For Owl'd Lang Syne: The 2018 Birding Year in Review

Happy New Year!

Song Sparrow

 It may be almost February in the rest of the world, but here on bird blog we're still processing the events (and birds) of 2018. That's right, it's time for the hotly anticipated annual 'year in review' post, now with less to review than ever before! But fewer blog posts doesn't necessarily make a not-as-good blog, as we'll hopefully see today.

American Robin

To start with, let's crunch some numbers. To start with, it should probably be acknowledged that only 26 posts were made last year, about half of the average from previous years. What happened? Well, I had a baby, and looking at the number of posts, you can probably tell precisely when. I talked a little bit about fatherhood on my first post-baby blog on the Nanday Parakeet, but my baby has been (shockingly) a slightly higher priority than birds these last few months.

Above: A Rock Wren, the first bird I got a good picture of while having a baby strapped to me

That's not to say we're looking at a permanent dip in blog productivity (or blogductivity [of blogducktivity, when I'm blogging about ducks specifically). I think we'll get better, in the coming year, and maybe get this bad boy back up to bi-weekly.

Great Egret

Birding Highlights 2018

But enough about boring stuff like new human life and having a complete shift of self and perspective, let's talk about the birds! Undoubtedly the highlight of my birding year was a trip down to LA and the nearby Channel Islands National Park. Did I see the Island Scrub Jay? Yes I did, and it was a peak birding experience for me that probably non-bird-people will not understand. Can't see this little guy anywhere else. That's where many of my most exciting birds came from this year, although there were also some cool leftovers from my November 2017 trip to Mexico that didn't get posted until this year.

Double-crested Cormorant

The most popular blog of the year was without a doubt the marginally topical If Birds Were Tracks on Kanye's College Drop Out, followed pretty quickly by the extremely nonsense-filled Bird Cup/World Cup Prediction post (spookily accurate though!) Another favorite of mine was the interest-combining The Birdchelor, which imagined birds as The Bachelor contestants. Did I perhaps cause someone to start a new twitter account with my constant #birdingthebachelor tweets or was it just fortuitous timing? We'll probably never know.

House Finch, my vote for 'bird most likely to be confused for something interesting on first glance'

The exciting thing about these blogs, which were some of my favorites of the year, is that they were ambitious and funny, and crucially did not rely heavily on me having good pictures of new birds. I talked about this last year a little, but it's been harder to find unique birds locally, and my travel perspectives are only looking more restrictive. These posts give me an ideal way forward, and I already have my idea for the next two posts of 2019. Also filed to good news is that the blog actually appears to be getting (slightly) (gradually) more popular, with each post getting a good deal more hits on average than in previous years. Shocking, but nice to see.

Red-shouldered Hawk (?Probably?)

What else do we do on this year review thing? Uhhh, pictures! Yes, those! I like my Wrentit pictures, which is a challenging bird to photograph, and took quite a lot of patience to get. I also was excited to get the Bullock's Oriole shot at Mount Burdall, which quickly joined Wetlands Edge as one of my favorite local birding spots. That's where a lot of the photos that accompany this essay are from, by the way. Wood Duck was good too. Some of my best pictures were in those Birdchelor and Kanye posts, actually, since they didn't have the restriction of needing to be pictures of new birds.

White-tailed Kite

Birding Resolutions

Lastly, let's talk resolutions. I'll start by saying I'm glad I set the bar really low for myself last year. The resolutions, in case you don't want to click the link, were 'find a new schedule that works for my changing life', and 'bird local'. And honestly, I think I kinda did both, sort of. Like, given the circumstances. For 2018 I give my self a B- for Effort! So what do I want to do this year?

