Around the world the COVID-19 emergency is forcing rapid changes to human society. In Pennsylvania nearly everything is closed; crowds of any kind are prohibited. If we go out at all, we must stay away from others and maintain a safe social distance (six feet). We cannot afford to spread this illness. The number of infections blows up like a bomb.

Birds don’t need to care about the disease — they won’t catch it — but these photos can illustrate social distancing.

Above, two saffron finches display a proper distance.

Below, the pigeons are WRONG! The group is small but they’re too close.

The flock below is spawning a local epidemic. This crowd is NOT ALLOWED. It’s a petri dish of infection waiting to explode in 9-10 days.

In case you don’t believe this is necessary, here’s a message for us from Italy, sent on 15 March 2020. They know what happens if you don’t stay away from each other BEFORE the need is apparent. On 15 March: “It is believed that the US, England and France are 9-10 days behind Italy in COVID-19 progression.”

9-10 days is next week, 24 or 25 March 2020. That’s why things are closed!

It’s like living in a war zone, but there is hope. Italians are singing from their balconies to keep their spirits up and the Chinese are sending encouragement.

Stay strong. Stay well. Stay apart. Stay home.

This too shall pass.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons, videos from YouTube; click the captions or YouTube links to see the originals)

p.s. Birding alone in the woods is a safe social distance, but don’t count on finding a bathroom!

p.s. Here’s the latest coronavirus case map, US and world, from The Washington Post. Don’t get complacent about the numbers. Cases in New York state increased 70% in one day — Monday to Tuesday.

14 March 2020:

Yesterday was an eventful day for coronavirus preparedness in the U.S. Officials declared national, state and local emergencies, events were canceled everywhere, and public venues including schools closed through at least the end of March. U.S. testing capacity is woefully behind but there’s hope now that a coronavirus relief bill is moving quickly through the Capitol.

Meanwhile, anxious people are panic hoarding. By mid-week there was a sudden rush on toilet paper and bottled water as if preparing for a hurricane.

The Germans have an apt word for this: Hamsterkauf = “hamster” hoards in its cheeks (hamstern) + “buy” (kaufen). The hoarding hamster above is totally stuffing his cheeks despite the overabundance of dandelion leaves.

I haven’t been to the grocery store for a few days so I asked my friends what hamsterkauf looks like in Pittsburgh.

On Thursday 12 March at 5:30p John English reported, “Stopped at the Greenfield Giant Eagle for food. Toilet paper shelves are wiped clean. Paper towels were also flying off the shelves. Bottled water was limited to 4 cases per person. (I guess people never heard of water filters.)”

On Thursday 12 March at 7pm, Terry Wiezorek photographed the frozen food section at the North Hills Trader Joe’s.

On Friday 13 March at 2:30p, Sue Bodziach saw this in the Cranberry Walmart toilet paper aisle.

And on Friday 13 March at 4p, Shannon Platt found little to buy in the toilet paper aisle at Target on McKnight Road.

Hoarding. Hoarding. Hamsterkauf.

Let’s calm down.

Read more in these two articles: When will hamsterkauf become an English word? and Hamsterkauf: Germans and Austrians are panic buying due to coronavirus.

(photos of hamsters from Wikimedia Commons, store photos by Terry Wiezorek, Sue Bodziach and Shannon Platt)

Which bird is closest to the dinosaurs? Which one is the newest species? The answer has changed in the last 30 years.

The taxonomic order of birds used to be rather stable. North American field guides, listed in evolutionary order from oldest to newest, had loons at the beginning and sparrows at the end. Then in 1991 everything changed.

Scientists began using DNA sequencing to see who’s related to whom. They learned that ducks and geese are older than loons, loons are related to penguins, falcons are related to parrots (not hawks), and grosbeaks are newer than sparrows.

The phylogenomic supertree below, current to July 2019, shows the new relationships in a clockwise spiral from the center. The first bird, closest to the dinosaurs, is the common ostrich (Struthio camelus), photo at top.

The last and newest bird is the yellow-shouldered grosbeak (Parkerthraustes humeralis(*)), native to western Amazonia in South America.

As of February 2020 there are 10,928 species on the worldwide taxonomic checklist of birds. Regional checklists show a subset of birds, limited by geographical or political boundaries, so the first and last birds vary by checklist:

• The AOU checklist for North and Middle America has 2,154 species from highland tinamou to streaked saltator. First and last are both from Central America.
• The ABA checklist for the U.S and Canada including Hawaii has 1,116 species from black-bellied whistling duck to Morelet’s seedeater.
• Pennsylvania‘s checklist has 429 species from black-bellied whistling duck to dickcissel, shown below.

Additional DNA sequencing will change the lists over and over again.

I wonder who will be first and last in 2050.

(photos from Wikimedia Commons, phylogenomic supertree from MDPI; click on the captions to see the originals)

p.s. (*) DNA sequencing gave the yellow-shouldered grosbeak a new genus — Parkerthraustis — named for the late Theodore A. “Ted” Parker III, a superb field ornithologist who died in a plane crash in Ecuador in 1993, age 40.

p.p.s. Click here to see a more detailed phylogenetic tree (in 2012 by University of New South Wales).