35 of 100: Dream Thrush

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: Despite its name, the Blue Whistling Thrush, which is known for its human-like whistling song, is not actually a proper thrush, but is rather a member of the Muscicapidae family of Old-World Flycatchers.

#MTG #Birdmander

34 of 100: Senu, Keen-Eyed Protector

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: The Bonelli's Eagle is noteworthy for its elongated legs, with large feet and talons. Female Bonelli's Eagles have hallux claws on their rear toes up to 47mm long.

#MTG #Birdmander

33 of 100: Murder of Crows

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: Crows, like other corvids, are extremely intelligent. In Japan, some crows drop nuts onto road crosswalks, where passing car tires break them open. Then, when traffic signals stop the cars, the crows safely retrieve the nuts.

#MTG #Birdmander

32 of 100: Messenger Jays

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: The genus name for Blue Jays, Cyanocitta, comes from the Greek words kyaneos and kitta, which roughly translates to "blue chatterer."

Like most other blue birds, Blue Jays get their bright color from iridescence, not pigments.

#MTG #Birdmander

31 of 100: Silver Erne

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: The word "Erne" refers most often to White-Tailed Eagle. Once widespread throughout Western Europe, by 1900 these eagles were extinct in Britain, where the government had offered a bounty of 5 shillings a head for killing sea eagles.

#MTG #Birdmander

30 of 100: Murmuration

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: Starling murmurations can involve thousands of birds. In 2013, physicists found that each bird synchronizes its movements with close neighbors, so that "information moves across the flock very quickly and with nearly no degradation."

#MTG #Birdmander

29 of 100: CovetedPeacock

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: According to Aelian, in "On the Characteristics of Animals," Alexander the Great was so stunned by the beauty of the peafowl he encountered in India, that he threatened punishment with death to anyone who killed one.

#MTG #Birdmander

28 of 100: Zephyr Falcon

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: Falcons strike by diving and kill their prey with the force of their impact. Peregrine Falcons routinely achieve speeds over 300 km/h when diving.

#MTG #Birdmander

For anyone following along, we're up to 29 cool bird-related cards and bird-related facts now, all of which are in the thread.

#MTG #Birdmander

27 of 100: Soraya the Falconer

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: Peregrine Falcons were severely endangered in the 1970s, largely as the result of widespread use of DDT. Repopulation was aided by falconers, whose captive birds were the only remaining Peregrines in many regions.

#MTG #Birdmander

26 of 100: Mist Raven

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: Ravens are extremely intelligent. They can craft and use tools, and, in tests of forward planning, perform as well as young humans.

#MTG #Birdmander

25 of 100: Osai Vultures

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: Old World and American vultures do not share a common genetic lineage. The fact that both developed featherless heads (which are easier to keep clean when feeding on carrion) is an example of convergent evolution.

#MTG #Birdmander

24 of 100: Temple of Enlightenment

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: The Little Owl is closely associated with the Greek goddess Athena, and represents wisdom and knowledge. Its scientific name is Athene noctua.

#MTG #Birdmander

23 of 100: Investigator's Journal

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: Many birdwatchers like to keep a "life list," a record of all the different bird species they have spotted.

You can go old school, and record your life list in a journal. Or the Merlin app can track it for you.

#MTG #Birdmander

22 of 100: Shrike Force

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: The family name for shrikes, Laniidae, is derived from the Latin word for "butcher." Some male shrikes will impale food on plant thorns and barbed wire, both as a way to impress potential mates, and to cache extra food for later.

#MTG #Birdmander

21 of 100: Lilypad Village

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: The Purple Gallinule, a rainbow-colored American marsh bird, has enormous yellow feet with long toes, which allow it to walk across lily pads without sinking.

#MTG #Birdmander

20 of 100: Dazzling Denial

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: The vibrant, shifting colors of hummingbirds and other birds (like grackles and magpies) are caused by iridescence rather than pigmentation. Tiny microstructures in their feathers cause interference and selective reflection.

#MTG #Birdmander

19 of 100: Salvation Swan

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: North American Trumpeter Swans were hunted nearly to extinction in the late 1800s. Only the discovery of an unknown Alaskan population in 1950s enabled their gradual reintroduction elsewhere on the continent.

#MTG #Birdmander

#Birdmander conservation call to action:

Great Lakes Piping Plovers are endangered. There are fewer than 100 breeding pairs in the wild.

This July, the U.S. federal government changed its rules to permit destroying nest sites and habitats of endangered species. Piping Plovers WILL be harmed.

18 of 100: Lonely Sandbar

Wingspan-Style Fun Fact: Monty and Rose, a pair of endangered Piping Plovers, became the first plovers to nest in Chicago in decades, when they fledged two chicks on Montrose Beach in 2019.

There are only 90 nesting pairs of Great Lakes Piping Plovers.

#MTG #Birdmander