#kirtland's warbler

[extinctionstories]

It was never a common species, the blue-grey warbler that locals called the jack pine bird. A belated discovery among American birds, it was undescribed by science until the mid 19th century—and then, known only on the basis of a single specimen. The bird's wintering grounds in the Caribbean would eventually fulfill the demands of collectors and museums, but the intricacies of its lifecycle remained a mystery for decades, the first nest only found in 1903. As the already-rare bird became rarer, people could only guess at why. There were just so few birds to look for, their breeding habitat inscrutable amidst the dense, impassable woodland of their Midwestern home. The one clue was the most apparent thing about the bird: its affinity with the jack pine (Pinus banksiana).

Over time, more nests were found—not in the eponymous trees, as might be expected for a songbird, but on the ground at their feet. Data points converged, leading to the realization that not only did the bird nest almost exclusively in proximity to the scrubby pines, but only utilized trees that fell within a specific range: new growth, between five and fifteen feet tall, with branches that swept shelteringly close to the ground. Subsequently, it would be noticed that the greatest volume of specimen collection for the bird had corresponded with years in which historically significant wildfires had impacted the Midwest—fires that, for decades afterwards, had been staunchly suppressed. The pieces fell into place, like jack pine seeds, whose cones open only under the heat of a blaze.

With the bird's total population having dwindled to the low hundreds, a program of prescribed burns, clearcutting, and replanting was instituted, with many acres of land purchased and devoted to the preservation and maintenance of suitable breeding habitat. Concurrently, efforts were made to protect the vulnerable bird against brood parasitism by the brown-headed cowbird.

When the first federal list of protected species was put forward in 1966, the name of the small grey warbler was inscribed beside birds such as the Kauai ʻōʻō and the Dusky Seaside Sparrow.

The ʻōʻō, last of the genus Moho, would be removed from the list in 2023 due to extinction, after thirty-six years without a sighting.

The endling Dusky Seaside Sparrow, a male named Orange Band, would die of old age in captivity in 1987, with his species being delisted three years later.

in 2019, fifty-two years after the creation of the Endangered Species Protection Act, the name of Kirtland's warbler, too, was removed from the list: it had been determined that, with a population now numbering nearly 5000, the jack pine bird could be considered safely stable.

Conservationists continue to work to preserve the breeding habitat of Kirtland's Warbler in the midwestern US, as well as its winter roosts in the Bahamas and neighboring islands (though selective logging has replaced actual burning in recent years, due to the dangers posed by unpredictable fires). It's the kind of effort that it takes to undo the damage we've caused to the planet and its creatures—the kind of hope that we need, to not give up on them, or on ourselves.

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The title of this piece is Prescribed Burn (Kirtland's Warbler). It is traditional gouache on 18x24" watercolor paper, and is part of my series Conservation Pieces, which focuses on efforts made to save critically endangered birds from extinction.

[scottpartridge]

The rare Kirtland's Warbler, suggested by @brantgeo

[na-bird-of-the-day]

BOTD: Kirtland's Warbler

Photo: Joel Trick

"One of our rarest songbirds, Kirtland's is a relatively large warbler that forages slowly, close to the ground, wagging its tail up and down. It nests only in stands of young jack pines in central Michigan, a habitat that grows up only briefly after fires, and its nests have been heavily parasitized in recent decades by Brown-headed Cowbirds. Controlled burning to create more habitat, and control of cowbird numbers, have helped the warbler somewhat, but it is not necessarily out of danger yet."

- Audubon Field Guide

[haveyouseenthisbirdpoll]

Photo source 1

Photo source 2

Map source

[lizardsaredinosaurs]

Kirtland's Warbler (Setophaga kirtlandii)

Ontario, Wisconsin, Michigan; winters in the West Indies

threats: loss of jack pine habitat, historically rare

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I've been drawing some more creatures to stave off stress. I'll queue up one a day for as many as I have!

🐦🐞🐑🦀🐟🦎

-P.

[finchsthoughts]

Crying and sobbing . I love birds so much . I love looking into their meanings and their colors and their songs . I love looking at Finches and Warblers and just falling in love . I am so happy

[weatheredwaxwings]

Elect me governor of Michigan and I will make our state bird the Kirtland’s Warbler, as it was meant to be.

[glittertimes1997]

serval bird agenda

kirtland's warbler

[antiqueanimals]

Kirtland's warbler. These are Endangered; written by Charles Cadieux and illustrated by Bob Hines. 1981.

Internet Archive

[proton-wobbler]

Warbler Showdown; Bracket 1, Poll 9

Black-throated Blue Warbler (Setophaga caerulescens)

IUCN Rating: Least Concern

Range: prefers the Appalachian mountains when in the eastern states, otherwise breeding in southeast Canada or New England. Overwinters in the Greater Antilles, as well as the Bahamas and along the Caribbean coast of the Yucatan, Belize, and Honduras.

Habitat: interior forests of undisturbed hardwood and mixed deciduous-coniferous trees.

