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Human implicit biases towards visually appealing and familiar stimuli are well documented and rooted in our brains’ reward systems. For example, humans are drawn to charismatic, familiar organisms, but less is known about whether such biases permeate research choices among biologists, who strive for objectivity. The factors driving research effort, such as aesthetics, logistics and species’ names, are poorly understood. We report that, from 1965 to 2020, nearly half of the variation in publication trends among 293 North American male passerine and near-passerine birds was explained by three factors subject to human bias: aesthetic salience (visual appeal), range size (familiarity) and the number of universities within ranges (accessibility). We also demonstrate that endangered birds and birds featured on journal covers had higher aesthetic salience, and birds with eponymous names were studied about half as much as those not named after humans. Thus, ornithological knowledge, and decisions based thereon, is heavily skewed towards fancy, familiar species. This knowledge disparity feeds a cycle of public interest, environmental policy, conservation, funding opportunities and scientific narratives, shrouding potentially important information in the proverbial plumage of drab, distant, disregarded species. The unintended consequences of biologists’ choices may exacerbate organismal inequalities amid biodiversity declines and limit opportunities for scientific inquiry. 

Brood parasitism can have major detrimental effects on the fitness of reproducing songbirds and often contributes to nest failure. As the Gray Vireo (Vireo vicinior) suffers high rates of brood parasitism by the Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater), we hypothesized that vireos might choose nest sites selectively to thwart cowbird parasitism. To investigate this question, we measured and compared vegetative and spatial attributes of nest sites in a known breeding population of the Gray Vireo on the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, in 2017 and 2018. Specifically, we compared parasitized and unparasitized nests with respect to the nest’s height and the average height, diameter, and foliage density of the nest tree. We also compared the spatial attributes of the nearest neighboring nest, nearest parasitized nest, and the density of surrounding juniper trees within 50 m of a nest. Interestingly, among none of the variables measured did we find an association with the incidence of brood parasitism, suggesting that nest parasitism might be more strongly linked to other larger-scale ecological or behavioral variables.