Around The World In 80 Birds With Mike Unwin!

His book Around the World in eighty Birds documents birds that Mike has encountered all over the world, the stories of these birds, and it gives you a taste of the wonderful diversity of our feathery dino friends. So we are going to talk about some of these birds, and we're gonna talk to Mike about his adventures. Welcome Mike, alright, kid's good to be here. I am so excited. Your

book is really wonderful. It's beautifully illustrated. Uh, and the descriptions of these birds are It's really fun because it gives you this rundown of this whole essence of the bird. You know, not just the biological description of what it is, but what it's like and it's impact on human culture and the interactions between birds and humans, for better or for worse. And as people already listening to this show,

probably no, I love birds. I have a particular fondness for them because they're so they're adorable, and their behaviors are identifiable. But they're also little aliens. They are so different from from us, from other mammals, but they have so much personality. Just for the record, and you don't have to convince me to love birds. But for you, why birds? Why are you interested in birds? Okay, well, it's it's good to know I'm preaching to the convertity.

I think I should. I should start with the confession, which is you said these are eighty birds that I've followed around the world. In fact, I topped it up from the book the other day. I've not seen eighty of them. I've seen fifty three. Oh my god, I know, I know, I know. It's like a charlatan. Well, i'd like to have say, maybe I could have started by choosing eighty birds I've seen and called it, you know,

around around my gun Wins world. And I'm not sure what the publisher would have gone for that, but yes, yeah, exactly exactly eighty of the same one. Now there's that, And there's also another confession while I'm while I'm laying my my soul bear, I'm not a biologist. I'm not

a zoologist at all. So I think I'm an example of one of the many people who've who have come to birds and natural history from a non science background, which says, in itself, partly answer to your question why birds they reach out They have a broader appeal, and that's where they're cemented in so many people's cultures and iconography and literature and you name it. And I mean why I'm I think they're They're everywhere. Birds are everywhere.

They're so conspicuous, they're so noisy. There are no other parts of the natural world that makes so much sound and such a variety of it um And you can see them. You don't have to be in some remote wilderness. You don't have to be in a tropical rainforest or on the top of the andes or something. You you see birds in your back garden. You see them when you can meet to work. You you don't even have to have a garden. You see them from your window.

There are birds, and there are different birds in every place. You know, in your school, when you're growing up, in your your your local park and your trip to the seaside, they're everywhere and and they forced themselves on your attention, you know, um by the sound and they're fluttering about.

And for me, I mean, I grew up in in the suburban UK and I was a natural history obsessive and I read all the books about you know, I wanted to be tracking lions through the Sararengetti and diving with great white sharks and doing all these exciting things. And you don't get any of that in suburbia where I lived, but you do get birds. And you look out your window and there are blue tits and there are great it's, and there are sparrows and chappages and

robins and what whatever. So they're they're they're they're there. They satisfy that look, that that need to see the natural world happening. And the more you look, the more you see, and the more you see, the more you want to know, and the more different ones you want to see. So you have this kind of this fantastic invitation to explore and discover more. And I think, I mean that's a personal thing for a universal thing people. I think the fact they fly is a pretty big deal.

I think if when when you when I was going researching this book and looking at the number of different cultures through history to which one bird or other has

been pivotal, I was, I was. I was just struck by that, that the sort of the wonder that people have in flight, because and when when when you hear some some celebrity being interviewed and you know, what would your superpower be, it's it's always I want to fly, and whether it's it's freedom or escape or some kind of magical transcendence of the you know, the dull terrestrial world was stuck in. So I think, you know, birds symbolize that for us, and they look good. So it's

a long answer to a simple question. But you know, you could we could talk all they up white birds, and there are a starting point, you know, starting with birds for me, then it went in all sorts of

other directions too. You know, I have a very similar story because when I was a kid, like a little, very little kid before I can even remember, but my mom remembers, I was obsessed with birds and I'd be barely barely two years old running around outside chasing birds around, And when my mom asked me what I was doing, I would say something like I want to catch a bird, and she'd ask me why, and I said, well, I think we could be friends. So I think we'd like

to I don't know. We we we transfer our own values to them as well. That that's why they loomed so large in culture. We they've they've become emblematic of all these things that they didn't actually ask for. So whether it's eagles which are kind of mighty and powerful and military, or whether it's either the owls such a wise or sinister or saving magpies or whatever it might be. We we we kind of, yeah, we saddle them with

up with our own values because they're there there. There's wonderful, kind of exciting palettes on which we can paint our own ideas. Yeah. I wonder sometimes because you know, as a bird watcher, bird document or it seems like this kind of one sided thing where you are they're kind of spying on these birds, peering into their world as the bird goes about. Yeah, but have you had any experiences with birds where you felt like the bird was

curious about you? Or is that kind of antithetical to the bird observer where you want to be unseen, but are does that line ever get cross where the bird is actually watching you and interested in what you're doing. Yeah, that's a good question. I'd like to think I had some kind of empirical scientific objectivity, but I don't. I'm as I'm as pray to those and supremorphic ideas and speculations as anyone else. And I mean there are times I think I think, for instance, being I've been at

sea on long voyages in the Southern Ocean. I've been watching albatrosses, for example, and you see this bird, it's a speck in the wake of the ship. I mean, I'm the only person on deck and the weather is not great, and I see this bird low above the waves, and somehow it's miraculously gaining on us, catching up in the wake of the ship until it pulls alongside. And I've had these moments where I've got this wandering albatross right, which is a massive but it's three ms across the wings.

