

• Most birds migrate at night. Some reasons for this - fewer predators, navigation by moon and stars, calmer weather.

• The Common Swift holds the record for continuous time in flight - 10 months. [1]

[1] Hedenström, A. (2016) Annual 10-Month Aerial Life Phase in the Common Swift Apus apus, Current Biology, Volume 26, Issue 22, November 21, 2016, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.09.014