bird of the year Archives - Favorite World Press

The FWP weekly digest of wondrous wildlife happenings
and other interesting items from the natural world

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Lisa S. French

Following a Forest & Bird campaign gone massively global, thanks to the unbridled enthusiasm of Last Week Tonight host John Oliver, the Bird of the Century results are in, and it’s Mr. Oliver’s pick for the win: the orange-mulleted, prolific puker, the one and only Australasian crested grebe, a.k.a. the pūteketeke.

Even though we’re kākāpō loyalists, because a clumsy, slow-moving, flightless bird needs all the love it can get, every New Zealand bird is a winner as far as we’re concerned. And if all that media frenzy ratchets up the global enthusiasm for protecting endangered bird species everywhere, we’re all in—keep the critical conservation momentum going!

And congratulations pūteketeke! Long may you weed dance!

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Lisa S. French November 14, 2023

A Big Win for a Little Bird

2-minute read

Wren you’ve got it, you’ve got it!

The pīwauwau rock wren, the little songbird with the really big feet, has hopped and bopped past its competitors to be crowned 2022 New Zealand Bird of the Year. And what makes the diminutive mountain dweller a winner? For starters, the feathered rock climber is New Zealand’s only true alpine bird, spending its entire life flitting around the unforgiving, rugged terrain of the island country’s mountain regions. Despite weighing less than a double-A battery and lacking an insulating layer of down, the rock wren manages to endure months of bitter cold temperatures that can drop below -10℃ at elevations as high as 3,000 meters.

You might think that an ancient bird species robust enough to survive 62 million years in such a harsh environment could handle just about anything nature throws its way, but the rock wren is in serious trouble. Unfortunately, human-introduced predators have pushed the intrepid avian mountaineers to the brink of extinction.

Even though our Bird of the Year pick, the rockhopper penguin, failed to capture the crown, we’re happy to congratulate this little endangered underbird on its much-deserved big win. With 49% of bird species globally in decline, drawing attention to the plight of rare and at-risk fliers like the New Zealand rock wren can promote conservation strategies that ensure they stick around to prettify the planet for another few million years.

You can find out more about the rock wren and other amazing New Zealand bird species from Forest & Bird. And if you’d like to offer your support to all of the winged wonders of our world, Birdlife International has lots of ways you can lend a hand. Faced with the triple threats of climate change, habitat loss, and invasive species, our beloved birds might just survive with a little help and TLC from their fwrens.

ICYMI Nature News

Prescription Bird Benefits
We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again, being around birds is good for you. In case you need another great reason to spend time in nature with the feathered songsters, researchers at King’s College have concluded that seeing and hearing birds improves overall mental well-being. So, if you’ve got a stubborn case of the blues, you may benefit from a daily dose of prescribed birdsong.

Bees Just Want to Have Fun
Apparently, all work and no play makes for very dull pollinators. We knew the brainy, little insects were hard workers, but according to scientists at Queen Mary University, bees are also fun seekers that like to play with toys given the opportunity. Note to self: add teeny-tiny toy chest to garden.

Mapping Pachyderm Facial Feels
Have you ever wondered how elephants maintain such effortless control of their trunks? According to Science Advances, it’s because they have tens of thousands of nerve cells in the grape-sized brain region that controls their facial muscles—63,000 cells for African elephants and 54,000 for Asians. We humans, by comparison, have only 8-9000 nerve cells in our facial control center. Now you know why you can’t pull out tree trunks with your nose.

Nose-Picking Primates
It’s long been accepted that Mother Nature provides each unique species on the planet with the essential tools and abilities needed to survive. In the case of the Madagascar aye-aye, it seems the primate needs to pick its nose, so is equipped with an 8 cm extra-long middle finger to do the job. Researchers believe that the nose-picking habit (hobby?), also common in other primates, is likely a form of self-cleaning. Tissue, little fellow?

FWP Carbon Capture Report
We’ve got another month of tree planting and carbon capture updates to report. But before we get to the number crunching, we’d like to provide a bit of info about why we plant where we plant.

Almost every region on Earth can get a boost from tree planting, but picking spots that provide the optimal social, biodiversity, and environmental benefits is critical to our mission. Through our partnership with Tree-Nation, we plant the majority of our trees in the tropical zone, where they receive the most sunlight to expedite growth and CO2 capture.

Tropical regions also host about 85% of all terrestrial species. Planting trees in the tropics helps combat deforestation and habitat loss that threaten many species with extinction. The Tree-Nation platform also enables us to plant drought-resistant crop trees that support communities most at risk from famine and malnutrition. Our goal is to plant the right trees in the right places for the greatest all-around benefit.

From April through October, the trees we’ve planted across 11 projects bring our carbon capture total to 2020 tons of CO2. That’s equivalent to 2,235,456 pounds of coal burned, 227,350 gallons of gasoline consumed, or 5,015,197 miles driven by an average gasoline-powered passenger vehicle.

