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The birth of the zoo's new baby kiwi bird Tuesday marked only the fourth time a kiwi birth occurred at the zoo. Photo By Mehgan Murphy.

During Tuesday’s early morning hours, a kiwi was born at the National Zoo. This kiwi birth is only the fourth in the Zoo’s history, but keepers also had another reason to celebrate: the species, the brown kiwi Apteryz mantelli bird, is one of the most endangered animals on earth.

Unlike other birds, kiwis are born with full feathers (and quite a distinguished beak) and they are able to care for themselves from the moment they are hatched. The Zoo’s new baby bird spent the first day of its life in an incubator, but has since been moved to a brooding box, keepers say.

The brown kiwi, the national bird of New Zealand, has existed for about 34 million years. The country’s natives, called the Mori, believe the bird is sacred. Today, the animal is close to extinction with only 24,000 still in existance in the wild. Many of them are killed by cats and stoats (an animal similar to a ferret).

The birds rarely thrive in captivity, which is why it wasn’t until the zoo’s first kiwi birth in 1975 that the bird was able to survive outside of New Zealand. Only four zoos outside of the New Zealand have been able to breed the birds successfully, and the National Zoo remains the only zoo in the U.S. to have a female kiwi that breeds successfully.

Keepers won’t be able to tell the sex of the bird until it is almost two years old. Until then, geneticists at the National Zoo have taken DNA samples by swabbing the inside of the bird’s egg and beak, and hope to have results in the next few weeks.

The baby’s box isn’t on display, but you can see it on the zoos’ Kiwi Cam. You’ll have the best luck at night, since the birds are nocturnal and do most of their exploring after the sun sets.

If you want a kiwi fix before then, visit the National Zoo’s Bird House at 11 a.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays for their Meet-a-Kiwi program, where you’ll get to meet Manaia, one of the zoo’s two male kiwis.

Nancy McDonough explains how the patterns on kimonos reflect Japanese values. Photo courtesy of flickr user br1dotcom.

It only takes minutes talking with Nancy McDonough to realize that she is a true Japanese kimono enthusiast.

“You don’t see a lot of cherry blossoms on kimono,” says McDonough, the owner of Kyoto Kimono, of Endicott, New York.  “Even though we think they’re beautiful, the symbology is that they are fleeting. They come, and in two weeks, they are gone. That’s not something you want on your wedding gown.”

And yet, it’s the National Cherry Blossom Festival, which celebrates the friendship between the United States and Japan, that brings McDonough to the capital. In advance of her upcoming fashion show, “The Art of the Kimono” taking place this weekend at the Freer Gallery, I asked her to share some more of her knowledge on how the values and taboos of Japanese culture are reflected in the exquisite patterning of kimono.

Did you know?

- You may not find cherry blossoms on wedding kimono, but cranes and Mandarin ducks are common adornments. Why? Both birds mate for life.

- The length of the panel of fabric that hangs from the underside of the sleeves of a kimono depends on the age—and availability—of its wearer. In other words, the draping is longest when a woman is young and single—the idea being that she can wave her arms and the beautiful flowing garment will attract the attention of suitors. Whereas an older woman would have shorter, less flamboyant sleeves.

- Evergreen pine needles and pine boughs, two popular motifs found on kimono worn for all occasions, symbolize endurance, a hugely important characteristic in Japanese culture. The literal translation for the Japanese word for good luck (“gambate”) is actually “endure.”

- Just like cherry blossoms, you won’t often see the big beautiful blossoms of camellia on a kimono. When a camellia dies, the whole bloom falls off of its branch. It’s been equated with the beheading of a samurai, and thus decorating kimono with camellia is very rare, if not taboo.

- Because tortoises are known for their longevity, tortoise shells, when depicted on kimono, are meant to wish wearers a long life.

McDonough will continue this discussion of the cultural and aesthetic significance of traditional kimono styles during two fashion shows held this Friday and Sunday, at 1 p.m. in the Freer conference room. Hundreds of vintage kimono will be for sale at the museum shop over the course of a three-day trunk show starting Friday.

Elinor Smith Sullivan, one of America's earliest female pilots, meets with an aviation official after her 1930 record altitude flight. Photo courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution.

Amelia Earhart, the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic in 1928, comes to mind when talking about early flight—but a few other equally daring, though lesser known, female flyers of that era have stories to tell.

One of them, Elinor Smith Sullivan, whose career coincided with Earhart’s, died last week. She was 98.

Sullivan’s aviation career got off to an early start. At age 7, the young Elinor Smith took lessons near her home on Long Island in 1918 with a pillow behind her back so that she could reach the controls.

From there, her career accelerated quickly. At age 15, Sullivan made her first solo flight. By 16, she was a licensed pilot. She was one of the earliest women to ever receive a transport aviation license, said Dorothy Cochran, a curator at the National Air and Space Museum. And in 1928, when she was just 17, on a dare set forth by a number of men who doubted her expertise, Sullivan flew underneath all four bridges along New York City’s East River.

“She had all kinds of spunk,” Cochran said.

That same year, Sullivan set a women’s solo endurance record of 13 hours, 11 minutes over Long Island’s Mitchel Field. When another female pilot broke that record, Smith reclaimed it the same year, staying in the sky for 26 hours, 21 minutes.

In 1929, she was named the best female pilot in the country, beating out Earhart and joining the ranks of famous pilots like Jimmy Doolittle.

