British ornithologist Tim Birkhead, described as an 'international superstar' in the bird world, captivated audiences in Windsor this week with tales of the great auk, a flightless bird that has been extinct since 1844. Speaking at the Ojibway Nature Centre on Wednesday, Birkhead brought the species back to life through storytelling, drawing bird enthusiasts from across Ontario.
'For me, the great auk is synonymous with extinction. It epitomizes the value of museum specimens,' Birkhead told the crowd, holding up a reproduction of a great auk egg worth over $180,000 CAD if real. 'These relics of the great auk are avidly collected by wealthy people,' he added.
Birkhead is the celebrity birder at this year's Springsong Weekend on Pelee Island, a three-day celebration of birds and books founded by Margaret Atwood and her late partner Graeme Gibson. The event, now in its 25th year, includes a banquet and a 24-hour 'bird race' where teams compete to spot the most bird species on the island, a key stopover for migrating songbirds.
'Tim is an international superstar in the ornithological world, and someone that all biologists, especially bird biologists, hold in such high regard,' said Dan Mennill, a University of Windsor ornithologist. Mennill, who served as last year's celebrity birder, noted that two of his students are currently installing audio recording devices across Canada to track bird migration via their night calls.
Birkhead will join Mennill this weekend to install a recording device on Pelee Island. 'I was a small 'c' celebrity birder. Tim is a capital 'c' celebrity birder,' Mennill joked. 'This is one of the most exciting events of the year for me, and to be able to share it with an international scholar of Birkhead's stature is really exciting.'
Birkhead began studying common guillemot, a seabird in the auk family, in 1972 and has since written over a dozen books on bird behavior. In recent decades, he has focused on advocating for more rigorous monitoring of endangered bird species. 'If we get that wrong, we could lose a lot of our populations. That's what gets me out of bed every morning,' he said.
Listeners learned that hundreds of thousands of great auks once lived on Funk Island off Newfoundland until Portuguese explorers arrived, leading to their slaughter for meat and plumage.
