It's the Kirtland’s warbler!
With a feather-curling 59 votes, the Kirtland’s warbler ran away with top honors. Its popularity was apparent from the very start. Supporters occupied about a third of the room at Traverse City’s Rare Bird Brewpub.
They festooned tables with stickers.
They brought books.
Many carried little campaign signs reading “Vote for ‘Kirt’.” We’re not kidding. They had signs.
They also had reasons: Described by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as “a neat gray-and-yellow bird and one of the rarest songbirds in North America,” the bird’s range is focused squarely on the jack pine forests of northern Michigan. The population has made a remarkable recovery, moving off the federal Endangered Species list in 2019 after more than 45 years.
The conversation about making the Kirtland’s Warbler Michigan’s state bird has been going on for decades. But efforts to dethrone the robin, the state bird since 1931, have been unsuccessful.
(Not a soul spoke on behalf of the robin on Wednesday night, by the way. It was not a status quo kind of night.)
The vote
Kirtland's warbler - 59
Black-capped chickadee - 38
Common loon - 22
Tufted titmouse - 18
Sandhill crane - 7
Piping plover - 7
Turkey vulture - 5
Blue jay - 4
Robin - 4
A surprise showing
For the last month, we've been asking you on the air and online what you think Michigan's state bird should be. And on Wednesday night, we gathered in Traverse City to find out.
A caucus — excuse us, CAWcus — differs from a straightforward election in that it includes a chance to rally support for your chosen candidate.
We’ve outlined the overwhelming show of force for the Kirtland’s warbler. The chickadee had some supporters, too, including Hank Bailey.
"The chickadee is so adapatable," he said. "Remember all these cold days? Somehow those little chickadees are still hanging in there. They live here year-round. I happen to be Anishinaabe, so my people had to learn to adapt and live here yearround. I have an affinity with the chickadee in that sense. People look at my people as a fierce kind of people, but we really have a very loving heart. I feel that goodness in those chickadees when I'm near them."
He and his wife, Amy, then performed a "chickadee improv," with Amy making the bird call and the two of them dancing like birds.
IPR’s own Cheryl Bartz made the case for the turkey vulture, which she also did on the air earlier this month.
But maybe the biggest rally at the CAWcus was for the tufted titmouse. Traverse City residents John and Ruthy Ransom swooped in to make the case in an eleventh-hour speech.
“We need a bird that’s common enough that people have seen it,” John said. “How many people have seen a Kirtland’s warbler?”
A smattering of hands went up.
“Yeah, the bird folks have, nobody else has,” he said.
Ruthy chimed in to throw some shade on other contenders.
“I once saw a chickadee poke the eyes out of a defenseless bird on my porch,” she said. “I also once saw a turkey vulture poop on the stage of the Dennos Museum. Can we have that type of history for our state bird? I don’t think so.”
“Right now,” Ruthy said, “the tufted titmouse has one vote. Mine.”
At the end of the evening, it had 18.
Now what?
We don’t know.
Our event was a legally unbinding, thoroughly unofficial, deeply unscientific assessment of public sentiment toward a state bird change. Actually making that change requires an act of the Michigan Legislature.
But we love the idea that so many of you care about what the state bird should be and that you brought really good reasons in support of your arguments.
So thanks, IPR community, for flapping your wings with us for a little while. We know a few feathers were (gently) ruffled but we had a good time along the way and maybe, just maybe, your choice will one day take flight as our state’s new avian symbol.