It's it's extraordinary bird, and it's hanging there sort of magically, just a few meters away from me at eye level, off the side of the ship and I and I look at it and it just kind of looks sideways at me and we make eye contact. And here it is, this thing where in the middle of nowhere. And I'd like to say there's some if it's not a moment of communication, there's curiosity, it's you know, what, what are you and what are you doing there? And there's and

here's this creature. I mean that albatross can live for seventy years, right, They don't mature to breed until the wandering albatross is still their twelve thirteen fourteen. There. They are extraordinary creatures with complex lives that we got a lot of which we can only guess at. And I

think we'd be foolish to underestimate what's going on. But at the same time, I mean, of course, as a bird watching your things are running away from you, most flying from you know where, this great looming potential predator that kind of blunders around in their world and off

they go. They tolerate you as long as they can unless they're signing in it for them, you know, That's what the scientists would tell you, of course, And again we love to transfer these sort of values in the UK are the robin with the European robin, I should hasten to add is very different from your American rob It is robin at all. It's a thrush. So let's yes, no, I know the the European robin is like that for me. The differences the European robin sphere American robin bird shape.

Your European robin is like a little poofball with legs. Yeah, it does, definitely. It puffs itself up. And there's a very very popular bird in the UK and especially with gardeners because it's very confiding and people will be digging in their back garden, turning over the soil and a robin will turn up and it will sit close to the more will perch on the fork handles, as we've illustrated in the book, and people develop a relationship with it,

and then then people start talking about my robin. Oh, yeah, my robin was out here so and he popped in to say hello, and yeah, you know, we had a little chat and I gave him some worms. And often may not be him, it's probably a her, and they may not even be the same robin. But people love to develop this idea that they somehow forwards this this bond of the bed, and the truth is perhaps a little less less kind of appealing, which is that Robbin's evolved.

They they feed on small insects, feed in the understory of forests and woodland, and they probably evolved, it's thought, in tandem with wild boars. And wild boars they root through the leaflets and they dig up grubs, they turn over the soil, and the robin will hang around and drop down and pick up a worm or or a beetle, larva, or an insect and an essentially, gardeners are just being kind of upright wild boars and Robbin's. No, there's no there's no harm for them. They you know, why not

take what they can. We're just tall, upright wild boars. I mean, you know, yeah exactly. I wish you know, yeah, I feel a bit more self respect maybe. But there's one story that occurred to me. Actually when you say this about interacting with birds, I mean, whether they're curious about me or not, I don't know. But there's a bird in my book called the Greater honey Guide, which you may know about. It's an African bird and it's

it's found all over Subsuda in Africa. But I've I've actually in my book each bird is connected to a particular country, and in this case, I made it Zambia because it was in Zambia. I had an amazing experience. I was. I was out on foot in a in a in a national park. Kafuoi National Park is a huge wilderness and I was walking with an armed guide and we were in big game country and there were elephants around, and we were following this trail through the

bush and I heard a honey guide calling. And I know the honey guid, and it's an unobtrusive brown little bird, nothing very spectacular to look at, and it's got a fairly recognizable call. But it was doing this this frantic call. It was like it was like a frenzy honey guide. It was a twittering, twittering. And my guide said, yeah, it once it wants, it wants us. It wants to lead us to honey And I know about it. I've read about it, but I was a little skeptical that

this bird. Suppose if it feeds on bees, wax and and and grubs, larger bees, and supposedly it co ops the assistance of a large mammal i humans, but supposedly also honey batches to get at the business, to plunder it, to pull it out, you know, to take what they want and then leave something for the honeyguide. And you read about this as a kid, and that it also

felt a little apocryphal. So we were walking along and here the honey guide was flying ahead, treat to treat, and the path forked and we had to head right. So we went off right, leaving the honey guides below us, and it came back. It came along the path and now it was in It had wound itself up into a complete par of twitter. Why aren't you exactly come on for good? Honestly? And it was ahead, It was flitted ahead of us, and I said, look, can me, you know, just indulge me. Can we just see what

happens here? Can we? So we retraced our steps to where the paths forked, and the honey guy then flew ahead down the lower path. We followed it. And what it does is it flies from tree to tree, stops, calls, flies on the next tree, we catch up, and moves on. It leads you. I love that. I love the scientific name by the way, which is indicator. Indicator tells you what. Sometimes it's just on the nose exactly, it's actually there.

You go. Um. And finally we get to a bay about huge grape African tree and it flies up into the upper branches and it just falls silent, and in the silence, I could just hear this hum and it was the buzzing of bees. And then we've been oculars half up the trunk. That's what appears to be smoke coming out, and there was a bees nest in a hole in the trunk of this bare back and that the honey guide had just it had just flown up and they perched on the branch and it just was

completely silent. And it was like, okay, come on, guys, doing stuff now. I'm ready. I'm ready. And this was about this was about four or five meters up the tree trunk. We were not going to climb and stick our face in and letting the bees nest. And the whole thing was amazing, and I was, it was extraordinary, and we left it. We left the honey guide. There's that old bird saying you can lead a human to a bunch of bees, but you can't make the human

get the bees down. I think, yeah, yeah, that's right. It's in all their bird folklore. Yeah yeah, and that it's quite because in African folklore actually that I mean people have people. This is something that probably evolved with hunter gather people's you know, centrals going. But to this day, subsistence farmers in Central Africa still use sunny guys in this way to to toct honey. And the story goes that you must always once you hauld them because they

used smoke. They smoke out the bees to dull them. They hauld out the business and you must always leave some wax some of the honeycomb for the honey guys because if you don't, if you don't do that next time, it's going to take you to a black member or something. No, I don't know if they would be so so petty, but you know, it is interesting because in these some beotic relationships, there are there are cases where they will learn to distrust individuals if you don't basically pay play

by their rules. This is the case in many like you know, we know that with yes corvids very good memory, they will teach the younger generations not to trust you the human if you have wronged them, which many university researching students interns have learned the hard way being part of these studies, and it it is. It is fascinating to me because I think it is true birds we can't really anthropomorphize them in the sense that, you know, this bird is not necessarily thinking great, you know, I'm

helping this human get honey. This bird is thinking when this happened? When I do this, do this a series of events, I get bees wax, and I get larva, and you know. But I think that we also can't shy away too much from attributing emotion to them because the bird being frustrated. I could believe that bird is frustrated that you're not following it and not paying attention

to it. I think it was legitimately peeved that you were not picking up what it was putting down, which I think is there's something so charming about that that this thing, this like living dinosaur that's turned small and flits around and has is cute and has feathers, still has these like such a personality. Yeah, I think so, and I think we underestimate that with our peril. Yeah.