American Kestrel

Well, as I've been alluding to, I want to get back up to 1. 2 posts per month, eventually. And for my other goal, let's try to 2. recommit to filling in the more common birds from my area that I still haven't posted here year. It's gonna mean squinting at some photos of gulls and sparrows, but I figure I'll have to do the work eventually. Jen Sanford has been making some really interesting points on Instagram (which I'm still not on) on the value and ethics of birding close to home, and I might try to go into it with that attitude (although maybe I'll go with more like a 20 mile radius). And I think that'll do it. Anything more ambitious would just be hubris.... although... I do really want to try and get that Snail Kite when I go to visit family in Florida this year. A blogger can dream, after all.

American Crow

See you all next month!

Birding the World Cup Top 4: Our Birld Cup 2018 Exclusive Coverage

Hello sportsfans and birdsfans and welcome to Amateurnithologist's 2018 World Cup Coverage! Are you interested in having a little bit of bird trivia to help you make your top 4 bracket decisions? Good news if so, cause it's my GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL to provide exactly that to you! Just like we did in 2014, we're going to compare teams based on a number of bird related factors, and then, through a process that combines state-of-the-art techniques from the fields of statistics, ornithology, alchemy, and sociology, determine the likely winner! As you may remember, we have a 100% record of predicting sporting events correctly based on birds, like, probably. So let's get off on the right FOOT and get this BALL rolling.

France

National Bird: Gallic Rooster
Say what you will about the French and their strange choice of national bird- they are strong and consistent in their love and appreciation of chickens. The Gallic Rooster or le coq gaulois, is not only the national bird, but a symbol of the nation itself. The rooster's french phonetic cry, cocorico, is sometimes shouted as an expression of patriotic pride. Think U! S! A! (French people sound off in the comments if you have every made this sound). This rooster love goes way, way back, like to the Middle Ages, and is more than I'm going to get into in a blog ostensibly about the World Cup, but you can check Wikipedia for more detail. Anyway, not only do they have a love of their national bird, it is already tied thematically into sports and football. The French National rugby team uses the coq as it's mascot, and when the World Cup was in France in 1998, the mascot was a rooster named Footix.

The Metrics:
Number of Bird Species: 591
Bird Liking Quotient: 1.629
What would soccer analysis be without reliance on some extremely dubious, but scientific sounding metrics. Here we've taken data from Avibase's Bird Checklists of the World. This number includes all sorts of rarities, introduced species, and migrants, making it hopefully the most optimistic possible number of types of birds you could see there. The bird liking quotient is a little less straightforward, but involves dividing the national population by the number of hits you get when you google "Birding in France". I know that sounds like a crazy way to measure something, but you can't argue with statistics. France, by the way, does pretty well by these metrics, being 2nd in bird diversity and 3rd in birding enthusiasm

The X-factors:

J. G. Keulemans, 1885

Endemic Species? Corsican Nuthatch, Corsican Finch
Best Birding Spot? Corsica obvs
The French island of Corsica has to be a lock for best place to go birding, since it has two species you'll find nowhere else in the world, along with a host of other rarities. The Mediterranean island gives you a good chance for a whole variety of seabirds, along with a bunch of others. France has put up a strong showing and is clearly the country to beat.

Belgium

Andreas Trepte, c/o Wikipedia

National Bird: Common Kestrel
Don't let the name fool you, this bird is anything but common. Closely related to your beloved friend, the American Kestrel, this bird is a master hunter of stealth and agility. The Kestrel has long been associated with prowess in battle and mastery of aerial combat. If you still don't know who this bird is maybe you'd prefer his latin name, which translates to Screeching Sickle, or his alternate names Eurasian Kestrel, Windhover, Windcuffer, or something even ruder that won't be making an appearance on this family-friendly blog.

The Metrics:
Number of Bird Species: 457
BLQ: 3.427

An impressive BLQ cannot hide a subpar number of birds for Belgium, leaving the relatively small nation at a disadvantage. What if we corrected for nation size by even more bird math? Dividing number of recorded bird species by area, we come up with a metric France scores .0024 while Belgium gets a much more respectable .0388 (the highest number among the competitors). We'll call this number Bird Species Density, of BSD.

