Via LATimes from Yahoo ESCONI Group:

… scientists say they found an even older feathered dinosaur – one that
reestablishes Archaeopteryx as part of the bird lineage even as it may
simultaneously dethrone Archaeopteryx as the earliest known “bird.” The
study, published online in the journal Nature, provides a key link in
the evolutionary chain of events that led from dinosaurs to birds.

“It pushes [back] the origins of birds — or origin of animals that
are very closely related to the bird,” said Luis Chiappe, a vertebrate
paleontologist at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles who was not
involved in the paper. “And that’s quite exciting.”