22 ForOregonState.org/Stater R E S E AR C H PHOTO BY KARL MAASDAM, ’93 ↑ Matt Betts checks one of the acoustic devices used to record the forest’s sounds. A high-pitched call pierces the milky morning haze. Hun- dreds of feet up, a dark shape hurtles across a dim sky. It swoops into the tree canopy and disappears. For almost 200 years after scientists first described the marbled murrelet, it eluded us. They saw the bird foraging on the open sea but had no clue where it roosted. Then, in 1974, a California tree trimmer discovered the first murrelet nest in the upper reaches of an ancient tree. Scientists now knew it was a bird of two worlds: a tree-nesting seabird that travels up to 47 miles inland to nest in old-growth forests. Going straight from sea to branch, it may go its entire life without its webbed feet touching the earth. The murrelet’s dependence on both ocean and forest made the homely bird — which some call a “baked potato with a beak” — unique- ly vulnerable to climate change. It also put it in the crosshairs of controversy. The murrelet served as a rallying cry, alongside the northern spotted owl and salmon, for enIN SEARCH OF THE MARBLED MURRELET Researchers are using artificial intelligence to find the Pacific Northwest’s most secretive bird. BY > SIOBHAN MURRAY
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