Welcome to Creature future production of iHeartRadio. I'm your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and evolutionary biology, and today on the show Ox, we're talking about species of ox, not ox, but a UKs. You heard me right, from puffins to razorbills to crested oklets. These seafaring birds may be a little awkward on land, but they can cut through the skies in the seas like acrobats. Discover this more as we answer the angel question what does
bird cologne smell like? Joining me today is conservation educator, host of the Panglin podcast, and puffin appreciator Jack Baker.
Welcome, Hello, Thank you so much for having me.
I'm so excited to be here. I'm like, I can't wait. I cannot wait to just fangirl about puffins for the next hours with you.
I can't wait. I can't wait.
Yeah. Well, I love puffins. I think that they are a inconspicuously fascinating species of bird. You also like puffins? What is your history with puffins?
So I have a complex that's a good as a deep first question.
Because I have a complex question.
It is, and I don't think people most people have such a complex relationship with what seems like quite a passive, lovely, dopey little bird. But I have, Yeah, I have a little bit of a storied history and so yes, I kind of became fascinated with puffins growing up in Scotland. So I'm from Fifth in Scotland, which is a little kind of area of Scotland just outside of Edinburgh. If you're kind of less familiar with Scotland, it's just kind
of outside of Edinburgh and around the coastline there. We have such a diverse and fascinating array of sea birds. We have things like cormorants, We have oyster catchers, we have razorbills, gannets which I love, which we're not talking about today, but I would ganets.
If you don't know what a ganet is, go and look up.
They're fabulous, fabulous, huge white birds, like amazing, and of course puffins. There is a small island off the coast of Five called the Isle of May, and on that island there are well I thought, oh, there won't be that many growing up. I was like, there'll be a couple of birds. And the first time I went out there and discovered there were in peak seasons. Eighty thousand puffins on that island is just like insane and it
blew me away, Like me and my dad. I remember we got the ferry out to go and have a look at all these sea birds one day and then it's yes, we kind of we are kind of chatting away on the boat, being like when we maybe we'll see like a puffin, like two puffins and a pair of puffins, that would be nice, I don't know. And then we got closer and you could see all these like little black and white things like dotting about all over the place, and I was like, surely they're not
all puffins, and they weren't. Indeed, they weren't all puffins, but a lot of them, like thousands of them, thousands of these birds. And then you go onto the island and they have this visitor center and it's I think the oldest seabird kind of observation kind of terror and place in Scotland. And so there's so many of these birds, and there are all sorts of gulls and things and also and I just was like instantly captured by this magic.
Were you able to hear sort of the the sound of that many puffins, and what does what does it sound like to be sort of in the middle of thousands of puffins?
I imagine what it's like.
It's like you imagine when you and all your friends get together for coffee for the first time or something, and you haven't seen each other for months, and you've brought this group of people, and but that way where everyone's so excited to see everyone that they're all talking over each other all of the they're all having the same thoughts and they just want to kind of all talk about everything all at once.
Yeah.
Now imagine that not human.
Words, but just like chattering of like these beats like clattering. Yeah, And it was, and there's so much of it going on. It's like there's one hundred thousand conversations all happening at once between these birds. And you could obviously, you could kind of hear them a little bit from the boat on the approach, but it's only really when you get onto the island you realize there's so many of them
that it's impossible to miss. And you have the kind of faint calls of the gulls and stuff in the background, and you have that kind of you can hear the conflicts between the kind of the puffins who are coming back into the nests, and then you have the gulls swooping in and trying to steal bits of food, and so you hear the kind of this like loud cry of gull versus the kind of like, yeah, chattering little puffin noises, and yeah, you really it's an impressive soundscape
which I wish, I wish I could capture and play to you. But yeah, unfortunately I'm in my office and not on the island at the moment.