And as for emotion, I mean you get it into tricky philosophical areas here, don't you, Because all this research done on corvids and ravens and it's discott and magpie is discovering capacity for things that were once held to be exclusively human and grieving and envy and all sorts of things like that, and um. But I think you also have to flip it around and say, well, you know we we we forever we've separated ourselves from the rest of the animal world by claiming that we have

the sophisticated suite of emotions that make us. But I mean, you know, we we have to break the done and us what are they for? Half of them are about getting one up on somebody else, so obtaining you know, rewards or manipulation, you know, manipulating social circumstances to our own ends. And just as social birds do different expressions of the same instincts, we just do with clothes on anything. Yeah, no, I I think that is exactly on. You know, when

you look at emotions, it's a reward system. And you know birds and other animals also need a reward system, so we are not so special. Well, I'll uh leave you guys with your not so special over the ad break. But when we return, we're going to talk more about these wonderful birds described in this book and just give you a little little taste of these spectacular birds you

can find all over the world. Will be right back and we are back, and I wanted to talk about some of the birds from your book that I really loved reading about and that I think. It's just there's

such a wide diversity of birds. It is amazing. And I think, you know, the evolution towards flight seems to just do something that you know, it forces these animals to evolve into such interesting niches and it gets I mean, it doesn't force them, it's more it gives them so many more opportunities that they can evolve into a different niche.

And even flightless birds we see this where you know, with penguins, yes they're flightless, Uh, they lost their ability to flight, but now they have this incredibly complex system of swimming and this awkward life on land but far more graceful life under the water for a bird, which is incredible. And so I think that that flight and birds and this initial evolution towards flight just opened up so many different paths for them. No wonder they have

taken such a diverse path. And one really interesting bird I wanted to talk about from your book is the palm nut vulture, because this I love vultures. I think they get a bad rap because they, you know, they eat carcasses. They're spooky maybe, but they're they're wonderful, wonderful animals. They provide a very important service. And these ones are interesting because these are kind of like the Pandas of

the bird world, because they the palm nut vulture. It has descended from a line of carnivores scavengers who feed on carcasses, but this one is different. What is going on with this guy? Yeah? Great, it's it's what's the phrase, the exception that proves the rule, but which never really never really, I don't understand me. But it's an African vulture.

It's the smallest of the Old World vultures. It's the smallest black and white vulture found around the coast, and it feeds mostly on the nuts, the the palm nuts of raffia palms and oil palms. So it is a a vegetarian carnival and so I don't know whether it's why. The next question is why, of course, And I think it has to be because it has seen documentaries about the huge damage that meat eating is doing to our planet and it's decided to take the responsible path and

you know, do its bit for planet Earth. And it's either that or is the fact that long before we started pumping up fossil fuels it and cutting down rainforests it as you say, it's about diversification, it's about finding a niche. I mean, I mean the world of birds of prey, there's a lot of competition, especially in Africa.

There's a lot of different raptors vying for the best parts of the carcass or of the living animals, along with other terrestrial predators, small mammals, small kind of wals, snakes, whatever, and wherever there's wherever the nature offers a niche, a vacancy to be filled. If you like um, you know the laws of adaptation, A natural selection will find something

to fill it. And in this case, the partner vulture has has Um has has risen to the challenge and it's able to obtain most nutrition it needs and has developed a technique for which it has no no competition from other birds and feeds mostly on on oil pants that the fruit of them, which are pretty hard to break into. Um. But it's not has to be said, it's not an entirely strict vegetarian. It does days, it does. Yeah,

it's like those um you know. You hear about the bacon sandwich being the demise of a vegetarian occasionally and

all principles crumble though. They will say what would be the what would be the bacon sandwich for the palm nt vulture, Well, the bacon sandwich would be crabs, crabs on the beach, crabs with ketchup, maybe the crabs and dead fish scavenging that people have put out as an experiment, put out dead fish on the beach in Parmimer vulture territory and they've had no problem coming down and and filling their their face or they're building their fish. But

they're not really adapted. They don't have the predatory prowess of other birds of prey. They also can't compete with the larger vultures at a carcass. I've actually seen them. I've seen them around a carcass where larger vultures are gorging themselves, and they wait till the big ones have flown off and scraps left behind. Um. But and they've they've adapted as well. They're they're they're more solitary than

most old world vultures. And you and see them around human habitation a lot if you go to the west coast of Africa, places like Senegal and Gambier and areas and that they're often around fishing villages and on the beach. Um, yeah, there they are. That's uk the oxymoron of nature of vegetarian carnival. Yes, I mean we've had that happened in in multiple species of carnivores, and and sometimes very interesting

like for um. Dogs of course evolved from an extinct wolf ancestor a common ancestor between the dogs and the current gray wolf. And dogs originally were strict carnivores, but because they had this relationship with humans, they actually started to uh evolve so that they could digest things like grains and wheat and so like. Now, of course you

cannot feed a dog only bread. That will not be healthy for the dog, but it can actually just more more a greater variety of things than a wolf can digest because it had this relationship with humans, and it's fascinating that evolution can work on that scale. We think of it as something over you know, millions of years, not something over sort of our short human kind of existence here, but it does. And you know, of course, I brought up pandas earlier because pandas were are a

vegetarian carnivore. They are extremely inefficient. They are not. They are not. We're not originally evolved to be able to digest that much fiber and that much vegetation, and so they compensate that by just eating a huge amount of it and sleeping a lot, and it works for them. And a lot of bears eats primarily vegetable method. Yeah, you know, and they they they've evolved, They've got they

they come from a carnivore body plan. They've evolved from the same roots as cats and dogs and hyenas and otters and janets and all those things. But I think a lot of like an ultimate that their sustenance comes largely from berries and roots. And and yet you know, they've got they've got the the dentition of a of a carnivore, they've got the forward facing eyes of a hunter.

