Tweet of the Day

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Factual: Science & Nature

Discover birds through their songs and calls. 265 programmes of 90 seconds, over a year

Discover birds through their songs and calls. Each Tweet of the Day begins with a call or song, followed by a story of fascinating ornithology inspired by the sound.

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Tweet of the Day: Rhinoceros Auklet

Rhinoceros Auklet

BBC Radio 4 - Tweet of the Day, Rhinoceros Auklet

Chris Packham presents the rhinoceros auklet - near the North American western seaboard.

Chris Packham presents the rhinoceros auklet found near the North American western seaboard.

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
 
Chris Packham presents the rhinoceros auklet found around the North American western seaboard. Rhinoceros auklets are auks. They look very different to their relatives the puffins or guillemots. They're dark grey-ish brown birds, and in the breeding season both male and female have flowing white plumes above their eyes and behind their orange bills.  It is the white vertical plate at the base of its bill which has inspired the birds' common names of "horn-billed puffins" or "unicorn puffins". This horn is only grown in the breeding season; the birds shed it in autumn when they head out to sea. Rhinoceros auklets in burrows or cavities in grassy places or on forest floors: most colonies are small, but some contain  a hundred thousand birds which  produce a soothing chorus of mooing and grunting sounds, strange to hear in the blackness of a coastal wood.

Producer : Andrew Dawes

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