The following year, she became a correspondent for NBC radio, reporting on aviation, and covering the Cleveland Air Races. She also took up a pen and became the aviation editor of Liberty magazine, and wrote for several other publications, including Aero Digest, Colliers, Popular Science and Vanity Fair.

Smith Sullivan poses (1930) next to the Lockheed Vega airplane, named "Mrs.?" that Sullivan bought to fly nonstop from New York to Rome. Photo Courtesy of the Rudy Arnold Collection.

Her flying career took a hiatus in 1933, when she married New York State Congressman Patrick Sullivan and  started a family. The couple eventually would have four children.

(Sullivan was, however, the only female flier to be featured on a Wheaties Cereal Box, in 1934).

The former female flyer might have faded from the spotlight after her marriage, but some two decades later, after her husband’s death in 1956, Sullivan was back in the pilot’s seat. She flew until 2001, when she took one last flight at age 89 to test the C33 Raytheon AGATE at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. Sullivan was also an important aviation advocate, working tirelessly in the 1940s and 50s to save Long Island’s Mitchel and Roosevelt Fields, where she had flown as a child.

Her autobiography, Aviatrix, published in 1981, and her induction into the Women in Aviation International Pioneer Hall of Fame in 2001 have kept her legacy alive—and in the 2009’s film Amelia, actress Mia Wasikowska played the  young Sullivan.

Her legacy and role in aviation is being recognized at the Air and Space Museum this spring. During the next few weeks, visitors to the museum will get to see an obituary plaque at the entrance to the building, remembering Sullivan’s contributions to aviation. A picture hanging next to it will capture her on top of a Lockheed Vega airplane, when she was happiest: preparing to take to the skies.

Read about more famous female aviators, including Pancho Barnes, Bessie Coleman and Jacqueline Cochran, in our photo essay.

The Smithsonian Institution's Castle was bright with lights before Earth Hour began on Saturday. Photo by Eric Long.

The National Mall was more dark than usual on Saturday night, when buildings around the city and the world—including the Smithsonian Institution’s Castle and the Reynolds Center—turned off the lights for 60 minutes as part of Earth Hour, a global effort by the World Wildlife Fund to draw attention to climate change.

The hour “symbolizes that by working together, each of us can make a positive impact in this fight,” the fund says. Most times, even at night, the world’s most populous areas are still bright with light, but most of it is just wasted energy.

Last week, museum staffers at both the Castle and the Reynolds Center, home to the National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum, made preparations for a Saturday night plan to go dark.

After Earth Hour began at 8:30 p.m., the lights went out, setting this part of the mall in a (near) blanket of darkness. Photo by Eric Long

At the Castle Saturday evening, Smithsonian photographer Eric Long set up camp outside the building shortly before Earth Hour began at 8:30 p.m., snapping a shot of the castle before the hour (at left above), with lights both inside and outside of the castle aglow, and after (at right), when only a handful of emergency lights, and the glow of the Washington Monument in the distance, remained.

“There are reflections from the Independence Ave. street lights that are in the windows of the Castle and surrounding the front of the gardens,” Long said. “There are also some emergency lights which were not able to be turned off.” But the symbolically dark 19th-century Gothic revival building looked marvelously eerie against the pink-hued light of the city’s night sky.

All 50 states participated in the initiative, and early estimates say 4,000 communities in 126 countries turned off their lights during the hour.

Woman with Umbrella in the Wind (ca. 1860-1900). Courtesy of the Freer and Sackler Gallery Archives.

Monday, March 29: Words Between Two Reformers: Mary McLeod Bethune and Eleanor Roosevelt: Cultures in Motion Performance

In this theatrical piece, learn about the friendship between Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune who was a member of the Black Cabinet, a collective of representatives working in New Deal agencies that worked to meet the needs of African Americans. Free, but seating is limited. To reserve your spot, call 202-633-8520 or e-mail: NPGPublicPrograms@si.edu. National Portrait Gallery, 7:00 PM.

Tuesday, March 30: Nano Days 2010

Come learn about nanotechnology at Spark!Lab. Learn about small-scale science through such activities as constructing a giant model of a carbon nanotube out of balloons, measuring height in nanometers, creating a color-changing liquid crystal display and more! This even repeats daily through April 3. Free. American History Museum, 10:00 AM-4:00 PM.

Wednesday, March 31: Elvis Presley: A 75th Tribute to the King

Tonight, American music specialist Robert Wyatt offers a comprehensive telling of the King’s life from his childhood through his rise to fame and to his untimely death at age 42. Bop along to classic songs like “Hound Dog” and “Blue Suede Shoes,” take in clips from his movies such as King Creole and Jailhouse Rock and enjoy rare, archival footage and interviews that illuminates Presley’s career. Tickets are required. Please see the Resident Associate program’s website for ticket information. Resident Associate Program, 6:45-9:00 PM.

Thursday, April 1: The Pablo Aslán Quintet: “Tango Grill”

Come celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month by enjoying an evening of tango tunes performed with a contemporary jazz twist, courtesy of the Pablo Aslán Quintet. Free, American History Museum, 6:30-8:00 PM.

Friday, April 2: The Art of the Kimono: Fashion Show

Come gain an appreciation of Japanese textiles! Nancy McDonough, owner Kyoto Kimono of New York, who will discuss the cultural and aesthetic significance of this traditional form of Japanese apparel while you enjoy a fashion show featuring vintage kimono styles. This event will repeat on Sunday, April 4. Free. Freer, 1:00 PM.

For news and updates on all events and exhibitions, check our companion website goSmithsonian.com