They've civets as well. They eat a lot of fruit massive a lot of berries kind of shows you that as environments change, you either need to kind of keep with it, like get with the times and be able to diversify, or you fail. So they are probably carnivores. I mean, we know there are plenty of carnivores that went extinct because they couldn't compete and they could not

get enough prey. It's actually, I mean people think of carnivores as sort of leading this easy, fearless life, like the lions are the kings and queens of the savannah because they don't have a predator. From it they are they live life on the edge because if they miss a few meals, they're goners. So speaking of prey doitors now, I do want to talk about an actual predator. It is a bird who's not a vulture. It is a falcon, but it does have a naked face like a vulture.

It's the northern crusted care carrot. So why does it have that naked face. It's an adaptation like the vulture, I believe, which is to stop its face being soiled, its feathers from being soiled with blood and gore and other unpleasant matter when it sticks, it's it's head inside a carcass and pulls out what it can. So it's an adaptation that quite a few scavenging birds have developed. Yeah,

and you see that with with condors or vultures. The very naked bare faces makes them look maybe not so pretty, but it keeps them much more hygienic than they would be if they are getting this mass of blood and gets matted in their feathers. So they're actually they want to be clean that pretty to each other as well. Yeah, of course, yeah, I think I think they're beautiful. I

love them. I'm I'm I'm a vulture fan. Two. And but then there's an interesting thing about about adaptation, isn't it, Because the New World vultures are not related to the Old World vultures at all. So the New World vultures

are in fact not birds of brain. So the condors and the Turkey vulture and so on, they actually come they're much they come from an order of birds and more closer road to the storks, and so they're not parts of the acid picture forms the the the the Old World birds of prose and the Old World ultures are grouped taxonomically with the eagles and hawks and buzzards and kites and harriers and so on, the New World ones completing separate more closely related to storks. They have

they've they have converged. It's convergent evolution. They've converged on the same lifestyle. They've fulfilled the same niche in the New World as the vultures having the Old world. So they've developed the same attributes, the naked face, the guard against soil plumage, the fantastic soaring wings in order to too eyes on thermals and scan for pay over a great distance. That the same social behavior gathering at pecarcas. So things can come from different basis and converge and

and reach a very similar form. And I think it's only really once we've got into molecular taxonomy and DNA and some one that we realized that these things were actually not as closely related as we thought. And that's the same with falcons. In fact, now falcons have been split from the birds of prey fulkon it forms. Yeah, they're so they're more closely related to parrots. That's amazing. So this is one that yeah, I know it's traditionalists

like me. We grew up with the bird book, and you you flipped through the bird book and okay, okay, here the birds to pray, the big ones with the sharp bills and the wicked talents, and it goes vultures, eagles, hawks, whatever, and then you've got the falcons at the end. Shouldn't

be that falcons should be off nearer the parrots. That's incredible. Yeah, yeah, they've converged also to use that convergent evolution term, they've they've developed the same attributes, the same techniques, and same ability to say, capture birds in flight and to tear them up. So, so where's that leave us with the Carra carrat. It's the Carra carrat is is one of the full coniform so it's related to the to the falcons,

but it doesn't chase birds around in flight. U it is. Well, we we've just been talking about the Pardner vulture, which is highly specialized. It's a serious specialist. It's got a very narrow little niche that it has adapted to exploit. The Carra carrat is a generalist. It's the opposite. It's it's a kind of the crow of the birds of prey. Well, you know, it can. It can chase things and kill them, but it can also steal food from other birds. It can also avail itself of a bit of road kill

if it drops down to a highway it can. Unlike other falcons, it doesn't hunt a learning. It moves around in groups. Um sometimes you know, you can corporate with each other in finding food, and you can overwhelm a larger prey item if there are several of you. It hops around on the ground behaving more like a big chicken than sort of you know, noble, dashing, elegant Peregon falcon. And yeah, so it's a it's kind of it's got a solution to every feeding opportunity and it is incredibly

successful as a result. So you get the I have in my book the the northern crested Cara Carra. In fact, it's it's found all the way from Mexico, but it's the bird from Mexico in my book. It's found all the way down to the south of patagony of the whole way through the same fact, from about probably Texas in the north down to Argentina in the south. And it's pretty ubiquitous and it does very very well and it's not a necessarily a solitary bird, right, it can

work in groups in its hunting. That's so interesting to me because falcons, I mean, it makes some more in terms of like it being more closely related to parrots, which are highly highly social, but that it's it's a relatively I mean, corvettes are also very social, but it's it seems like somewhat unusual for a bird of prey to work in a group because we often think of it as like an owl, you know, the solitary hunter, or an eagle or a hawk, which maybe they may

kind of form a pair, but they don't usually form like a group that actually hunts together socially. Yeah, that's right, but they're not always in groups. I think they will.

