In the spirit of spooky season, we bring you an eerie episode filled with spine-tingling bird facts. We debate the most haunting bird sounds, learn about blood sucking birds, corvid funerals, toxic species, and more. Plus you'll get some inspiration for a bird-themed Halloween costume!

Natasha has shared some links with additional facts:

• Crow funerals with Kaeli Swift
• Vampire Finches from BBC Earth
• The relationship between Oxpeckers and Rhinos

Natasha Barlow grew up near Point Pelee National Park in southern Ontario, and didn't fully appreciate the area until she had already moved away. Thankfully, she realized the error in her ways, and after completing her masters assessing the efficacy of restoration and conservation strategies on protecting sagebrush songbirds, she now coordinates various field-based research projects, runs citizen science programs, and advocates for change for aerial insectivores in Ontario as a Projects Biologist with Birds Canada.

Andrea Gress (she/her) secretly thinks Piping Plovers are better than all the other birds...studied Renewable Resource Management at the University of Saskatchewan. She pivoted towards birds, after an internship in South Africa. Upon returning, she worked with Piping Plovers in Saskatchewan, and then as the Ontario Piping Plover Coordinator. Years of sharing her love of plovers with beach goers has turned into a full time communications role with Birds Canada.

Sound credits:

Northern Potoo: Peter Boesman (xeno-canto)
Barred Owl: Gerrit Vyn and Benjamin Clock
Great Spotted Kiwi: David Boyle (xeno-canto)
Common Loon: Steven R. Pantle
Capuchinbird: Felipe Arantes (xeno-canto)
Wilsons Snipe: Wil Hershberger

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