“Bird every bird”: Look beyond the checklist—and see the bigger picture

By Mary Beth Nevulis, Vice President, Louisville Audubon Society

“Bird every bird.” It’s a mantra for birders the world over. It reminds us every bird requires more than a cursory glance for a proper ID—and that sometimes, that extra look nets you an unexpected sighting, or even a lifer. (After all, that “weird robin” in your backyard could be something far rarer.)

But have you ever considered what else this phrase could—or should—mean?

I hadn’t—until a warm December day in 2024, when I went birding near Evansville, Indiana. I was there in search of waterfowl, including the thousands of Snow Geese that flock to the area each year. But as I wandered the mudflats and scanned the fields, I stumbled across something even better than what I’d come for: two Whooping Cranes. 

These new additions to my life list, and my subsequent dive down an internet-research rabbit-hole, brought to mind a new way to think about the old maxim: Bird every bird—because every bird is also an individual symbol of survival.

I’ll explain what I mean by that shortly. First, a little background on Whooping Cranes will help illustrate my point.

The rapid decline of the world’s rarest crane

When I shared my Evansville-area sighting with my fellow chapter leaders from the Louisville Audubon Society, they urged me to submit it to the International Crane Foundation (ICF), which asks “citizen scientists” to file a report when they spot banded cranes in the wild.

I’ve long appreciated the ways citizen science supports expert-led research initiatives—for example, sightings logged on eBird and bird-building collisions reported to dBird contribute to avian science across the country and the globe. But I had never before seen a Whooping Crane in the wild, so I was curious why they merited a separate data-reporting process from, say, eBird. 

After a quick internet search, I learned these striking birds—the tallest in North America, and found only on this continent—are not just the rarest of the 15 species of cranes across the world. They’re also among the rarest of any bird species found in North America. And not long ago, they almost disappeared forever.  

As recently as the 1940s, the species teetered on the brink of extinction: Only about 20 individual birds remained in the wild, down from an estimated 1,200 to 1,500 birds just a century before. 

The reasons for their decline were myriad, although habitat loss was a major culprit. In the nineteenth century, as European settlers expanded west, they drained wetlands—Whooping Cranes’ breeding grounds—and turned prairies into farmland. Settlers’ hunting and egg collection nudged an already-small population even closer to extinction.

Federal protections came in 1918 with the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, making it illegal to hunt Whooping Cranes. But even this wasn’t enough to halt the species’ continued decline.

And yet, against all hope, Whooping Cranes have persevered—although we can attribute their survival far less to hope alone, and far more to collaborative conservation work.

“Against all hope, Whooping Cranes have persevered—although we can attribute their survival far less to hope alone, and far more to collaborative conservation work.”
—Mary Beth Nevulis

Whooping Cranes: the avian world’s comeback kids

The real turning point for these cranes came in 1967, when captive breeding programs in the U.S. and Canada kicked off. Shortly after that, in 1970, the species was officially listed as endangered, ushering in the formal establishment of the ICF in 1973 to support the cranes’ recovery.

Today, the total population of Whooping Cranes numbers more than 800 birds, with somewhere between 500 and 550 birds in the Central Flyway migratory flock. These are the only existing “wild” cranes in the Aransas-Wood Buffalo migratory population (that is, those that breed in Wood Buffalo National Park of Canada in Alberta and migrate along the Central Flyway to overwinter at the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in coastal Texas). Most of the rest of the population is divided almost evenly between captivity and experimental reintroduction programs in Louisiana and Wisconsin.

This success story is the result of decades of conservation efforts—as well as close collaboration between biologists and researchers, policymakers and governmental agencies, tribes and states, and private landowners—to enact programs and policies that protect these cranes.  

So perhaps hope does figure into this story: Whatever their individual reasons, all of these groups were united by the desire to save a species—leading them to take action and work together toward their common goal.

Numbers, years, and places

The Whooping Cranes’ saga hasn’t ended, however. Despite diligent conservation efforts, the species is still very much endangered, and the work to protect it continues today—which is why the ICF requests sighting reports. 

Reporting my Whooping Crane sighting to ICF took just minutes. The form asks for basic details, including the sighting location and a description of any leg bands, as well as the option to add photos. I zoomed in on my admittedly less-than-pro-grade photos (taken through my binoculars using an iPhone) and noted several colorful leg bands—as well as what looked like a small box strapped to each crane’s leg.

A few days after submitting my report, I received an email from the ICF, thanking me for my submission and noting the cranes I saw were “06_15” and “19_09.”

Curious what those numbers meant, I again repaired to the internet. Here’s some of what I learned:

• The second number refers to the year a crane was hatched in a captive breeding program—so 2015 and 2009. The first number identifies the individual bird. 
• The “box” I saw is a Global System for Mobile (GSM) Communication transmitter, which researchers use to track the cranes’ movements.
• Biographies of 06_15 and 19_09 indicate both were hatched at the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center in Maryland—the original captive breeding program, which ran from its inception in 1967 until 2019, when it was shuttered due to funding cuts—and later transferred to Wisconsin.
• There, they participated in “flight school” as part of Operation Migration, a project that ran from 2001 to 2016 to teach captive-bred juvenile Whooping Cranes their migration route from Wisconsin to Florida using ultralight aircraft. (Note: U.S. Fish & Wildlife ended the program in 2016 after seeing limited successful breeding outcomes. ICF has implemented other methods to train juvenile cranes to migrate, such as releasing juveniles near established pairs.)

Bird every bird—and see beyond the checklist

Reading about 06_15 and 19_09—and all the challenges their species had to overcome for me to find them in an Indiana field on that unseasonably warm December day—helped me see these birds in a whole new light.

They weren’t just the latest additions to my life list. They were also individuals, with their own tales to tell. And that’s true of every bird, if we’re willing to listen.

That is, birds belonging to an endangered species, like Whooping Cranes, aren’t the only ones with a survival story. Every living bird we see has beaten the odds stacked against it and overcome a multitude of threats to its own survival. And it pays to remember the biggest hazards to both individual birds and the continuity of their species—from the effects of climate change to building collisions caused by the effects of artificial light at night—are man-made.

So next time you spot an American Robin (“weird” or otherwise), stop and take a beat. Imagine the many obstacles that bird had to navigate for you to be seeing it at that particular moment in time. We owe even the humble robin that much consideration—not to mention the chance to survive in a world where we’ve made it a lot harder to do.

Thinking a little bit differently about the concept of “birding every bird” can help us remember every living bird—and, in fact, every living creature on Earth—has a role to play in the vast web of interconnected ecosystems that all species share. Yet every other species’ success—or demise—often comes down to the actions, or inactions, of just one: us humans.

While humans have the power to bring nature to its knees, we also have the power to protect and restore it—if we choose to put in the work. After all, we were responsible for decimating the Whooping Crane population in the first place. But we also deserve credit for bringing their species back from the brink of extinction. Now, it’s up to us to ensure it stays that way.  

• View ICF’s map showing the last known location of Whooping Cranes in the Eastern Migratory Population over the past two months.
• Explore Audubon’s Whooping Crane Conservation Tool to see the collaboration between the several organizations and individuals all working toward the common goal of conserving the best habitat for the growing population of wild Whooping Cranes.