They will adapt as the occasion demands. So I think they can play the solitary loaner and hang out and kind of be cool, or they can join the gag with them and when there's a large carcass and and share the spoils, you know, when it when it makes sense to do so, and um, and it's it's in these social words that you get the most interesting communication as well, because they have to sort out the pottics, you know, the hierarchies and the dominance of certain individuals

and so on. That is really interesting. Oh and I also wanted you to talk about a little bit about the Caacres notion of romance because I thought that was very interesting. The charac cars a notion of romance. Yeah, it would probably be a candle at dinner for two

over a roadkime on the dinner romance. I. Yeah. They they have a very loud call, and they duet, so a pair will get together, um, and they form bonds at last throughout the breeding season for for several years as well, and they will perform these duet calls to strengthen their pair bonds like a lot of birds suit, like a lot of seabirds too, and some other birds

of prey. And they throw their heads right back so that the bill actually almost such as the name of the neck shoulders to utter these these calls that they do in town in duet, which is a very harsh, grating kind of cattling call, which is where they get the name from. I think Katah, Yeah, yeah, I think

that's I think it's kind of on a mata peak yeah. Um. So yeah, and they I think when they when they're paired up, they reinforce their bonds with with preening, hallow preening, and so what and so, and it's a it's a beautiful bird as well, it is. It's a beautiful bird, and it's a character. It's a bird that's got something. When you see them, they watch you. And and also some you know that the naked place we tend. It's

it's bizarre. We don't like things that are naked, but we are, which is strange, you know, I know it's very very odd. But if you if you ask people to name ugly animals, what do you get? You get water hog, naked, mole rat, you get things like and if it's birds, it's mariboo, stalks and vultures, anything that's without feathers naked. I know what what's our problem? This is some deep seated human issue. I think we don't

like it if it's naked. And and I think some people find a cara cara less attractive than other other birds of prey. So for anything that's a scavenger and gets reviled for that reason, I think it needs it needs a bit more. I think it's stunning. I mean it's got this beautiful orange face, beautiful white feathers on its neck, and then the jet black feathers on the top of its head and on the rest of its body.

It's gorgeous. Stunning. Now on two birds that I think universally people find stunning, but I think are quite absurd in their own way. Hummingbirds. So these are such strange creatures. Their lives are really fast and intense. Uh. They often have these beautiful jewel like bodies, have these absurdly long beaks, very sharp and needle like, and their method of flight is more like a bee than another bird. And they have these incredibly rapid metabolisms that means a missed meal

could be a death sentence. And so uh, the sword build hummingbird that you discuss in your book is, from an evolutionary perspective, just ridiculous. It's very it's bold and daring in a way that almost seems stupid, because this is a tiny bird that, again, like every every ounce of its body weight and every you know, moment it spends flying is potentially gambling its life because it needs to be able to get enough food, uh, to keep

up with this extremely rapid metabolism. So to invest so much in this ridiculously long beak seems absurd, It seems foolish. So uh, why is it worth it for them to, uh, to have this ridiculously long beak? Because I'm not talking about like you know, normally hummingbirds, they do have that long needle like beak for sipping nectar, but this one, it is ridiculous that the sword build hummingbirds build. It's the only bird whose bill is longer than its own

body length. So this is a bird that when it when it roosts, when it perches, it actually has to hold its head up to tilt its bill upwards because if it held its bill outside ways, it would tilt off the ridiculous What was it thinking? I know, I know, But then the weird thing is, of course, you know, as as as evolutionary scientists will will tell you, there

is no such thing as ridiculous is it? Because if it didn't work, it wouldn't exist by its very nature, it can only have evolved this, this ludicrous, bizarre observes, whatever you want to call it, appendage, it can only have evolved because through that long drawn out process of trial and error of natural selection, you know, through genetic mutation, through environmental change and so on, it has produced something that has a place and that functions, and that gives

it a role that removes it from the competition, that allows it to succeed. Otherwise it wouldn't be out there like anything else. And in this case, I think there's something like three hundred species of hummingbird in the world, and each they feed on nectar, and they feed by hovering in mid air, and there's a interesting they're the only bird that can truly hover. So we may think of things like kestrals as hovering because they can remain stationary.

But what things like what kestrals are doing are they're flying into a breeze and they're counteracting it. And hummingbirds are the only birds that can hover in a in a vacuum because their wings. I'm sure I'm sure you know this some amazing slowed up film footage that shows you that the wings beaten this kind of figure of eight pan which means that they they generate thrust on the forward stroke as well as the background backward strokes.

So in a vacuum they can still absolutely stationary, which means they position themselves in front of a flower and with their with their bill, they suck out its nectar. But each species of hummingbird is adapted to different flowers um and the bill length or the bill shape fits the corolla of the flower, so the inside of the petals from which it derives a nectar. And in the case of the sawbill hummingbird, you guessed it. It feeds

on flowers with a very long, deep corolla. So there are no other hummingbirds that can reach deep into the I think it's a passive flora mixer. It's a kind of a climbing vine like flower with these very deep blooms, and it's found in my book the this bird is represents Ecuador, so this is a bird of the of the mid level Andy's tropical cloud forests on the edge

of the Andes where this flower grows um. But it's not a one way thing because the flower, like with bees, like with a lot of pollinators with insects, the flower relies upon the hummingbird two for pollination, and the hummingbirds follow a regular course around a sort of outside of flowers, regularly transferring pollen from flower to flower as they sit the nectar and so that's what they do. That's what the flower lies upon, that's what the bird relies upon.

There are no other huneybirds that can reach into that particular flower, So it's got its own it's got its own exclusive many. Yeah, it's so interesting to me because it's as if the bird and this flower have this exclusive contract with each other that's developed, you know, over an evolutionary timescale of you know, the nectar is costly

for a flower to produce. It doesn't want to give it out to anyone unless, uh, you're going to perform a service for this flower, which is enabling pollination, and so it will often specialize for a specific pollinator because you know, it knows that that pollinator is going to take its pollen and then distribute it in a way

that benefits this flower. Whereas like if it allowed any kind of like maybe a little arboreal animal to a small arboreal mammal to get in their reach in there and drink the nectar, maybe that is not going to have the same kind of range, the same kind of efficient pollination as this hummingbird. And so by essentially they're co evolving the system of they have this exclusive relationship the hummingbird and this flower, and it's to each other's

benefit as long as nothing happens to one of them. Yeah, I mean I in my house, in my kitchen, there is a very high cupboard and I tend I tend to put a bag of cash you nuts right at the back of that cupboard on the top shelf, which is out of the reach of my wife and daughter. And it's a it's a very similar thing, and except I don't think that cash you gets much out of it well as someone with a very tall husband. Um. I have one word for your wife and daughter, and