The X-factors:

photo by Natuurpunt

Endemic Species? Nope
Best Place to Go Birding? Groenwaecke Polders
The first line of the first website hit by a google search was "Belgium is probably not the best country for birding" Thanks for the honesty, fatbirder.com, but that means it's not looking good for the underdogs and their delicious waffles. There are some choice spots though, including a shipping port that hosts the largest tern colonies in Western Europe. I'm going to go with Groenwaecke Polders, however, since in winter it attracts tens of thousands of pink-footed and white-fronted geese, along with a who's who of other European birds. I'd check it out for sure, if I was in Belgium.

Croatia

Carlos Delgado c/o Wikipedia

National Bird: Common Nightingale
So no, this is not a particularly interesting looking bird, but it is famous. The Nightingale's melancholy song has been described as one of the most beautiful sounds in nature, and this has given it prominence in a whole variety of classical art, literature, and poetry. An artist's bird, Shakespeare, Keats, and Shelley all had poems comparing the artist to the nightingale, and vise-versa. Even Beethoven got in on the act, mimicking the birds call with flutes in his Pastoral Symphony. The Nightingale appears on the Croatian 1 Kuna coin, making it analogous to America's positioning of Abraham Lincoln. A pretty great bird, but can it SPORTS?

The Metrics:
Number of Bird Species: 408
BLQ: 5.155
BSD: .0187

With the mightiest BLQ we've seen so far, and an impressive BSD, Croatia presents itself as a plucky challenger to it's competitors. Still, that's not a lotta birds. Let's see if Croatia can offer anything to make up for that deficit.

The X-factors:

Endemic Species? Nah
Best Place to Go Birding? The Lastovo Archipelago
Unlike Belgium, there seems to be a fair amount of info about birding Croatia on the internet- perhaps Croatia is in an active push to attract nature-based tourism in a way that Belgium isn't. Either way, CroatiaBirding.hr describes it as an 'emerging birding destination', and I'm inclined to believe them. The country's unique shape means that is has land in the mountains and a long stretch of Adriatic Sea coastline. It's also within both the central and western European migration corridor, leading to an unusual diversity of birds. The unique geographical features mean that Croatia is home to 78 endangered bird species, more than any other small or medium sized European country. Again I'll quote the Fat Birder "undoubtedly one of the pearls of European birding". If I had to pick one spot, it would be the Lastovo Archipelago, which houses the unique colonies unique in Europe of Yelkouan Shearwaters and Eleonoras Falcons.

England

Emmanuel Douzery c/o Wikipedia

National Bird: European Robin
My antipathy for the American Robin is well known by this point, but I just can't feel the same way about this little guy. What a cutie! A classic and classy choice for national bird for sure, and seems to capture the English character. One quibble- with Brexit looming, will a bird with 'European' in the name still be allowed in the country? The Robin is a prominent figure in folklore, and British folklore specifically (a good sign for a national bird). A couple great folkloric theories about the Robin's red breast- it sang into Jesus' ear to comfort him as he was up on the cross and was thus stained with his blood OR the Robin was bringing water to souls suffering in purgatory and his breast was singed. The Robin sure is metal in these conceptions. He is the symbol of several English and Welsh football clubs, so you know he's got experience.

The Metrics:
Number of Bird Species: 628
BLQ: 1.828
BSD: .007

The number of bird species just crushes here, and may be a deciding factor for England (which, for the purposes of these calculations, includes the greater United Kingdom). The BLQ and BSD are both higher than the other top 4 birding (and football) powerhouse France's are, but they still aren't close to the enthusiasm and sheer bird density seen in the smaller countries.

