The Summer of Kirtland's Art

Alright, trendy people. It's not even mid-March, but we're going to propose a theme for the hottest months of 2025: The Summer of Kirtland's Art.

Okay, it doesn't exactly roll off your tongue like "Brat Summer," but ...

Why? Because it occurred to us last night that with the installation of a Kirtland's Warbler sculpture in Roscommon and a mural in Grand Rapids, a motif is starting to bubble up. And if the song of the summer is usually manufactured by some record label to promote a song or artist, we're going to use the Summer of Kirtland's Art to promote a rare and special bird.

We also learned yesterday that we've been paired with Canadian artist Carolyn Wong for the Grand Rapids mural project. We took a peek at her website yesterday and ... WOW! We can't wait. The vibrant colors just jump off her murals.

You can see more of her work at https://www.seeroro.com.

We'll bring you an update on the Roscommon sculpture project next week.

Breaking news (and it's good for once!)

We have two things to report today, and both will make you feel positive.

First, registration opens tomorrow (Friday, Feb. 14), for the Michigan DNR/Michigan Audubon Kirtland's Warbler tours that go out of Hartwick Pine State Park in Grayling. That combined with longer days and pitchers and catchers reporting for spring training baseball camps, well, you know what it means!

Tours start May 24 and run through June 30. Weekend tours are most popular -- obviously -- so consider making your reservations quickly at https://www.michiganaudubon.org/kirtlands-warbler-tours/ .

Item No. 2 in the hopper today is news out of the Winter Meeting of the full Kirtland's Warbler Conservation Team, which was held on Tuesday, Feb. 11. We apologize for not writing about it immediately after the meeting concluded, but after sitting for a six-hour Zoom call, we were just not interested in any more chair time.

Here's the good news out of the meeting ...

We're written in the past about how the agencies have taken their eyes off the ball when it comes to creating new habitat. The good news is that both the Michigan DNR and the U.S. Forest Service have met their planting goals for two years in a row. That's the first time that has happened in more than a decade.

Now, that doesn't mean we are out of the woods. Even though the agencies have met their goals for two years in a row, we expect the amount of available habitat will continue to drop for at least one more year before it is projected to start growing again in 2027.

We're likely going to see this habitat shortfall manifest itself in a significant decline in the Kirtland's Warbler population when we conduct the census this summer. We know a population decline is likely because the DNR and Forest Service estimate that there's one pair for every 20 acres of nesting habitat. If you have fewer acres available for nesting, you are going to have fewer birds.

Dealing with this habitat shortfall has been the first major challenge of the Conservation Team since morphing from the Recovery Team. The problem has not been solved just yet, but everyone came away from the meeting optimistic that we are addressing the issue and moving in the right direction.

We'll write more in the near future about what might happen if the Kirtland's Warbler population falls below two key thresholds that are written into the Conservation Plan.

Uh-oh moment: New study shows signs of significant inbreeding among Kirtland's Warblers

Email this morning brought us some news to be worried about: a new genetic analysis from researchers at Penn State shows considerable inbreeding among Kirtland's Warblers.

Why does this matter? Well, we know that inbreeding can bring forward all kinds of recessive genes resulting in various deformities. Inbreeding among 16 generations of the members of the House of Habsbergs led to Charles II of Spain having a jaw that was so badly deformed that he could not chew. An autopsy after his death claimed his heart was the size of a peppercorn. Other family members suffered from insanity and epilepsy.

The Habsbergs chose to breed inside the family to consolidate power. In the case of the Kirtland's Warblers, it seems that birds with similar genetic backgrounds bred with one another simply because there was no other option given the size of the population.

The researchers identified the inbreeding by looking for "runs of homozygosity" or long strands of identical DNA that would come from parents with similar genetic backgrounds.

There are no indications, however, that Kirtland's Warblers are turning into the Habsbergs. We have seen no signs of physical deformities, and we're not sure we would recognize insanity in a bird, so maybe it's best to let the press release from Science Daily warn us what to look for:

"The researchers noted that the Kirtland's warblers they sampled did not appear to have any physical deformities. However, they said that inbreeding could manifest during the stages of life they did not observe, for example during development or the energy-intensive task of migration, or impact aspects of their reproductive success, such as how many eggs they lay or how many hatch."

The researchers said that monitoring for these would be important to species survival.

Is there a solution? We're not sure, but lead researcher Anna María Calderón, a graduate student in biology in the Penn State Eberly College of Science, will be presenting her findings at the winter meeting of the Kirtland's Warbler Conservation Team in February. We'll report more after hearing what she has to say.

You can read the Science Daily press release here: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/12/241210142037.htm