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Lisa S. French November 1, 2022

Aerial view of blue lake and green forests on a sunny summer day in Finland. Drone photography

Tons of Trees and Tiny Bats

1.5-minute read

Forest Protection – That’s A Yes
Here’s a quick update on forest conservation commitments from the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference:

To prevent the planet from warming beyond 1.5℃, we must reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by 50% in the next eight years. Planting trees and keeping carbon-absorbing forests intact is an important component of this monumental but achievable mission.

Every six seconds, we’re losing a football pitch of tropical rainforest to deforestation. Millions of acres of forest in northern regions are also being lost to drought, pests, and wildfires worsened by climate change.

Aiming to avert catastrophic heating, last week, international delegates in Glasgow made some progress on the forest protection front. In a strong show of support for the future of the planet, 110 world leaders pledged to end deforestation by 2030, restore damaged land, develop sustainable agriculture for rural communities, and reaffirm financial commitments to Indigenous and local communities. The combined pledges account for 85% of the world’s forests.

To ensure that COP26 signatories walk the walk and deliver on commitments, real-time global satellite monitoring of forests will be critical. You can find out how eyes in the sky are helping to keep tabs on trees from Global Forest Watch.

The Best Bird is a Bat
And in case you missed it, the Forest & Bird numero uno, all-around champion, New Zealand Bird of the Year is—wait for it, a bat. The 2021 winner is the pekapeka-tua-roa, a.k.a. the long-tailed bat, one of the rarest bats in the world and one of only two mammals native to the island country. In an upset victory, the thumb-sized, furry night-flyer edged out 76 amazing birds to capture the crown.

The forest-dwelling micro-bat roosts in trunks and large limbs of trees in colonies of hundreds to thousands. As a result of introduced predators and deforestation, the bug-munching pekapeka is now in serious trouble. Because a bat’s gotta hang, and with only 14% of New Zealand’s indigenous forests remaining, conservationists are working to increase the number of potential roosting sites by preserving habitat, so the stretchy-winged wonder has a fighting chance at survival.

Although we apparently have a faulty bird chooser, as we’re zero for two with our 2021 Bird of the Year predictions, we’re always happy to celebrate the recognition of any precious creature in need of TLC (tender loving conservation). Congratulations little pekapeka, this year you’re batting 1000%!

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Lisa S. French November 10, 2021

A family of Superb Fairy-wrens in South Eastern New South Wales, Australia; brilliant blue and black father and cute brown chicks on a branch with leafy green background

Bestest Australian Bird: The Superb Fairy-Wren

1.5-minute read

Australia is home to some of the world’s most remarkable birds—brolgas, galahs, rosellas, currawongs—to name a splendid few. According to BirdLife International’s State of the World’s Birds report, like many species globally, Australia’s birds are threatened by the ongoing environmental stressors of habitat loss and climate change. For the past two weeks, to help raise awareness of the need to protect the island continent’s diverse avian wildlife, friends of the feathered cast their votes for the top-of-the-tree, best-in-beaks Bird of the Year.

The 2021 all-around favorite, announced on October 8, was the superb fairy-wren, a passerine, aka perching bird, that inhabits backyards and woodlands across eastern Australia and Tasmania. Although the fairy-wren edged out our preferred pick, the tawny frogmouth, by a chin feather, we can appreciate the songbird’s many winning attributes. For starters, it’s hard not to be positively inclined toward a creature called “superb”. In addition to their esteem-enhancing moniker, the dainty songsters have other champion qualities:

It takes a bird village:
Superb fairy-wrens raise their young in cooperative social groups. One to four male helpers support nesting parents by contributing to the defense and feeding of hatchlings.

Winged chameleons:
During mating season, the plumage of the male superb fairy-wren changes from a muddy brown to a striking shade of blue. While female fairy-wrens prefer the males that turn blue first and stay blue the longest, when it comes to life expectancy, changing colors puts male birds at a competitive disadvantage because that vibrant hue also attracts predators. As a result, according to researchers at Monash University, male fairy-wrens in blue mode have learned to be super cautious. Compared to their brown flock mates, they spend more time foraging for food in hiding and they’re the first birds out of the bush in response to alarm calls—file those adaptive risk avoidance skills under survival of the bluest.

The littlest birds sing the prettiest songs:
In the avian world, males commonly sing more frequently and produce more complex songs to attract mates. However, superb fairy-wrens are equal opportunity vocalists. Both males and females sing solo year-round and tutor their sons and daughters in familial trills, twitters, and tweets. Have a listen.

