Birdfeeding: Friends of a Feather Flock Together

This 'blue-green jay' may be the first climate change-created bird hybrid found in nature. Here's why that's good news

Joined by his faculty advisor, integrative biology professor Tim Keitt, Stokes confirmed that the bird was, in fact, a male offspring of a green jay mother and a blue jay father.

Marc Airhart, who interviewed Stokes for the University of Texas at Austin's College of Natural Sciences, jokingly referred to it as a “grue jay” — but the hybrid does not have an official name.


The grue jay is cool, but it is long preceded by the grolar bear (aka pizzly bear).

US bird populations continue alarming decline

2025 State of the Birds Report calls for urgent conservation action.
The 2025 U. S. State of the Birds Report, produced by a coalition of leading science and conservation organizations, reveals continued widespread declines in American bird populations across all mainland and marine habitats, with 229 species requiring urgent conservation action.

The release of the 2025 U.S. State of the Birds report was announced today at the 90th annual North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference in Louisville, Kentucky. The report, produced by a coalition of leading science and conservation organizations, reveals continued widespread declines in American bird populations across all mainland and marine habitats, with 229 species requiring urgent conservation action. The report comes five years after the landmark 2019 study that documented the loss of 3 billion birds in North America over 50 years.

Key findings from the new report show that more than one-third of U.S. bird species are of high or moderate conservation concern, including 112 Tipping Point species that have lost more than 50% of their populations in the last 50 years. That includes 42 red-alert species facing perilously low populations, such as Allen's Hummingbird, Tricolored Blackbird, and Saltmarsh Sparrow -- birds that are at risk without immediate intervention.


Remember what I just said about the butterfly apocalypse? No butterflies and moths --> no caterpillars --> no birds, because most terrestrial birds raise their chicks on nature's hotdogs.