Some Nesting Superlatives

(in part from The Bird Almanac: A Guide to Essential Facts and Figures of the World’s Birds, by David Bird)

• Largest known nesting colony: more than 135 million Passenger Pigeons nesting a Passenger Pigeon “city” that covered much of the southern two-thirds of Wisconsin in 1871.

• Lowest altitude for nesting: Little Green Bee-eater at 1307 feet below sea level in a nest tunnel along the banks of the Dead Sea.

• Highest altitude for nesting: Himalayan Snowcock at 15,000 feet above sea level.

• Most northerly nesting bird: Ivory Gull at edge of pack ice about 400 miles south of the North Pole.

• Most southerly nesting bird: Adélie Penguin in Antarctica.

• Coldest nesting conditions: Emperor Penguins, which breed during the Antarctic winter.

• Tiniest nests—Bee Hummingbird of Cuba and Vervain Hummingbird of Jamaica

For permission to reprint all or part of this article, please contact Laura Erickson, editor, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, 159 Sapsucker Woods Rd., Ithaca, NY, 14850. Phone: (607) 254-1114. email: lle24@cornell.edu