it's tongs. Tongues or a stool, Yes, stool and the tongs and you're undefeatable. Yeah, yeah, exactly, the tongue bills, hummingbird, it will happen, exactly. Yeah. That's the thing I love about birds actually that if you look at one of the most remarkable aspects of birds I think are their bills. And birds bills evolved obviously they they as part of the need to jettison weight in order to fly, so

birds don't have the heavy jawbones and of mammals. They have this this horny the keratin sheath billum and of course, you know, the disadvantage of that is they can't chew their food. They don't have teeth. Teeth are heavy. But that's why they have the gizzard down in the digestive tract in order to or flower down to crush food down there. But you look at the range of birds, bills, and pretty much every human tool you could put out of a toolbox and the garage is represented in the

bird world. There are you know, woodpeckers have chisels, uh, spoonbills have saves, um crossbills have players. You know, eagles have meat hooks. Flamingoes have strainers, strainers exactly exactly that. It's incredible, the whole it was all, it was all there, the template for most of our our kitchen utensils there in the bird world. The flint stones wasn't too off.

You could just replace all your kitchen utensils with birds. Yeah, just if you could somehow tame this fantastic kind of avery birds from und the wall and just have them running a kitchen. Um, Yeah, and that would be good. Well, we are going to take a quick break while we try to train a flock of birds to run our kitchens. And when we return, we are going to talk more

about the interactions between birds and humans. So I have a personal relationship with one of the birds that you describe in your book, the common swifts, because right now in northern Italy they are everywhere. They are zooming through the sky and screaming. They I mean, it doesn't bother me. I think it's um. Perhaps if they moved right next to my podcasting window and started screaming, that might get

a little bit troublesome. But they love it here. All these buildings have these we have so many old buildings here that there are all these little nooks and crannies that they can squeeze into and nest in. And they are seasonal, um and they but yeah, they just fill the sky with piercingly loud calls. What are what are they doing? What are they trying to say with all of that screaming. Yeah, that's a tricky one. What are yours? Of course screaming in Italian? For me to to work

that one out. I mean, they are like all birds, they are they're territorial. So this time of year, it's the breeding season. They've just arrived from from Africa. They're the latest of the um Afro European migrants Afro a Palearctic migrants who say to arrive and they stay the shortest time, So they arrive in May and they're gone by the end of July early August. So they are

setting up territories and they're breeding. They are screaming as they come in towards their breeding to their their particular nest. I think the loudest noise, the most screaming you'll hear, though, is at the end of the season, when you get the fledglings, which forms what they call screaming parties. Really, that's what they call, yeah, screaming past wonderful. Yeah, of course,

I'm sure there's a human equivalents. And then that's when they they've basically left, they've just pledged, they've left the nest, and you have these young birds the first thing on their agenda is migrate to Africa. The parents have gone, and so they will circle around above the towns where from which they fledged in these groups, just trying out their wings and screaming wonderful and it's an extraordinary sound for me. It is the sound of summer in Europe.

Absolutely love it, and it's a sound sadly that's becoming less frequent. We where I live here in Brighton on the south coast of England, and we have them here, but like in many towns, there is a swift survey work going on because numbers are declining, so people are trying to monitor how many swifts are, how many are returning and so on. They are the most extraordinary birds of all for me, and there are an example I think of how easy it is to overlook the extraordinary

because they're not spectacular in their plumage. They just they don't have a very varied voice, just this scream. I think that they all The old English name for them was devil bird Middle Ages, and I think that scream was something to do that. But they are they are the ultimate bird. They are completely aerial. There is nothing that can compete with the swift in terms of mastery of the sky. They look like a military drone. They look like they were designed by NASA. Yeah, well, I

think it's probably that. I would have thought NASA is more likely to probably trus they. I mean, they are incredible. They they are so aerial. If it wasn't for the fact that eggs can't float in the air would never land, you know, the tiresome kind of demands of gravity mean that they have to find a place to lay their eggs and fledge their young really they're young. But then they're off and they drink on the wing. They will.

They drink on the wing. They mate on the wing, they feed on the wing, they connect, collect nest material on the wing, They sleep on the wing. They go up to great heights, and they kind of go into an autopilot circling they It is now known that for me, this is as an incredible the factors any I've heard from the bird world individual swift may go for. They now think two years without landing, that's incredible, that's incredible. One not touching down, and we kind of think, well,

how how can that be possible. They've got to take a rest. They were, but they don't. I mean, they no more need to touch down. It's like saying, why doesn't a fish come out of the sea and take a rest on the beach. They the land is not the medium for swift. Their feet have actual feed in the evolutionary terms, so much they can't they can't walk. They only have little tiny little claws with which they

can cling to vertical surfts. They can't if one lands, you know, one has an accident crash lands, they can't take off. You have to launch them. So they and here's just as a side is you evolution? Do you know swift's closest relatives? No? I don't, what are they? Hummingbirds? Amazing? That makes a lot of swift swifts and hummingbirds are descended have died. So this is not conversionally involition, is divergent evolution. They've come from the same taxonomy group. They're both.

They they formerly the apodiformers, which means without feet. Apod and humming words also have tiny feet, and swift do. And the structure of a hummingbird's wing is actually quite similar, a very longhand a similar shoulder joint, but hummingbirds have turned that into a hovering mechanism for the main stationary in midair and and feeding on nectar. Swifts use it

to hurtle around at breakneck speed. And what they're doing up there is they feed on tiny invertebrates you could say insects, but actually they we now know from looking at their food that a lot of its spiders. So in summer in summer spiders dispersed by baby spiders. God, they've put up a little silk and thread off the the atmosphere exactly, and that the sky is full of them.

