This week on The Backyard Naturalists, Debbie Foster, Laurie Horne, and Chris take a playful trip through the animal kingdom with a trivia-style episode all about the names for male and female animals. Some are familiar — like a buck and doe, bull and cow, or stallion and mare — while others are far less obvious, including cob and pen for swans, jack and jill for opossums, and even cock and hen for lobsters.

Along the way, the conversation wanders in true Backyard Naturalists fashion, from international listeners in places like Vietnam, Iraq, Uzbekistan, and Zambia to jellyfish at the Tampa aquarium, a "passel of possums," and whether anyone could ever win a Jeopardy category devoted entirely to Young Sheldon, Tombstone, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? It's a lighthearted, funny, and surprisingly educational episode that proves nature vocabulary can be just as wild as the animals themselves.

In this episode, you'll hear about:

Animal-name trivia for ants, bears, coyotes, deer, donkeys, elephants, foxes, goats, geese, horses, jellyfish, lobsters, mallards, opossums, pigs, seahorses, squirrels, swans, tigers, and zebras

The difference between familiar terms like boar and sow, drake and hen, and billy and nanny

Why some animals share naming patterns across species

A few surprising terms, including vixen, cob, pen, sea mare, and sea stallion

A fun detour into group names, including a passel of possums

The podcast's growing international audience and a warm invitation to visit Backyard Birds in Matthews, North Carolina

Whether you already know your ganders from your geese or you're just here for the laughs, this episode is a fun reminder that the natural world is full of curious details hiding in plain sight.

This week on The Backyard Naturalists, Debbie Foster and Laurie Horne explore the fascinating world of wildlife bridges, wildlife crossings, green bridges, and ecoducts — structures designed to help animals safely move across fragmented habitats caused by highways, railroads, canals, and other human-made barriers. From deer, elk, badgers, mountain lions, alligators, amphibians, turtles, and even endangered red wolves, these crossings are becoming an increasingly important tool for protecting wildlife and people alike.

Debbie and Laurie discuss how wildlife crossings have been used in Europe since the 1950s, why places like the Netherlands and Banff National Park in Canada have become models for large-scale wildlife passage, and how thoughtful design — including native plants, fencing, underpasses, overpasses, and species-specific construction — can dramatically reduce wildlife-vehicle collisions. The episode also highlights current and future projects in North Carolina, including work along I-40 in the Pigeon River Gorge and US 64 near Alligator River, where crossings may benefit black bears, bobcats, turtles, snakes, and the critically endangered red wolf.

Whether you're a longtime nature lover or just learning about the hidden ways wildlife moves through our landscapes, this episode offers a hopeful look at how smart planning and conservation can make roads safer for everyone — humans and animals included.

It's nesting season in the Carolinas, and this week on The Backyard Naturalists, Debbie Foster and Laurie Horne take a fun, award-show-style look at the many ways birds build — or sometimes barely build — their nests. From the lightning-fast Carolina wren to the ground-nesting killdeer, the late-arriving American goldfinch, and the nest-hijacking brown-headed cowbird, this episode celebrates the clever, quirky, and sometimes downright surprising nesting strategies happening in our own backyards.

Along the way, Debbie, Laurie, and Chris share backyard observations of downy woodpeckers, cardinals, nuthatches, robins, wrens, owls, starlings, and even a few off-topic but very naturalist-worthy sightings of deer, fox kits, and coyotes. Listeners will learn why some birds use mud like cement, why goldfinches wait until summer to nest, how killdeer protect their eggs with a broken-wing act, and why leaving seedheads on native plants like echinacea and black-eyed Susans can help support nesting birds.

Have you found an unusual bird nest in your yard, on your porch, in a flowerpot, or somewhere completely unexpected? The Backyard Naturalists would love to hear about it — especially with photos. Share your nesting-season stories on our Facebook page and join the conversation.