The X-factors:

Richard Crossley c/o Wikipedia (this picture was too wild not to use, sorry to your eyes)

Endemic Species? Scottish Crossbill

Best Place to Go Birding? Isle of Rum
Here again you can see the inherent advantage in birding that the UK gets for being a series of relatively widely spread island nations. If Scottland was an independent nation, we wouldn't even be having this conversation right now. Regardless of how England acquired it, the existence of an endemic species is a real leg up in the competition. While there are many great birds to be found across the varying islands of the UK (including Puffins in Northern Ireland!), I'm going to give it to the Isle of Rum, where you can find the White-tailed Eagle, a magnificent bird of prey even larger than the Golden Eagle (which you can also find there). The islands are also home to an insane number of Manx Shearwaters.

Alright, so that should be everything you need to figure out exactly how the final four will play out! Wait, you wanted ME to do the predicting? Fine, fine, let me just run all those numbers through the Football9000 Supercomputer

Beep Boop Borp

and here we go, the order of finish in the 2018 World Cup, based EXCLUSIVELY on bird data

1. England
2. France
3. Croatia
4. Belgium

Congratulations to England on it's victory (the Puffins pushed it over the top by .02%). The calculations were so close, however, that if England doesn't technically include Scottland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, it falls all the way to third place, behind Croatia. So it would look like

1. France
2. Croatia
3. England
4. Belgium

Of course we could also see a fluctuation in France's place in the standings, depending on whether or not the Island of Corsica should really count as France.It'd be an upset but we could be looking at

1. Croatia
2. France
3. England
4. Belgium

Well, with that definitively settled, we offer our congratulations to either England or France or Croatia, great job in the 2018 Birld Cup!

Birds Talk: Patriotism

Helloooooo blogfans! Trying out a new feature today where we ask birds-on-the-street to weigh in on various topics in current events. We're kicking off this feature today with the topic of patriotism, because today is Superb Owl Sunday (widely regarded to be the 2nd-4th most patriotic day of the year). We asked birds in Roseville, California "What are your feelings about patriotism on this, Supreb Owl Sunday?" It's a big topic to tackle, but we've come to the field with a goal, so let's get ready to rumble!

Downy Woodpecker: America is great! I think that the football men should not only stand for the national anthem, but maybe should get a ladder so they can stand even higher to respect our flag more.

Red-shouldered Hawk: Why can't someone express their patriotism by being critical of the bad parts of America? If you love this country, you should be willing to work hard to fix it, not just ignoring select parts of it. I hate that I'm putting so much effort into this answer, because I don't think the people arguing the counter position are being intellectually honest anyway.

 Northern Flicker: This question is bullshit [flies away]

American Goldfinch: Whenever I see a football player take a knee, I get so mad that I have to drop everything I'm doing to complain about it on social media. Why would anyone want to protest anything in America, in the greatest country on earth. Protesting should be illegal.

Wild Turkey: (visibly drunk) You know I was supposed to be the America bird before that stupid Eagle. Stole my title just like he steals fish. And now there's a whole holiday where I get eaten, and the Eagle has a football team. I'd like to see the foot on the other shoe, and see how he likes getting eaten.

European Starling: In Europe we call soccer football, and we call patriotism nationalism. We had a lot of wars over that, you know? The nationalism, not the football, although we may very well have a football war at some point.


??Mystery Bird??: 🏱︎♋︎⧫︎❒︎♓︎□︎⧫︎♓︎⬧︎❍︎ ♓︎⬧︎ 🙰◆︎⬧︎⧫︎ ♋︎ ♍︎□︎■︎⬧︎⧫︎❒︎◆︎♍︎⧫︎ ♎︎♏︎⬧︎♓︎♑︎■︎♏︎♎︎ ⧫︎□︎ ◻︎❒︎♏︎❖︎♏︎■︎⧫︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ⬥︎□︎❒︎🙵♓︎■︎♑︎ ♍︎●︎♋︎⬧︎⬧︎ ♐︎❒︎□︎❍︎ ◆︎■︎♓︎⧫︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ♋︎♑︎♋︎♓︎■︎⬧︎⧫︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎♓︎❒︎ ■︎♋︎⧫︎◆︎❒︎♋︎●︎ ♏︎■︎♏︎❍︎♓︎♏︎⬧︎📪︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ♍︎♋︎◻︎♓︎⧫︎♋︎●︎♓︎⬧︎⧫︎⬧︎ ♋︎■︎♎︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ♌︎♋︎■︎🙵♏︎❒︎⬧︎📬︎

