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December is make-or-break for Mother Jones’ fundraising, and in "No Cute Headlines or Manipulative BS," we hope that giving it to you as matter-of-fact as we can will work to raise the $350,000 we need to raise this month. Donations make up 74 percent of our budget this year, and all online gifts will be matched and go twice as far until we hit our goal.

Photo courtesy Tim Bowman, US fish & Wildlife

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The Wildlife Conservation Society announced their researchers spotted a Bar-tailed Godwit in Alaska banded in Australia 8,000 miles away. We’ve known for a while these small birds make epic migrations (I wrote about godwits and what they have to teach us in Diet for a Warm Planet).

But it’s still really rare to find a bird tagged on one end of its migration at the other end. They’re usually spotted back where they were banded. The WCS researchers also found two other long-distance flyers, a Banded Dunlin and a Semipalmated Sandpiper, marked and released three years ago as part of a study testing whether birds overwintering in Asia carry H5N1 Avian Influenza to North America. The answer so far: No.