But you don't have puffins in there with you in your office. I have a view, no, no, But yeah, it's interesting because, yeah, like you said, there is a conflict between say something like a goal and a puffin. A seagull is a klepto parasite. It is a bird who will steal food from other birds. Will actually talk about some defensive strategies against klepto parasites later in the episode. Puffins, meanwhile, are amazing little fishing birds. They are sort of streamlined
to catch as many fish as they possibly can. They have these We've talked about puffins before in the show, but just sort of a little review. They have these amazing mouths, like these beaks that are beautiful to look at.
On the outside, they have this sort of like almost Venetian mask style coloring with bright orange red, you know, stripes of white or yellowy white, and inside their mouths like you have this cute little puffin right like little chubby, you know, not two huge bird, and it seems very cute, and then it opens its mouth into this sort of nightmare of spikes called denticles, and each denticle is like this little bristly hairlike projection inside their mouths, and fish
will get caught on these. These are like hundreds of little fish hooks, and so you can see a puffin come out of the water with a innumerable number of fish crammed in its mouth. It's cartoonish, like it doesn't seem like they should have that many fish in one bite, but it is because all these fish are hooked on this like basely mouth bill crow and can't escape. And so despite looking like a very cute, innocent little animal, they are actually quite a fierce and very competent predator
of fish, and of course something like a seagull. Now, I love goals, I don't dislike them. But they are thebs, and so they will steal when they can from something like a puffin, which feels unfair because here's this industrious little puffin and then here's this large goal that's able to just kind of swoop in and bully the puffin away and try to catch the fish. That it's caught.
It's it's it is, and it's such an iconic, iconic feature of an animal. And I think it's like it was put into perfect like perspective for me. When you think of like iconic. If you were to see like a tiger's stripes, you would know what it was. If you were to see kind of like the spots or the pattern of a giraffe, you would know what it was. And that's similar kind of thing with the puffin. Was like a couple of weeks ago, I was running a class for secondary school children age and we were playing
just as a little warm up exercise. We were doing pictionary where they could pick any animal, any kind of We were trying to theme it around the ocean, so any kind of ocean adjacent animal they could pick to draw, and we got some really good drawings, but the puffin. All that the kid drew was the beak and the like the sand deals that they catch hanging out of its mouth and all of that, Like almost all the other kids straight away and knew exactly what it was
they were drawing. So is it's this iconic and use the iconic slightly horrifying beak that they have. But it's it's amazing, it's amazing.
They're adorable, I think, is what's interesting. I love a predator that is actually extremely cute and innocent looking like the blackfooted cat is another one I can think of.
It's this tiny cat, smaller than a house cat, very cute, looks like a sweet little kitten, and it kills small mammals, rodents, invertebrates, and it has one of the highest kill rates of any predator, any wildcat predator in the world in terms of being able to like even better than say, like a lion in terms of its kill rate, because it is just so and it kills so many little things throughout the night because it needs needs all that food.
But it's adorable, and I feel this. The puffin is like the blackfooted cat of the air, if you will, a bit of a bit of a stretch maybe to make that comparison, but it is adorable. It's about a foot long, they're about twelve ounces. They're not very big, you know. They have that cute little like they have those little webbed feet, that cute stout little body, those pinchable little cheeks. They're black and white. They look like
they're dressed up for a fancy dinner. Males and females are pretty similar looking, and so they have this very iconic look. They look like little gentlemen, little ginal ladies. They're very sweet and cute looking. And then yet they are very deadly to the fish that they prey on. But I guess I think we don't sympathize so much with fish, and so it's a lot easier to not feel bad about the puffin's ability to kill things because they're like, oh, you're just a little fishing bird.
I think that is the thing of like I in a past life. I think I actually was looking back at this reason. I left the job about five years ago now, worked in an aquarium, and I think that's the thing of like seeing people like we'd come in and like look at a fish and they just felt
no connection to it at all. Really, But if you saw when they look at something like a seal, or you talk to them about seabirds or something, there is this like there's it's an easier way to kind of, it's an easier thing for I guess them to relate to, and.
So they now.