2017 Birding Year in Review: Wren it Rains it Pours

Hola bird fans. How was your 2017? Good? Not good? Extremely not good? Are you ready for 2018? Yeah, I am too. But I can't go into the New Year until I've left the old year behind and reflected on some of the best and most memorable birds we birded and blogs we blogged, as is our tradition.



First, some statistics: we did 44 blogs last year- a significant number for sure, but it represents an overall decline in blog production. What happened? Well, we really slowed down around the time your editor here got a new and somewhat more demanding job, leaving fewer hours in the week to bird and to write about it. Something we'll have to be figuring out going forward is whether or not this is a more sustainable pace, or if we'll be able to jump back up to higher blog numbers.



The most popular post this year was the surprise micro-viral Xmas sensation, Bird Ornament Detective. I was proud of how this one turned out, but especially of the concept, which was a spontaneously arrived-at rare bit of 'relevant content'. And I can tell you that I am for sure going to be Merlin-ing more non-bird objects. It would be good if I could more regularly produce blogs tied to current events. For more of this see my SuperbOwl post on the Atlanta Falcons, and my math-based arguments on why they, as a group of Falcons, would easily defeat the New England Patriots. As with so many of my bird-based predictions, this turned out to not be correct.



Our second most popular post was our BUrdZZFEED What Bird Are You? Quiz. Another outside the box idea that I'm glad I did, although it's possible that some of the popularity has to do with people actually mistaking my website for Buzzfeed. In this category see also my exhaustive breakdown of the State Bird Power Ranking (part 1 and 2). And of course there were the .gifs- both of the surprisingly bird-heavy Labyrinth and of a bunch of music videos. Even though they stubbornly refuse to achieve viral sensation status, I'm really happy with the template I've established for these .gif articles.

Probably the best thing that happened to our bird blog in 2017 is that we inspired some fan art for the first time. That was on our entry for Pyrrhuloxia, the excellent desert bird who should still just have a different name already, and it was done by the talented Ayelette Raviv. It was also one of my favorite photos of the year- for more good good bird pics, check out Verdin, and especially Greater Roadrunner.



Desert birds were something of a theme this year, and that's no coincidence. This year I've found that for better or worse most of my birds came from 3-4 big trips somewhere else rather than local birding. In this case that would trips to the Caribbean, South Texas, and most recently Baja California Sur, Mexico. This might be because I have less time for local birding or that I've already gotten so many of the photo-cooperative and easily identifiable local birds. Although I will say that when I was going through my photos for this post, I was heartened to see that there's still a lotta birds in the hopper.

So enough hemming and hawing, how did we do with our resolutions from last year? Honestly, it's a mixed bag. I actually did better with conquering old resolutions, such as the Painted Bunting, the Golden Eagle, and the aforementioned Roadrunner, rather than actually sticking with what I said I'd do last year. The only one I can really say I did was 'do some solo birding', which was what my trip to Texas was, but does doing it once even count? I definitely didn't do more local birding, if possible I got less confident in my camera knowledge, and never really approached the idea of showing my work anywhere outside of the context of this blog. But I feel like the good birds I saw this year have to count for something.

So let's give me a score of: Hangin' in There for 2017.



What about next year? Well, 1. I want to put in some effort on the less glamorous local birds. Really see about some of those ducks, sparrows, and finches who show up on every local e-bird list and actually learn them. Maybe I'll even ID a gull correctly.

2. Come up with a schedule that works for me and incorporates some of the changes I want to make to this blog. Right now I'm thinking maybe 2 new birds per month and 1-2 entries that are more timely/bigger/weirder.

