Birds Under The Sun! How do Birds Lay eggs? How do penguins find their way home? Why do birds run away from humans?

Birds! Birds! Birds! Welcome to episode twenty one of Everything Under the Sun, a weekly podcast answering all the most pressing questions children around the world have about life on earth. This week the show is all about birds, nests and eggs!

Before we start there is EXCITING NEWS!

Everything Under The Sun is nominated for Best Family Podcast in the British Podcast Awards! I’m going to the awards ceremony in a few weeks time and it would be so great to win, although it's really lovely to have been nominated with such a lovely bunch of podcasts.

Thanks so much to everyone for listening, subscribing and telling all your friends to help the show spread far and wide! 

There’s a Listener’s Choice award where you can vote for a show you love, it’s free to take part – so if you’d like to vote for Everything Under The Sun all you need to do is go to

britishpodcastawards.com/vote

and type in the first few letters of Everything Under The Sun and it'll come up. Voting closes on the 15th May. Thank you very much everyone!

So what questions about BIRDS do we have this week?

Our first question is about bird EGGS and comes from Henry, he would like to know, “How do Birds Lay eggs?” Find out about a bit in bird’s bottoms called a Cloaca and how they lay eggs as well as what the study of birds is called and which two mammals lay eggs. What do you think the world’s smallest bird egg could be? How abut the biggest? Or the biggest ever known? You’ll find out in this weeks show!  

Next up we have Ben who would like to know, “How do penguins find their way home?”To answer Ben’s question I have got Dr Alex Bond, who is a curator at the Natural History Museum and knows lots about birds, including penguins! You’ll also find out about a volcanic island near Antarctica, home to 1.5 million penguins and how the penguins there find their own family when they come back from looking for fish out at sea. It’s featured in my new kids book, Natural Wonders of the World. 

Our final bird question for this week comes from Orson, his question is, “Why do birds run away from humans?”The answer comes from Joe Grosel, who is an ecologist and tour guide for incredible bird watching trips in Southern Africa, so he knows everything about birds and things they do. So he’s the perfect person to answer Orson’s question! 

I hope you enjoy the show! And keep your eyes out for beautiful birds this week!

If you have a question you would like answered on the show all you have to do is ask an adult to record you asking it and ask them to send it into me at [email protected]

A big thank you to Dr. Alex Bond at the Natural History Museum for telling us all about how penguins find their way home and to Joe Grosel for sharing his knowledge about why birds run away from humans! And to 

If you want to find out about Joe’s incredible eco-tourism company that organize birding tours in Southern Africa his company is called Tembele:

http://www.tembele.co.za

The Natural History Museum website is here: 

My book, Natural Wonders of the World’s Museums is here: 

http://www.nhm.ac.uk

And my website is: www.mollyoldfield.com

The show’s website with more info about how to send in a question is here:

www.everythingunderthesun.co.uk

My twitter: @mollyoldfield

Instagram: @mollyoldfieldwrites

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