And what swifts are feeding on is aerial plankton. It's like psych a it's like a blue whale sailing the surface waters with its bally and plates for for plankton. A swift is doing it in the sky. And they all of Charlotte's children. Yeah, exactly exactly. A brutal, isn't it. But they they what they do is they make a food ball in their in their crop or in their throats, so they will gather up to the scientists have broken down these these food balls and they'll find up to

a hundred individual invertebrates. So the swift call shoes around, gathering them inform a ball, and it will take that back to feed to its yard at the nests. And and they they are so dependent on what's happening in the atmosphere. They can they can read the wind currents, the air currents, like like fishing the open ocean, read

the ocean currents, so know where food is converging. Um. I mean, it's quite interesting that study done on swift on the south coast of England recently revealed that many of those nesting here in Brighton, they would go and

fee they collect food in northern France. Wow. So because there's no food around here, the aircraft they follow storm fronts, so we'll see where the storm fronts are blowing the aerial plankton, and so off they go, nip across the channel, feed around northern France, come back with the food ball, give it to their young at the nest. No worries are or anything where so yeah, so they they are

just astonishing. And when the youngster leaves the nest and fledges, they fly to Africa and nobody quite knows where they go because they can't be ringed. They can now be followed the tiny satellite transmitters, but they've never been ringed because they don't come down in the same way, and so they zoom around the center of the continent. They may go as far as South Africa, but a lot of them are over the Congo basin and they're following

storm fronts. They're basically going where the where the air carries the insects. And because swifts don't breathe until they after two years of maturity. They won't return on their first migration back to Europe until after their second year, so they may well not land at all, not once, not even to us. That makes me tired just thinking of it. But for them, yeah, but for them it's not you know. They we think of needing to sleep as you lie down on a bed or you sit down.

But birds have the spectacular adaptation where they can sleep on the wing. They can shut they can shut down sort of one hemisphere of their brain, one one field of vision, and they will often readjust in terms of birds, that flying fox, they'll readjust their position so that I that is attached to the awake part of the brain is facing out. It's boggles our minds, I think, because we have a particular idea of what rest is and

what it would take to feel rested. But there is no As long as the um laws of physics are being obeyed in terms of energy conversion, it's fine. So so yeah, a bird can you know, keep going as long as it's getting adequate energy in and you know, it doesn't necessarily need the same kind of sleep and rest that a human needs. And swifts are supremely well adapted to an aerial life. The shape of their body, the aerodynamic torpedo shape of their body, and the long wings,

everything about them is the maximum aerial efficiency. So you mentioned they were struggling a little bit though in in Brighton, and uh, you know what, what is they seem so amazingly well adept for their lifestyle. What is threatening them?

It's interesting, And they're a bird that is very closely tied with humans, with our developments and our settlement over the centuries, and Swifts probably benefited from the development of towns and cities over over hundreds thousands of years, and they've they've nested alongside people in towers and castles and churches. But for eons um before that, they were almost certainly cliff nest as they've nest on ledgers of other vertical services, quarries,

sea cliffs and so on. Um. But now, I mean you're lucky where you literally say, you've got lots of wonderful old buildings, which is fantastic, um. Not just to look at that that kind of architecture is is full of niches and crevices, because that's what Swift's need. They need us a little slot into which they can slide and they rear they're young inside there normally two chicks

and then up they come. Modern housing developments, modern architecture, modern planning regulations are in this country, in Britain and are depriving swifts of those cavities. Um so that's one thing. They're just not finding the less spaces than they need. Another thing, of course, is that there are fewer insects around. You know, we are dousing our countryside with chemicals and pesticides and damaging habitats and so on. So swifts, like so many others, are not finding the kind of food

supplies they once relied upon. It. It's almost certainly the case, but there are there's kind of conservations are on the case in Britain. People swifts have a presence and people feel their absence, you know, and they and there are a lot of groups now dedicated to trying to protect

swift and there are things that can be done. You can now buy swift bricks so with when when houses are being designed, modern housing is being built, you can incorporate into the structure up near that the eve the roof swift brick, which is like a kind of breeze block with a hole in it, which is not going to leak into your house, but it gives a little space exactly exactly, So you know they are declining, but

we're on the case. Yeah, now that's wonderful. I think it is so important to when we discover something like oh o, our building design is harming an animal or harming a bird, you know, to not despair, but think, Okay, we can figure this out. We have been able to coexist with swifts, and fact swifts have somewhat benefited from the a variety of different architectures, so we can figure out a way to bring back that positive relationship. And

I think that in general as well. I think in terms of building design, there is a lot to think about in terms of birds. I know, I've read a few papers on how to design windows in buildings, so it's not a death trap for birds. There's there's a lot of just unconscious things that we do. Like if you have a big building with these big reflective windows, it's going to become a bird killer because birds, you know, they don't see a building like that and think, oh,

a building. They will often use sort of different types of visual cues to figure out how to move through space. Because a bird can very skillfully move through the branches of a tree as they're flying, but if they see a big reflective surface, a big they're not it's not

going to compute as this is a solid object. And so if we we have to be able to basically first understand things from the bird's perspective, understand how their vision and of object avoidance works, and then work from that to design buildings that are not not a not a hazard not so that they can actually see it, make these things that were invisible to them visible so they don't hit and hit it. And so I think that it's wonderful too with the designing buildings that have

little areas for swift to have their homes. I mean, who what doesn't want to help foster some birds in your own backyard? Well yeah, I couldn't agree more. And it's important, especially since there are now normal ways the plants seem to be devising to exclude birds. Um there was a great scandal in this country a couple of years ago when the practice of covering hedgerows in um plastic sheeting in spring arose because it would prevent birds from nesting if there's if there are nesting birds in

a hedgerow, you can't cut it down for development. You know, there's a protection order on it. But if you if you wrap it in plastics. But that's essentially there's a chance it's horrific. But those are the sort of practices that we're dealing with all the time. Um. So yeah, let's design. Let's design homes for birds too. Yeah. Absolutely. So before we go, we need to play a game called Guess Who's Squawking? It's the Mystery Animal sound game. Every week I play a mystery animal sound and you,