But when they see a fish that's slimy to them and scaly and different and kind of lives in the dark, cold ocean, they don't really have that connection to it. So when they see something cute hunting it, it's like, oh, we love the cute thing. Like it's fair enough. Because even though they are like to the sand deal or whatever fish they're going after, they are the nightmare that plunges.
Into the ocean from above.
Like I think they can go into about sixty meters if they have to, and they will go all the way down. That's a scary thing if you're a fish. But for us watching, we go, look at the puffin. That's what a skill. Yeah, yeah, it is.
It is funny how so much of our empathy towards animals is sort of based on the cuteness factor, as is how seriously we take them, such as the puffin, where they're cute, they're kind of goofy looking. When we see them walking like on our turf on land, they look a little silly, they kind of wallle around. You've seen them swimming, you can see how ruthlessly efficient they are in terms of swimming and flying. They're quite good flyers.
They're quite good swimmers, which is really interesting because typically when you have a bird that is a good diving or swimming bird, like the penguin right like it's it cannot fly, it's completely evolved to be a swimming bird. But the puffin as well as other species of ox, not only can they dive, but they can swim underwater and it looks like they're flying underwater. It's quite beautiful,
it's quite graceful. So they go from looking a little bit goofy to being extremely graceful under the water.
Mmm, And like, yeah, it's is that It is that funny contrast, if I guess we only ever really in our exposure to them on like on the island when I saw them for the first time, you only ever see them in that goofy way. And it's only things like documentaries and films that you then watch it later that expose you to this kind of like oh, They're not just goofy, They're not just silly. They also have a bit of like, maybe this is I'm now thinking
about it, Maybe that's me. I come on to podcasts a lot as a guest, and I'm goofy, I'm funny, I like a bit silly. And then but actually I would like to think I'm a bit more like clever than I may appear like. So maybe that's my my another connection to the Puffin for me, there like a little spiritual connection that I love you very.
Much sympathize with this puffin in the way that you giview it. Well, you had some difficulty having the puffin sort of recognized as a serious topic, didn't you.
I did what that? Yes? I did? I am so yes.
That's where the complicated part of my relationship with the Puffin comes in. So I It was when I was doing my masters in conservation and as part of my master's program in Conservation Studies, part of that was to give each of the class members was assigned a seabird.
And we had to give a pre on it.
And I like, as soon as I saw the list, I was like, I want the puffin.
I love puffins. They are incredible.
They're fantastic, and so I picked them and we had to create this presentation. And so yes, we get to the day we're giving these presentations.
It's all online.
I go on, I give this like presentation about puffins, love them, passionate about them.
Great.
I like, you know that way where you finish something you're like, I'm so happy with that with that one. Yeah, And I'm not the type of person who normally like holds my hands up and goes like smash that, because I like, I'm not. I tend to be the person who remembers after an exam all the questions that I think I think I got wrong rather than the things I think I got right. So I came out of this and was like, nailed it, this is great, Absolutely
smashed it. And I think this is what why environmental education is so important and the way we frame environmental education is so important. Because I then received feedback from one of the markers who, in front of the entire class, started off by insulting where I was from, which was not a great start with like a connection because he knew I was from Fife. There was a little bit of an insult towards fife, which we'll not go into
now because that's beside the point. But he then went on to kind of talk about how all my presentation style was childish and he didn't like this, this, and this. I knew that way where you just feel really belittled in front of people that you feel and especially coming
off as high. And so it became this kind of running theme throughout my life that after this happened, I obviously found my reinspiration that happened like later on in the story, but it kind of really ruined my relationship with Puffins going forward, and it became kind of a running joke for people, where like for my birthday, obviously during a pandemic birthday, the one thing you could get somebody was a face mask, and so I received a
face mask covered in Puffins. I like all of these like little Puffin memorabilia things, which is starts showing up in my life, and so it became this kind of like running joke where like I always felt like kind of disinspired, the inspired, uninspired.
There's the word, there's the word. I was like, that's one of these, isn't right?
