Bird of Passage: January 2024
What are your new year’s birding rituals or resolutions? A few years ago a birding friend (hi, Sarah) shared with me that she and her husband watch the movie The Big Year every New Year’s Eve to psych themselves up for a new year of birding. So my husband and I watched it one New Year’s Eve while enjoying some cheese and sparkling wine… and we’ve done so every year since, because it turns out that The Big Year is basically the perfect new year movie. It begins and ends on January 1, and in between, the characters spend a year both chasing birds across the continent and learning what they really value most in their lives.
I’m not a big lister, but I had fun looking back at a couple recent lists I do have to see what my first birds of years past were. The first bird on my ill-fated 2020 year list was, disappointingly, a Rock Pigeon, but number 8 was a Bald Eagle. I remember dragging my then-eighteen-month-old (whoa, how is that possible? that kid is in kindergarten now) for a new year’s walk along the channelized creek at the edge of town that morning and seeing that eagle fly along the creek channel right over us.
In 2021 and 2023, I made short-lived new year’s resolutions to become a better eBirder, so I can see from my spotty eBird records that I began those years with Wild Turkeys and Greater White-Fronted Geese, respectively. Those were probably not my literal first birds seen on January 1, of course—I wouldn’t have bothered logging the sparrows and finches in my yard in the eBird app.
And this Monday, I dragged my husband and kid to a local wildlife refuge on a drizzly, foggy day to look for waterfowl. It didn’t turn out to be terribly birdy, but I was tickled by my son shushing me repeatedly because “you’ll scare the animals!” and exclaiming with delight each time a Ruddy Duck popped to the surface in front of the bird blind. There were huge flocks of Snow Geese passing overhead and, my favorite, Yellow-headed Blackbirds dashing noisily about in the reeds.
Whether your birding year began with a whimper or a ban this week, whether you’re declaring this your own Big Year or just taking each day as it comes, I hope that 2024 brings you happiness and health. Thanks for reading.
Words About Birds
For Hakai Magazine, I wrote a story about why seabirds that “mate for life” sometimes divorce (and yes, divorce is the word the researchers use). Fascinatingly, bird couples are more likely to split up if they have incompatible personalities—something that probably sounds familiar to us humans. But environmental stressors caused by climate change may also play a role, spurring birds to mistakenly break up with perfectly good partners. I was tickled that the Taylor Swift reference in the title of this one, which was the subject line of my original pitch email, actually made it into print!
Also in seabird news: They’re good for coral reefs! It feels rare to hear good news about coral reefs these days, but it turns out that reefs benefit from having thriving seabird colonies nearby, because corals are able to make use of “seabird-derived nutrients”—that is, the birds’ poop. Unlike nutrients that enter the ocean through agricultural runoff, bird poop contains a ratio of nitrogen and phosphorous that boosts the health of corals and may even make them resistant to bleaching. This further highlights the importance of controlling the invasive rats that threaten many seabird colonies.
I’m a sucker for a good bilateral gynandromorph, so I loved last month’s photos of a Green Honeycreeper spotted in Colombia that was green (male) on one side and blue (female) on the other. These rare mutants are the result of an error in cell division very, very early in an embryo’s development, leading to an organism that has male tissue on one side of its body and female tissue on the other side. Other bird species in which bilateral gynandromorphs have been documented include Northern Cardinals, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, and Eastern Towhees.
Not actually a gynandromorph: That photo of a chicken-faced, red-and-white “cardinal” that’s been floating around, although someone messaged a Facebook page I manage to ask if it was. Nope, it was the produce of AI, and I appreciated this piece by Nick Lund at Slate in which he discusses the appeal of fake “bird photos” like this (they predate AI, of course; Photoshop has been around for a long time), and why a new flood of such images could make the internet a very confusing place for casual birders. “What’s the point of making things up,” asks Lund, “when there are so many stunning real-life birds out there already?”
Finally, if you haven’t had your fill of best-of-2023 lists yet, here’s a fun one from the Audubon Society highlighting the most significant rare bird events of the year. Limpkins, Snowy Owls, and Ancient Murrelets all turned up in unexpected places in 2023, and the famous wandering Steller’s Sea Eagle is still up to its tricks, but the most amazing, for me, has to be the flamingoes blown astray by Hurricane Idalia. The pink birds made it all the way to the Great Lakes region, showing up in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Come to Washington next, please???
Book Recommendation of the Month
Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future by Gloria Dickie. You’re probably familiar with the brown bear, black bear, and polar bear—but how much do you know about their far-flung cousins, such as the spectacled bear of South America’s cloud forests, or the ferocious sloth bear of India? In this book, Gloria Dickie profiles each of the world’s eight bear species in turn, with a special focus on human-wildlife conflict. I was especially fascinated with the section on bear cognition; I had no idea that bears outperform chimpanzees on some cognitive tasks!
Upcoming Events
January 4: Book talk for Umpqua Valley Audubon Society (virtual)
January 11: Book talk for Saint Paul Audubon Society (virtual)
February 7: Book talk for Piedmont Virginia Bird Club (virtual)