And you know what, let's just do those 2 resolutions. Another thing I've learned this year is that I'm happy with my current level of birding involvement, and that while I love the hobby there is such a thing as taking it too far for me. 2018- all about keeping it stable here on bird blog, and hopefully out in the world.

Bird Ornament Detective

Happy Holidays nerds! One of the nicest things about the holiday season for your amateurnithologist is the prominent placement of birds in decoration and festive embellishment around this time of year. Whether they're adorning your Christmas Tree, Hanukkah Bush, or your Kwanzaa Kinora, these birds embody the spirit of peace and love the holidays are meant to represent.

But what are they though? A question only asked by the most compulsive of birders, sure, but one still worth considering, at least academically. Could a bird ornament be IDed? It turns out there's a lot of variety in how much veracity these ornaments have. The core philosophies of creation seem to range from extremely intentional recreation of a specific species to "make a bird". Today we're going to be looking at a couple of examples. Pull a cozy chair up to the fireplace and sip your hot cocoa as you join us for this pedantic holiday exercise.

As a fun bonus we're going to be running the very impressive Merlin Bird ID app through its paces to see if it can offer any additional insights beyond my own arcane system.

Key Features: Drab coloration, rufous crown, brown streak across chest, sparrow-shaped
Best Guess: Bachman's SparrowMerlin says:  Brown Thrasher

illustrated images copyright whatbird.com

I feel it's clear they were going for a certain type of bird at least, but how much further they went than that is anybody's guess. There are a few defining features that could be used for identification, but sadly most of them rule out real birds. The yellow eye is most damning, but the small black beak also doesn't help. At this point it's worth noting that many bird ornaments don't have feet, but rather flexible wires, which to my knowledge is not consistent with any known bird species. Still, the red crown and brown streaked breast make me fairly confident of my identification. This raises another question however- why would anyone make an ornament that looks like a Bachman's Sparrow?
Ornament Rating: 🐦🐦🐦

Key Features: Prominent red coloration, black features including crown, chest, eye stripe [left]
Yellow head, black, curved bill, blue wing spot [right]
Best Guesses: Cardinal [left] Yellow-headed Blackbird [right]
Merlin Says: Northern Red Bishop [left] Yellow-throated Toucan [right]



Terrible, just terrible, in both cases. The red bird, to me, is clearly meant to represent a Cardinal (the crest really gives it away), a really Christmas-y bird. However, it's got these needless features that make it completely incompatible with any real bird. If you were already 90% of the way to making a serviceable cardinal, why would you make a black crest and eye stripe? The other bird is just as bad, having a combination of colors and body shape that make it mostly impossible. The most prominent feature is the yellow head and dark body, which rules out pretty much everything other than the Yellow-headed blackbird all by itself. You could be extremely generous and assume that the blue wing is a kind of opalescent sheen that you can sometimes seen on black birds. I did find some examples of budgies with yellow heads and blue bodies, but the tail and beak take this too far away from the essential shape of the bird to be what they intended.
Ornament Ratings: 🐦 (each scored half a bird, together they get 1)

Key Features: Owl shape, prominent white mask, black eye ring, dark wings
Best Guess: Northern Saw-whet Owl
Merlin Says: Northern Saw-whet Owl (We got one!!)

"What if Bratz, but an Owl" a criticism of this ornament (which may or may not be a promotional item from the ill-fated owl adventure, Guardians of Ga'hoole) might go. But then you remember that a Northern Saw-Whet Owl is actually a thing, and that this looks almost exactly like it. While I'm not fully convinced that they thought they were making anything other than a cute owl, this ornament gets high marks for accuracy. Needs a little more streaking and a lighter breast, but the face is pretty darn close.
Ornament Ratings: 🐦🐦🐦🐦

Key Features:  Bluish back, yellow belly, white eye mask, upturned tail
Best Guess: Blue Tit 
Merlin says: Bananaquit (?!)

