Bird of Passage: June 2024
Recently I had one of those days where the number of things I’d read about the election and PFAS and microplastics and climate change hit some sort of critical mass in my brain and I started to feel like I just wanted to go back to bed and not have to think about things anymore.
There are a few things that help when I feel like this. One is finding small but meaningful actions I can take. Another, to be honest, is doing what I think of as mentally zooming out—okay, things are not looking great here on Earth right now, but when you zoom out to the scale of the solar system, the galaxy, the universe, it feels like it all matters a little less. And another is going out into my yard.
Our big “pandemic project” in spring 2020 was ripping out a section of our front lawn and replacing it with prairie wildflowers and grasses native to our region. (Our neighbors weren’t thrilled, but… oh well.) Since then, we’ve gotten rid of more of the front yard and a large chunk of the backyard as well, to the point that we have about half as much lawn as we did pre-2020. We’ve taken a fairly hands-off approach; some of the things we planted have taken off and spread, others haven’t done so well, and we’re mostly just watching to see what happens.
It’s especially glorious at this time of year, when so many things are in bloom. Our backyard in particular, which is dominated by a huge, beautiful oak tree, has come to feel like our own private miniature nature preserve. I look out my kitchen window and see bumblebees and butterflies and the occasional hummingbird moving among the flowers, song sparrows scratching around in the leaf litter, goldfinches flitting among the branches of the tree.
Can native plant gardening be a form of activism? It’s certainly not the same as calling your representatives or writing letters to voters or protesting or, well, voting (please vote!). But caring for my own little tiny patch of the Earth, making it lush and welcoming, avoiding pesticides, nurturing it to function as a little ecosystem instead of just a decoration, still feels like it matters. It matters to me, and it also matters to those individual bees (so many native bees!) and birds that have been able to make a home in my yard.
No, my native plant garden isn’t going to save the world. On its own, it’s obviously not going to change the trajectory of pollinator declines. But here, now, it’s full of life. I can let go of things that are far outside of my control, carry my cup of coffee out to the back patio, and give myself a moment to breathe.
Words About Birds
For Hakai Magazine, I wrote about a new method that may let researchers estimate how many calories any species of seabird needs each day to fuel its lifestyle. Why is this interesting? Well, it could help biologists figure out whether or not ecosystems will be able to support seabird populations as climate change, offshore wind energy development, fishery closures, etc. change how many fish are available—but what fascinated me even more is that the researchers behind the method looked backward and applied it to the extinct Great Auk, giving us a little peek into the daily life of this long-vanished bird.
In other news, there was a #BirdNamesForBirds update this month: AOS posted more about their plans for a pilot project to come up with new English names for an initial group of six birds, including the Inca Dove (described as a “derogatory or culturally unsuitable reference”) and Maui Parrotbill (which has a Hawaiian name, Kiwikiu, that has not previously been officially acknowledged) as well four eponymously named birds. I’m glad to see they’re forging ahead (albeit slowly) despite the pushback they’ve received, and I’ll be following this effort closely as it progresses!
Last year I wrote about research into warblers’ gut microbiomes for the Cornell Lab of Ornithology magazine, and an interesting follow-up study was just published. Researcher Marcella Baiz and her colleagues investigated the gut microbe communities of closely related Blue-winged and Golden-winged Warblers, and found that although there weren’t clear differences between the species’ microbiomes, there were a few specific bacteria species that were more common in the guts of birds with particularly bright yellow plumage. Could these bacteria somehow be helping the birds process and make use of pigments from their diets? It’s definitely a possibility!
I’ve long been low-key obsessed with Giant Hummingbirds, weird Andean hummingbirds roughly the same length as starlings or cardinals (!). Well, it turns out there are TWO Giant Hummingbird species! New research with tiny tracking devises has documented that there is both a resident species, which remains in the Andes year-round, and a similar-looking but distinct migratory species, which undertakes an amazing elevational migration down into the Atacama Desert. You can see some photos of these massive hummingbirds (with tracking backpacks!) at this CNN story.
Finally: When did you last hear the call of a Whip-poor-will? For me I think it must have been summer 2019, when I was visiting my in-laws in Pennsylvania and heard that iconic call drifting across a lake in the Poconos one evening. This beautiful Audubon story recounts what we’re losing as populations of these unique birds decline and fewer and fewer people get to hear the haunting calls that have beguiled generations of poets and naturalist, an example of what Robert Michael Pyle has called “the extinction of experience.”
Book Recommendation of the Month
Feather Trails by Sophie Osborn. This well-written, engaging memoir recounts the author’s experiences doing on-the-ground work for the conservation of three endangered bird species: the Peregrine Falcon (now delisted but endangered when she was doing her peregrine field work!), the Hawaiian Crow, and the California Condor. I was asked to review this book for the American Birding Association magazine, and I’m really enjoying it!
Upcoming Events + Miscellany
Believe it or not, I have no more book events scheduled until fall! I’m planning on “leaning out” a bit over my kid’s summer break, focusing on developing ideas for future projects and on a big editing gig coming my way in August, but working fewer hours and not pitching any new stories. Stay tuned!