Bird News: Field Notes & Avian Evolution, Archaeopteryx Hops & Bald Eagle Rehab

Ungraceful Starts and Unexpected Heights in the Open Sky

10/15/2026

When I think about how many versions of myself I had to go through to get to who I am today, it really is quite shocking. The person I am today is nowhere near the person I was 20 years ago, and yet I value that younger version of me, because without her I could not be writing this right now.

Growth is rarely a straight line, it is usually a mess of false starts and clumsy attempts before anything looks graceful. Nature seems to work the exact same way.

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The Jurassic Jump-Start to Avian Flight

Long before city pigeons turned dodging windshields into a casual art form, Archaeopteryx was down in the Jurassic mud trying to invent flight with the completely wrong gear for the job. It had no deep chest muscles to power a clean vertical launch, so it could not simply pop off a branch and glide away.

Instead, researchers figured out it got airborne the hard way: by taking several fast, enthusiastic two-legged hops across the ground to build up speed, tossing in a few frantic arm flaps once it was already moving. The soaring birds we watch today started out as glorified mud-jumpers.

See the full piece over at The Conversation here.

"The wings appeared to do little in getting the bird off the ground,"
— Neil J. Gostling, Associate Professor in Evolution and Palaeobiology at the University of Southampton

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A Grounded Raptor Completes an Eight-Month Flight Recovery

Relearning how to take to the air can be just as unglamorous as discovering it for the first time, a fact one bald eagle learned firsthand over an eight-month stay at the Auburn University Raptor Center. Rescued on New Year's Eve with wing fractures, embedded shotgun pellets, and lead poisoning, its road back involved multiple complex surgeries, an agonizing wing refracture, and endless physical therapy sessions.

After endless patient work, the raptor finally hopped straight out of its carrier at the Autauga Experiment Forest, caught a rising draft, and drifted effortlessly alongside a flock of local vultures.

See the full piece over at Auburn University here.

Perceived setbacks do not undo everything you have evolved to be. We do the work to continually improve for just such a moment, even when progress feels slow or uncertain. Do not let your setbacks discourage you, let them inspire you to keep moving forward, so that someday you can look back and marvel at how far you have come. Whether you are hopping through the mud or relearning how to catch an updraft, the getting there rarely looks pretty, but you can do it.

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