Don't tell Mother Nature, but Red-breasted Sapsuckers may be nesting with Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, providing a rare hybrid combination first discovered in Kansas by Dr. David Seibel, science professor at JCCC. An article about the hybrid, co-authored by Seibel, that appeared in the journal North American Birds ruffled a few feathers and raised questions about bird identification.

For Seibel, bird-watching is a science, a sport and, more recently, an art form using digital photography.

Seibel was 7 years old when he first started keeping lists of bird sightings. He earned his doctorate in ornithology at the University of Kansas, specializing in the evolutionary relationships of cuckoos. He has studied the bones of most of the 135 living species of the world's cuckoos. Now in his 19^th year teaching primarily zoology and human anatomy at JCCC, Seibel continues to incorporate his lifelong passion for birds into his teaching and personal fulfillment.

"Birds are beautiful. People enjoy seeing and hearing them," Seibel said.

Seibel has studied birds in nearly 40 states, Brazil, Italy, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. He held the record for the most bird species observed in Kansas in 2004 with 309 sightings. He has now seen more than 400 species in the state, one of a small number of people ever to reach that mark.

"During spring and fall migration, it is relatively easy to see more than 100 species of birds a day in Kansas," he said. "The record is 225 species in a single 24-hour period in May, which ties Kansas with New Jersey for the third highest count ever in the United States."

During the Audubon Christmas Bird Count in 2001 in Lawrence, Seibel spotted what he initially believed to be a highly colored adult male Red-breasted Sapsucker, a rarity for this area. The bird had unusual coloring, and photographs could not determine its identification. Mark Robbins, KU Natural History Museum collection manager for birds, collected the sapsucker for further study and discovered the bird to be a female, not a male. DNA analysis by Dr. Carla Cicero, curator, Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California-Berkeley, confirmed that the bird's mother was a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker but was unable to determine the identity of the father. Long story short: Field observations and comparison with other specimens show the bird may be a very rare hybrid never before documented in the United States. For photos and more details, see http://staff.jccc.edu/dseibel/RBxYBSA.htm.