Waxwing Nightlight

The warm colors and bright accents of the Bohemian Waxwing might make you think it glows in the dark. For the better part of two thousand years, that’s what people believed. Pliny reported that their feathers “shine like flames” in the dark forests of central Europe. The Germans allegedly used captive birds to light their way at night. But at the end of the sixteenth century, the great Italian birdman Ulysses Aldrovandi dismissed the notion that waxwings emit light. Today, we are fortunate that these winter nomads brighten our days.

More info and transcript at BirdNote.org.

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