the listener guests who is squawking? Now, I say squawking, but it doesn't have to be a bird, it can be any animal in the world. Uh. And so last week the hint I gave was is this an okay echo or maybe a blank blank? I love? I love this call. It's I just love this sort of it, almost seeming to run out of enthusiasm towards the end, going m So, Mike, do you have any guesses as to what this is? You know, what? Can I claim diplomatic immunity or something? Of course, I do not know

what that bird is. I was hoping it would be. Well, it's not. It's not necessarily a bird. So this is This is where I'm it's not necessarily okay, Well, do you want me to tell you what I do? Want me to narrow it down. My thinking, which may be completely inaccurate, is a it is a bit, it be it's nothing. It's tropical. It's not. We hear those insects in the background. If it was African, I think I would know it. And it's not European, so I think

it's some kind of South America Asia. It's a large bird. This is I've ruled it down to about five thousands. I'm getting I can't. I can't get any further than that. I mean, the thing is, you are correct in the terms of the location. It is in a tropical area. It is found in Asia. You aren't quite right on the type of animal that it is. So it is not it is not a bird. It sounds it sounds very birdlike. Though. This is a horrible trap i'veset. So congratulations to Joey P. Sarah in C and saggy E

who guessed correctly. It is a tokay gecko. Okay, okay, it's it's quite a deep I know, I've never heard them. It's quite a deep one. Yes, it's a big deep, fantastic And I had something bigger further away, but it was something smaller close, Yes, exactly, so a little a little bit tricky. Yeah, these are they're tokay. Geckos are quite large for a gecko. Uh yeah, yes, yes, they're They're beautiful. They're this kind of like bluish green with orange and brown modeled spots. They live in the trees

of the rainforests of Asia and the Pacific Islands. Um. That is the male's mating call. Actually, during the Vietnam War, U S soldiers called it the f you lizard, thinking it's call sounded like the gecko was telling them to f f you like h And yeah, it's actually become somewhat popular in the pet trade. But my warning would be that it really is more of an f you gecko because it has a very powerful bite and it's very aggressive and very territorial, so it doesn't necessarily want

to be a pet. It will buy you. Do you know the barking gecko from yes, Southern Africa. Yeah, I'm sure you do. Yeah, And that's something wonderful matches. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's wonderful. I I just I love Yes, Yeah, they're they're wonderful, wonderful little geckos. Maybe not the friendliest little little guys and and maybe somewhat deserving of that name, the fu geck instead of the Tokay gecko. Um, so

I thought for this week's mystery animals. Sound Now, Mike, you did say that you may be able to produce a mystery call potentially. M hmm, yeah, I can do that. Um, what I'll tell you is that it's not a gecko. That everything else is still on the cards, all right, on the table. Let's see if I can do this. Probably not. I talk a big game, but okay, I'll give you this will be the sound of one of the eight birds in my book. That widlds it down to eight. Yeah, this is the call of one of

the birds in my book. All right, let's see which. Of course, it's a suckle plugs again in the book. Right, you have to you have to read the book to find out to the yeah, or at least find the content pace. Yeah, let me try this. It's been a while. It goes like this, it goes oh oh, man, that's good. That's really good. Okay, can I again, Yeah, dude again, Okay, let me, let me, let me, Yes, that's getting because my voice is going. Now. Oh I want to I

want to guess is it now? It might be cheating And I will cut this out if I get it right, because I don't want to spoil it for people because I have I have read the book. Is it the that's unbelievable. You've got big prize. Yes, oh my god, well, I because it's based but listen, it's based on your description in the book. So really, really it's because of you. Do you remember what the Because it's the national bird

of Swartini in Swartini, so I know the bird very well. Um, it's the one where Swartina used to be called Swaziland. It's everybody royalty is denoted by wearing the crimson primary feathers of this in your hair and and you hear the bird in river and forest and oh what was I going to say? Yeah? It's also the fact I can't whistle, So it's real. It's a real, a real

handicap being a birder who can't whistle. Because you're trying to demonstrate bird song to people and you can't swer, so you you compensated by developing all the kind of raucous guttural shouty ones which are the best ones. Yeah. And the the it's called in Switzerland or Swatini, it's called Liguala guala. That's the that's the local, the Swazi name,

and the Zudo names Alguala guala. Wow. Yeah, that's you've you've you've astonished me that I'm going to have to go and learn the rest of them and try and catch you out with something next time. I'm sure I will probably fail at that, but it is It is a credit to your bird call, isn't it? Because I would not have guessed it if it was not a good bird. Well, thank you very much, thank you very much. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. And where

can people get around the world in eighty Birds? Where can they get it? They can get it from its published in June um so it's published next month and they can get it from any bookshop or they can get it online. It's from the publisher is Lawrence King, which is part of a Ryan Books that it's published by Lawrence King. I highly recommend it. It reminds me of the books that like inspired my interest in animal because it it has these um wonderful illustrations as well.

Should have said that have fantastic And yes, he's brought he's brought the book to life, and he's also conveyed the way in which birds, I think decorate our world magnificence. Yes. In addition the amazing descriptions of these birds, it gives you just a real, a wonderful sense of each of them, like a little uh, like a snapshot of what these birds are. But it's so complete and also gives you the sense of their the greater context of these birds in terms of their environment and also in terms of

human culture. So it's wonderful, highly recommended. It's a beautiful book both visually and in the writing. So yes, do you check that out? And you can find me online at Creature feature Pod on Instagram, at creature fak plot on Twitter. That's f a t uh not fp et. That is something very different and if you thank you know what the mystery sound that Mike produced that amazing bird call uh. You can write to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com as well as any

questions you have about animals. Uh and yeah, Thank you so much for listening, and thanks to the Space Classics for their super awesome song Exo Lumina Creature features of production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the one you just heard, visit the I heart Radio app Apple Podcasts, or Hey, guess what for? Have you listen to your favorite shows? See you next Wednesday.