This is really close, in my opinion, to a real Chickadee or Nuthatch of some type. The only issue is really the shape of the white eye mask. The shape of the bird is just right, and for the most part the colors are all within throwing distance of the real thing. In fact the ornament's so detailed that I'm almost feeling like my ID is the problem, and there's some real bird that looks just like this.
Ornament Ratings:🐦🐦🐦🐦

Key Features: Silvery-grey, prominent tuft, black beak, darker wing
Best Guess: Black-crested Titmouse
Merlin Says: Black-crested Titmouse!

Apologies for the very bad photo, call this one a #worstbirdornamentpic. To be honest, this ornament is just about perfect. The only criticism that I'd make is that as a group of birds, the titmouse family is not particularly distinctive, with really only the crest and overall shape being what clues me in.
Ornament Ratings:🐦🐦🐦🐦

Key Features: White, crested, black ring around the neck, spotted wings, striped tail
Best Guess: Leucistic Bluejay
Merlin Says: Mourning Dove

This is undeniably a leucistic Bluejay, and was clearly made either by someone with an obsessive knowledge of birds or someone who was trying to make a bluejay, but ran out of blue dye. That black necklace really is what gives it away. Either way, a brilliant post-modern deconstruction of our ideas about the bird ornament genre.
Ornament Ratings:🐦🐦🐦🐦🐦

There you have it birdfans. Now you have all the example you need for how to irritate your friends and relatives by flailingly 'identifying' the birds hanging on your own tree at Christmastime. And I was pretty impressed by Merlin as well, although it's got a long way to go before I can start using it to identify pokemon and stuff.

Et Tu Birdte? The Birds of March

Julius Caesar. Jesus Christ. Han Solo. All the subjects of famous betrayals. You know who else has been betrayed? These birds! Behold their tales of woe, dear reader, and take heed.

Northern Mockingbird's right hand man coveted his leadership position at Chemco, thinking he was the better bird for the job. He shoved Northern Mockingbird into a big open vat of chemicals at their evil chemical factory, which you think wouldn't work great because birds can fly. However, Northern Mockingbird was holding two doughnuts (one in each wing), and therefor was unable to get those wings moving in time. He was left for dead, but actually the chemicals gave him super powers, so he'll probably get revenge at some point.

Black Phoebe was not at fault for his downfall. He was pushed into a position of fame and prominence early in his life by his parents, who both had dreams of success that they hadn't achieved. After some early successful turns in commercials and TV shows, he got a major role in a movie that became a true genre classic. Black Phoebe missed a lot of school and normal social engagements to do this. He got exposed to some pretty messed up stuff early too, making it hard for him to transition into normal adulthood. His parents ended up embezzling all of the money he earned as an actor. He went through a rough patch, but seems to be getting some promising roles in indies now, and he's cleaned up his act.

California Scrub Jay was supposed to be a voice of his generation. His fiery speeches were compelling and convincing. He had a way of communicating that cut through typical political lines, speaking clearly both to the common man, and to the more idealistic types. Unfortunately, he kept getting caught sending inappropriate pictures, and in the mail, which made it even weirder. He survived a few scandals, but eventually retreated from the public eye. Years later, seeing what people are now willing to accept from their political leaders, he wonders why things turned out this way for him. In the end, he betrayed himself by believing that he could not fall in this way.

Anna's Hummingbird was talked into an adjustable rate mortgage when he didn't really have a stable enough income to cover it. Sure enough, times didn't stay green forever, and the house was repossessed, and financially he's never really recovered. The messed up part is that the shady realtor was his mother. Did she sabotage Anna's Hummingbird on purpose? Or was it a sub-conscious lashing-out as a result of their constant disagreements about the lifestyle choices he made? Either way, she knew about the risks and convinced him to go into it anyway. Anna's Hummingbird's credit score is still really bad. What a messed up thing to do.