Nature's Most Wanted: Fowl play with real-life angry birds

Forget feathered friends — these are our feathered foes.

They can wield knives, get involved in the world of organised crime and drug dealing, and even shut down the Large Hadron Collider.

But the most pressing question is, why did the duck cross the road at speeds so high local law enforcement was on the case?

Featuring:

• Dr Christine Sutton, particle physicist and past editor of CERN Courier
• Mary Roach, author of Animal, Vegetable, Criminal
• Dr Laura Adams, psychology instructor at Langara College
• Professor Dina Siegel, criminology at Utrecht University
• Dr Amber Lee, avian & exotic animal veterinarian at The Unusual Pet Vets
• Sven Montgomery, Police Inspectorate, municipality of Köniz

With extra sounds from bird enthusiasts:

• David m, XC116357. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/116357 (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0)
• David m, XC164431. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/164431 (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0)
• Romuald Mikusek, XC912877. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/912877 (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0)
• Daniel Parker, XC949456. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/949456 (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0)
• Ray Cooke, XC1058578. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/1058578 (Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0)

Production:

• Ann Jones, Presenter / Producer
• Rebecca McLaren, Producer
• Harvey O'Sullivan, Sound Engineer

This episode of What the Duck?! was produced on the land of the Wadawarrung and Taungurung people.

Find more episodes of the ABC podcast, What the Duck?! with the always curious Dr Ann Jones exploring the mysteries of nature on ABC Listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll learn more about the weird and unusual aspects of our natural world in a quirky, fun way with easy to understand science.