And with those songbird snippets, we wrap up the 2021 Australian Bird Of The Year competition. To celebrate all of this year’s contestants, author and illustrator Georgia Angus has created a downloadable poster for your viewing pleasure. It’s free, it’s beautiful, and you can get it here. A hearty congratulations to the superb fairy-wren! Don’t despair, tawny frogmouth—you’ll get another chance to strut your feathered stuff in 2022.

Just a reminder: the southern hemisphere’s best-in-bird competitions continue with Forest & Bird’s New Zealand Bird of the Year, from October 18 through October 31. At the moment, we’re leaning toward the rockhopper penguin, but the royal spoonbill is pretty darn hard to resist. Hmm, and what about the southern brown kiwi… It’s a veritable bird watchers paradise down there!

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Lisa S. French October 9, 2021

Charmingly Chubby Champion

1.5-minute read

We’ve got some exciting news about an important election! Forest & Bird, one of New Zealand’s leading independent conservation organizations, have announced the results of the 2020 Bird of the Year contest. The winner is—drumroll please—one of our favorite birds Down Under, and the world’s only flightless parrot, the charismatic, critically endangered kākāpō. Take a bow your royal feathered green-ness—no bird waddles quite like you!

Once widespread across New Zealand, the parrot’s populations have been decimated by habitat loss and the introduction of invasive predators. Although the number of kākāpōs has been increasing from a low of just 18 birds in 1977, according to the IUCN, there are currently only 209 on the planet.

The slow-moving, ground-dwelling kākāpō can live up to 95 years, given a fighting chance. Scientists continue to work intensely to save the rare species from extinction through captive breeding and identification and protection of safe habitat. The ultimate goal of conservationists is to establish a self-sustaining population of the beloved birds as part of a healthy island ecosystem.

You can learn more about the kākāpō and all of the beautiful Bird of the Year contestants here.

On a related creature-conservation note, if you’d like to help bee the change, through November 30th, non-profits, schools, and community organizations in the U.S. can apply to the Bee Conservancy through their Sponsor-A-Hive program for a custom bee house to host mason, leafcutter, and carpenter bees. While spring may seem a long way off, flowering plants in need of pollination will be popping up before you know it!

And since it is Monday, we leave you with a sweet, soothing dose of musical sunshine to help ease you into your week.

Wherever you are in the world, stay safe and be well.

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Lisa S. French November 16, 2020

Best Bird

It’s bird award season in the southern hemisphere–that special time in late spring when birdwatchers around the world cast their votes online for the annual “it” bird of New Zealand. On November 11, this year’s favored flapper, the endangered yellow-eyed penguin, toddled past its top rival, the charismatic kākāpō, to be crowned 2019 Bird of the Year by New Zealand’s leading independent conservation organization Forest & Bird.

The yellow-eyed penguin, also known as the hoiho, which is Maori for noise shouter, is the world’s oldest and rarest penguin species—only 225 pairs of the seabird remain on New Zealand’s mainland. With its distinctive yellow peepers, pink feet, and slate-blue back and flippers, the hoiho is an unmistakable presence in the island nation’s coastal forests. Generally a solitary, quiet bird, the yellow-eyed penguin earned its Maori moniker due to the high-pitched braying sound it makes in nesting areas.

The Bird of the Year competition was launched in 2005 to raise awareness of New Zealand’s many remarkable native bird species and the threats to their survival. Currently, 80% of New Zealand’s birds are in trouble, and one out of three are at risk of extinction, including the hoiho and the kākāpō. You can learn more about all of the 2019 Forest & Bird contestants and their conservation status here.

If viewing all of the feathered finery down-under has you suffering from a bout of birdwatcher’s envy, here are some resources, tips, and upcoming events for budding and full-blown birders up-top:

You can get facts, photos, and vocalizations for more than 600 North American bird species at Cornell Labs ultimate online ornithology resource, allaboutbirds.org.

If you’d like to get a handle on how birds in your neck of the woods will be impacted by climate change under different warming scenarios, Audubon scientists have created an amazing app for that: Survival By Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink. Just type in your U.S. postal code to find out which birds in your county will be affected by increasing global temperatures and how you can help support the Audubon mission.

From December 14 through January 5, you can put your bird-by-bird watching to really good use by participating in the 120^th annual Christmas Bird Count, helping to collect data that will be used to analyze the health of bird populations across the Americas.

And because winter really is coming, here’s a zero-effort habitat gardening tip: rather than cutting back any perennials on your patch, go wild and leave seed-bearing plant tops intact as a snack station to attract winter bird fly-bys. Not tidy perhaps, but tasty, and tasty rules when it comes to keeping the feathered ones in full chirp mode.

Whether you are slogging through snow in the north or celebrating spring in the south, wherever you walk through the beauty of the world, remember to keep an ear out for the winged wonders. That’s a free Earth music download—and it’s good for you!

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Lisa S. French November 21, 2019