‘Grief is a rational response’: the 21 US species declared extinct this year (The Guardian)
Image: WikiMediaCommons
[ed. While extinction is a fairly common phenomenon (over time and various species), it appears to be accelerating. For a variety of reasons. See also: the post following this one.]
The bird flitted away – but a few moments later, when they hiked down to an old nest tree, they heard it again. Jacobi wanted to make sure his recorder was ready and working, so he rewound the tape and played it back.
Suddenly, ʻōʻō came soaring toward the researchers, singing its mellifluous song. It came so close that they didn’t need binoculars to see its glossy black feathers, and the peek of yellow at its tail.
“I thought, wow, this is fantastic!” Sincock said. Almost immediately, he deflated. The ʻōʻō had been drawn to a recording of its own voice – thinking it was another bird. “It came because it thought it heard something that it probably hadn’t heard for a long time – another of its kind,” he said. This bird was perhaps the last of his species, singing for a mate that would never come.
