Local Museum Gets a Bird

NBC 4, Washington, Rare 12-million-year-old bird skeleton found nearly intact along Chesapeake Bay

Scientists are celebrating the discovery of a nearly intact 12-million-year-old bird skeleton on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.

The bones belonged to a gannet. Modern-day gannets are large seabirds that like to nest along the Chesapeake.

Bird bones typically don’t fossilize because they are so delicate.

“I’ve never seen such a complete bird skeleton found along Calvert Cliffs,” said Dr. Stephen Godfrey at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons Island. “This is exceedingly rare.”

The discovery will help scientists learn about life along the bay millions of years ago, he said.

“So, we have this specimen, and we’re exceedingly fortunate to be able to add it to our permanent collection,” Godfrey said. “And so, it’s now in sort of the public domain. It’s being preserved for all of humanity, and we’ll probably put it on display and make a big deal about it.”

The western shore of the Chesapeake Bay has about 20 miles of cliffs that hold fossils dating to the Miocene era.

Contrary to the article, bird bones aren't all that rare in the fossils along Calvert Cliff (although, they do tend to get confused with omnipresent chicken bones from people chicken-necking for crabs.) But they are pretty fragile, so the pieces are usually pretty fragmentary and generally unrecognizable as to species.

Northern Gannets are pretty common here in late fall through early spring, when they hunt for fish. The sight of a gannet storm is enough to set any fisherman's heart racing, because it usually means a school of fish, in our case Striped Bass. have pushed bait fish together in a ball, and up toward the surface, where gannets can see and reach them.