Sparrows and warblers are not boring! They’re just often an ID challenge.
And we’re assuming the birds already have habitat, food, all the prerequisites for survival, you just have to choose which one you’d want to bring back if you could.
2 Likes
Hard choice between Carolina Parakeet and Auk.
I went for the latter since Monk Parakeets kind of took over for Carolinas in Northeastern cities but we don’t have any wild “penguins” on this half of the planet.
Would also consider bringing back the Labrador duck.
2 Likes
They are far from being boring. Maybe you are the bored one.
But they are all different and unique, and that there are many of them it doesn’t mean they are boring.
1 Like
You must decide.
WHAT? The last time I checked the forum the parakeet had zero votes, and now it’s winning!
Why nobody votes for the warbler? It’s (or was?) such a lovely bird.
Honestly I would love to see it back but there are lots of other warblers that look similar. I voted for IBWO but CAPA would be just as good. I think its weird that the Dusky Seaside Sparrow spp. got more than the bachmans.
3 Likes
You put Labrador duck in your post, buy not poll, that was the prettiest of them all, though I’m personally into rails and finding out which drawn parrots were real.
3 Likes
Revive and Restore has plans to bring back the passenger pigeon: https://reviverestore.org/about-the-passenger-pigeon/
2 Likes
Elephant Bird
Dodo
All extinct Honey creepers in Hawaii
3 Likes
I’d pick one of the extinct Terror Birds, Titanis genus, as the North American species I’d prefer to bring back.
4 Likes
Oh, just North American :-( I would have loved the Haast eagle or the moa…
3 Likes
Oops! Sorry. I would edit it into the poll but then everyone would have to vote again…
2 Likes
I would vote Ivory-billed Woodpecker however I believe that there isn’t enough evidence to prove it extinct yet. Who knows if it’s still out there.
1 Like
I put IBWO as a reflex*, but then thought about it and the Great Auk would be so cool to have. The poll actually let me change my vote.
*I’m from the area of the US where they used to live. I can’t travel much due to health issues, so it would be a species I could actually see.
3 Likes
I would love to have the Carolina Parakeet back! Though I do have invasive monk, blue-crowned, and nanday parakeets in my neighborhood.
2 Likes
This was a really tough choice…I went with Carolina parakeet. How cool it would be to see those bright, noisy birds darting through the undergrowth!
One of my faves was not an option: the imperial woodpecker, which was even bigger than the ivory-billed…nearly redtail-sized. Its habitat has been all but destroyed, however :(
5 Likes
Passenger pigeon I’d say. Biggest impact on the list in terms of biomass.
2 Likes
I wish all of them could come back, but since I have to choose just one, then I choose the most likely to come back, and the most unique(imo) the Passenger Pigeon. Ectopistes migratorius. The previous most plentiful bird species in North America. A changer of ecosystems. A storm of pure life, that soon dissipated to mere memories.
Aldo Leopold wrote: “The pigeon was a biological storm. He was the lightning that played between two opposing potentials of intolerable intensity: the fat of the land and the oxygen of the air. Yearly the feathered tempest roared up, down and across the continent, sucking up the laden fruits of forest and prairie, burning them in a traveling blast of life.” [Sand County Almanac. “On A Monument to the Pigeon”]
(Ectopistses Migratorius)
An American Holocaust
Spring skies; vast tracts of oak;
Blue-gray wings; red breasts with fawn and white
–sweet billions overhead.
Thundering flocks; infinite numbers,
Black with multitudes - 240 miles long;
One mile wide; sometimes 3 days passing
– into the maw of extinction.
Gone forever, September 1, 1914.
J.E. Sutter
3 Likes
That’s what I would have chosen, too, but the poll is specifically about continental North America. Having lived in Hawaii, I felt keenly the absence of the honeycreepers.
3 Likes
It was a tough choice between the Parakeet and the sparrow, but in the end I decided to go with the sparrow.
1 Like