Kirtland's Warbler (Setophaga kirtlandii)

IUCN Rating: Near Threatened

Range: Restricted. Confined to both peninsula of Michigan (17 counties), as well as Wisconsin (3 counties) and southern Ontario. Winters in the Bahamian archipelago.

Habitat: exclusively breeds in early-successional jack pine forests and overwinters in early-successional broadleaf scrub or shrubby habitats.

Image Sources: BTBW (Matt Zuro); Kirtland's (Bryan Calk)

[kittyms167]

Kiko errored while we were walking through sandy state forest in Michigan

[birdblues]

Kirtland’s Warbler

[microsff]

"There!" The robot pointed. "In that spruce, a male Kirtland warbler."

The other birders pointed their binoculars at the tree and went "Ooh!"

"I envy your vision," one of them said.

"Vision is just physics," the robot said. "I envy your sense of smell."

[railwayhistorical]

Four Years Gone

Went with an old friend, from my New York days, to see a Kirtland's Warbler. The bird is quite rare due to it having rigid nesting requirements—jack pines of a certain height I believe.

This shot, of a singing male, was made during a tour, with the leader making sure we stayed on the trail and kept our distance.

One image by Richard Koenig; taken June 27th 2019, near Grayling, Michigan.

[cryptic-science]

chat. CHAT ! i go camping today/tmrw :D (plus the location im camping has a possibility for kirtland's warblers)

[haveyouseenthisbirdpoll]

List of Birds organized by Order + locations:

Accipitriformes:

Bearded vulture

Cooper's hawk

Red-shouldered hawk

Steller's sea eagle

Anseriformes:

Bar-headed goose

Barnacle goose

Black swan

Common merganser

Red-breasted goose

Snow goose

Trumpeter swan

Apodiformes:

Common swift

Ruby-throated hummingbird

Bucerotiformes:

Eurasian hoopoe

Cariamiformes:

Red-legged seriema

Casuariiformes:

Emu

Southern cassowary

Cathartiformes:

Black vulture

Turkey vulture

Charadriiformes:

Atlantic puffin

Black-headed gull

Black-tailed godwit

Killdeer

Northern lapwing

Ruddy turnstone

Ciconiiformes:

White stork

Columbiformes:

Common wood pigeon

Eurasian collared dove

Luzon bleeding-heart

Nicobar pigeon

Victoria crowned pigeon

Coraciiformes:

Blue-capped kingfisher

Common kingfisher

Cuculiformes:

Asian koel

Yellow-billed cuckoo

Eurypygiformes:

Kagu

Falconiformes:

American kestrel

Common kestrel

Galliformes:

Palawan peacock-pheasant

Western capercaillie

Gaviiformes:

Common loon

Gruiformes:

American coot

Australasian swamphen/pūkeko

Blue crane

Common moorhen

Sandhill crane

Sora

Whooping crane

Passeriformes:

American bushtit

American robin

Australian raven

Baltimore oriole

Barn swallow

Black-billed magpie

Black-capped chickadee

Black-throated sparrow

Blue-headed vireo

Blue jay

Bluethroat

Brown thrasher

California towhee

Canada warbler

Canyon wren

Cedar waxwing

Common blackbird

Common chlorospingus

Common raven

Eastern wood pewee

Eurasian blue tit

Eurasian bullfinch

Eurasian golden oriole

Eurasian jay

European robin

Goldcrest

Great-tailed grackle

Great tit

Hooded crow

House sparrow

Indigo bunting

Kirtland's warbler

LeConte's sparrow

Long-tailed tit

Painted bunting

Phainopepla

Pine siskin

Pin-tailed whydah

Pinyon jay

Pygmy nuthatch

Red winged blackbird

Rook

Saltmarsh sparrow

Satin bowerbird

Spotted towhee

Steller's jay

Tufted titmouse

Wallcreeper

Warbling vireo

Western tanager

White-breasted nuthatch

White-throated dipper

White-throated magpie-jay

Yellow-rumped warbler

Pelecaniformes:

Great blue heron

Great egret

Great white pelican

Least bittern

Roseate spoonbill

Shoebill stork

Snowy egret

Phoenicopteriformes:

Chilean flamingo

Piciformes:

Clark's nutcracker

Lewis's woodpecker

Northern flicker

Pileated woodpecker

Red-bellied woodpecker

Red-headed woodpecker

Podargiformes:

Tawny frogmouth

Podicipediformes:

Pied-billed grebe

Psittaciformes:

Australian king parrot

Citron-crested cockatoo

Cockatiel

Galah

Gang-gang cockatoo

Pacific parrotlet

Rose-ringed parakeet

Sulphur-crested cockatoo

Strigiformes:

Barn owl

Barred owl

Suliformes:

Anhinga

Blue-footed booby

Double-crested cormorant

Trogoniformes:

Elegant trogon

Locations:

Africa

America

Asia

Australia

Central America

Eurasia

Europe

North America

Oceania

South America