Author: Lisa Mungovan

The world’s oldest known wild bird, is a Laysan albatross named Wisdom. She lives in an albatross colony, in a wildlife refuge on Midway Atoll, with her mate Akeakamai. Wisdom is at least 70 years old, and just hatched an egg. Biologists estimate that she’s hatched over 30 eggs in her lifetime, and flown over 3,000,000 miles.

Today, April 26th, is Alien Day. In the 1979 movie, Alien, LV-426 was the moon where xenomorphs were discovered. The movies are pretty scary, but the toys are cool! Less scary, is Hug An Australian Day! Australia is full of animals that look huggable, like koalas, kangaroos, quokkas and quolls, but virtual hugs are safest.

Today is Richter Scale Day. The Richter Scale measures the magnitude of earthquakes on Earth, and marsquakes on Mars. The greatest magnitude ever recorded was the Great Chilean Earthquake, which measured 9.5. It’s also Pretzel Day. Do you prefer big soft pretzels, or tiny hard pretzels? Roll out some dough, and twist your own!

A high school track meet in Utah, saw an unexpected finish, when the underdog won. An actual dog, named Holly, got so excited watching runners pass the baton, that she pulled loose and ran onto the track, to join the race. Although the goldendoodle crossed the finish line first, she was disqualified.

4 astronauts docked at the International Space Station Saturday, in the Crew Dragon Endeavour. The Crew-2 mission team joined the Crew-1 team, as well as a 3-person team that arrived in a Soyuz capsule last week. That makes 11 humans aboard the ISS, for the next few days. Luckily, they can unroll a sleeping bag anywhere.

Today is Telephone Day! Can you imagine a time without phones? In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell received the first patent for a telephone. Patents give the owner the rights to their invention. Elisha Gray and Antonio Meucci also invented versions of the telephone, but Bell got his patent first. Call someone on a phone today!

Let’s learn about penguins, for World Penguin Day. Emperor penguins can grow to nearly 4 feet tall, while little blue penguins only reach 16 inches. No penguins live at the North Pole! Except for Galápagos penguins on the equator, all penguins live in the Southern Hemisphere, and not one of those 17 species can fly!

Today is, Malaria Day? The disease is nothing to celebrate. Malaria is spread by infected mosquitoes, mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa. That’s one reason why mosquitoes are the world’s deadliest animal, killing 750,000 people a year! Birds and bats love to eat mosquitoes. Since it’s also Zucchini Bread Day, I’ll eat that instead!

Spring brings lots of flowers, and plenty of weeds. But some of those weeds, could make a great salad! You can eat dandelions, plantain, purple dead nettle, wood sorrel, burdock, chickweed, garlic mustard, and so many more plants, that grow wild. Flowers like violets and marigolds, will make your salad even more beautiful!

Global Big Day is coming. On May 8th, take 5 or 10 minutes to watch birds, and record your observations at eBird online, or on the eBird Mobile app. It will help the study of world bird populations. Prepare today, by celebrating Go Birding Day. Bring binoculars, and make a list of the birds you see.