Vagrancy: Why Some Birds End Up Far From Home

👕 Bird Merch — Get yourself some bird shirts! ~~~ In this episode—which is number 130—Ivan Phillipsen explores the fascinating phenomenon of vagrancy... those surprising moments when birds appear far outside their normal range. Learn about the forces that send birds off course, including navigation errors, weather, social behavior, and more. The episode goes beyond the mystery of lost birds to ask a deeper question: are these wayward journeys simply mistakes, or can they shape the future of species? Along the way, the episode reveals how vagrancy connects to migration, ecology, and evolution in ways that are more important than they might first appear. Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website Support the show

You can listen to Vagrancy: Why Some Birds End Up Far From Home online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Vagrancy: Why Some Birds End Up Far From Home is an episode from The Science of Birds by Ivan Phillipsen.

This episode is 52:46 long.

This episode was published on Mar 17, 2026.

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