All Birds Are Dinosaurs
An Evolutionary Masterclass in Surviving Scorched-Earth Events
Welcome to the June 2026 edition of Solid Ground where this month, I reexamine the relationship between two of our most beloved and mythical creatures: dinosaurs and birds. It’s a mind-bending rearrangement of our worldview and an evolutionary masterclass in surviving scorched-earth events, perfect perspective for this particularly catastrophic-seeming historical moment. Besides, don’t we all love birds and dinosaurs?
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Happenings
My forthcoming book, Buried: The Toxic Truth About Our Soil and Groundwater is available for preorder! Chandra LeGue, Senior Conservation advocate for Oregon Wild and the author of Oregon’s Ancient Forests: A Hiking Guide says of Buried:
“As a forest and public lands advocate, I spend a lot of time in the backcountry among trees, ferns, and wild creatures. I understand and appreciate how the organic soils, rock formations, and waterways that form the foundation of these forests are part of the interconnected ecosystem. It turns out I spend a lot less time thinking about the ground under my feet at home where I garden and take walks around my neighborhood. Buried helped me understand the interconnectedness of what our communities are literally built on, and the many natural and very unnatural compounds that surround and permeate us in our everyday lives—whether we live on a rural farm, in a suburban neighborhood, or a city apartment.”
Preorders are incredibly important for the success of a book and often act as drivers for publishers to spend time and money on promotion when the book is released. Ordering early is a tangible form of support! You can find it everywhere books are sold online:
Essay
All Birds Are Dinosaurs: An Evolutionary Masterclass in Surviving Scorched-Earth Events
When someone shows you who they really are, believe them. This advice derived from Maya Angelou’s interpersonal wisdom, in my experience, can and should be applied universally, even to nonhuman beings and creatures, even, and sometimes especially, those that exist only in the rock record.
In recent years, the T Rex, perhaps the most iconic of all dinosaurs, has finally shown us who it really is, and it turns out, it’s closer to a giant, angry bird than anything depicted in Jurassic Park. I cannot overstate this. T Rex, and all the other dinosaurs derived from the same evolutionary branch, have more in common with the finches on your backyard feeder than with anything resembling the “terrible lizards” from which their scientific name Dinosauria derives. In fact, while all three primary branches of dinosaurs derived from a proto-reptilian ancestry, the theropod branch, which includes Tyrannosaurus rex, aren’t related to lizards at all. They are birds.
Moreover, the 11,000 some-odd species of birds in the modern canon are the only living descendants of dinosaurs of any kind. This is not a distant relationship. It is such a pronounced and close lineage that today, paleontologists and the larger scientific community refer to modern birds as “avian dinosaurs” and extinct, preflight species such as the T Rex as “non-avian dinosaurs.”
This can and should blow your mind. In fact, it should blow your entire concept of the world completely out of the water. Dinosaurs are alive and well and walking and flying among us. We love them. We feed them. They are our symbols of peace and reincarnation and the centerpieces of our holiday menus. Tiny yellow dinosaurs are given to children each spring to symbolize the resurrection of Christ. Dinosaurs are inspirational. Dinosaurs are delicious. Dinosaurs are commercial goldmines: Put a dinosaur on it.
Let me explain.