Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 4
The Firebird Suite
A
N UNBROKEN VISTA OF STUNTED JACK PINE
trees dotted the northern Michigan landscape.
Maybe our guide had mistakenly led us into a Christmas tree farm. The only sizable trees in
view were a few skeletons—blackened snags that remained after a blaze a few years back.
This unremarkable setting seemed like the last place one would search for rarity.
“Keep watching the snags,” advised our escort. “The males prefer them as singing perches.”
A few small songbirds flitted about the pine grove and our group of birders snapped to atten-
tion. False alarm. The distant silhouettes became sparrows and juncos—perfectly nice birds
but not the ones we were here to see.
Then, almost simultaneously, three male Kirtland's warblers rose out of the dense under-
brush and perched, one per snag, to advertise their individual glory. A nearby singer threw
back his head and uttered the anthem of the jack pine, a loud and lively “
Flip lip lip-lip-tip-
tipCHIDIP!
” Within seconds, a fortune's worth of spotting scopes, massive telephoto lenses,
and binoculars were trained on the handsome male. The fifteen-centimeter-long bird sported
a bright yellow breast streaked in black; a dark mask over his face, highlighted by white eye
rings; and a slate-blue back—a perfect marriage of classic understated plumage and a splash of
color. We could hear more singing males in the distance, all staking out their territories before
the females arrived. “This population is rebounding rapidly,” the guide was telling us, “and
the current estimates for this year are about 1,770 singing males in the wild.”
Gleeful smiles signified our good fortune on that May day in 2010. For almost everyone
in the group, this was a first-ever sighting, a “life bird.” Some had traveled across oceans
to record the event. Secondary for them was the news that this stunning bird was staging a
comeback. But that was the purpose of my visit—to understand better how rare species with
particular habitat preferences manage to persist and even recover when perched on the edge of
extinction.