Someone pick whichever one you want, and so yes, I kind of felt like this kind of uninspired by them, and this kind of like every time I saw them it was this shame because I had such happy memories of this animal, and then this reframing during the pandemic where everyone was a bit done with everything anyway then kind of like ruin this animal I love and it took a few like it is then kind of obviously like to this point, I have met some fabulous environmental educators.
There are fabulous educators at Saint Andrew's. There are fabulous, wonderful people who've given me fabulous, wonderful advice I'll never ever forget, because in fact, in conservation and environmental science, we need to keep that like childlike joy alive, if anything, because as we go on we deal with really hard stuff, it shouldn't be the passion. We shouldn't shut down the things that make us passionate.
I mean, because obviously, when animal species are threatened and our entire planet is threatened, things can get really depressing very fast. But I think it is really important as a part of conservation outreach to inspire a passion and a love for these animals, because I think that when we feel overwhelmed by how much work needs to be done to save the ecosystems of the planet. We can
feel paralyzed. But if we inspire this love of animals and just like this really embracing sort of the wonder and the joy of these animals that we need to protect. Can you talk a little bit about like puff and conservation in terms of like it. Have there been conservation efforts to help preserve the puffin populations?
So yes, Despite the fact they are charming and lovable and everybody seems to know what they are, like a lot of very charismatic species like tigers and elephants and all of these kind of big popular animals, they are kind of under threat from a number of different things.
Here in the UK.
They are the RSPB, which is a bird charity that is here in the UK. They have a list of species which they consider to be under threat, and the puffin is considered to be red, categorized red on that list, which I feel like I don't need to understand.
I explain that for anybody, red is never a good thing, to be bad color.
And while they are more certainly a lot more numerous than other species which are categorized red in the UK, things like the capri keley, for example, which is another brilliant, brilliant bird which you should look up if you if you don't know what a.
Capri keley is.
They are crazy aggressive grouse species that live in Scotland and they are just amazing, So go and look them up.
But yeah, so they are and there's only five hundred ish capri keley left and so while the numbers of the puff and are not that low, there are obviously serious threats to consider there that mean that it is classified red as well, and things like it's one of those ones that puffing conservation is difficult because they are a species which comes into land, they nest and they kind of stay on land for a period of time.
They will kind of look after they're young for a while, and then they will go off back to sea and they will disappear out in the middle of the ocean, and then they'll come back again and then they'll disappear. And so there are things called special protected areas in Scotland which will protect the breeding a lot of the breeding sites of seabirds and kind of prevent certain actions from taking place within them to kind of help them.
But ultimately those birds like a lot of animals that can migrate or can fly or can swim will travel huge distances, and so they will move out of those protected areas into areas where potentially they're threatened, and they will kind of fly in all sorts of different directions, which make it very, very difficult to then go, oh, well, should we protect the bit of ocean that they swim they.
Fly to for the rest of the year. Well, it's kind of like, oh, we can't really do that, yeah.
And so it becomes a tricky thing, especially because they are obviously very dependent on a certain temperature of water, So they need a certain temperature of water to eat certain types of fish, they can't certain prey. I think it was anything up to I won't say I read it earlier. If this is wrong, you can cut it out, but I think it was around eighteen to twenty degrees was like the maximum they could kind of go to. Yes, degrees, Yes,
they could kind of go to. So if the sea temperatures kind of rise, that can have a huge impact on their prey as well as that if there are in kind of larger storms or kind of unpredictable weather patterns for seabirds, that can be exceptionally dangerous. It can get very complicated because they are seabirds, they will fly around the ocean, and so to think, oh, to stop climate change, maybe we should put up wind turbines, or we should do kind of water powered kind of electricity
that can kind of help slow climate change. We'll see birds who are flying around those areas often will collide with the the either the kind of turbines, that threat is low. I believe the science so is that is low. But for birds that then dive, if there are kind of the ocean wave power turbines that are under the water, those become a threat. So it becomes a very complicated issue with climate change. And then you add in things like overfishing. I'm painting a very grim picture here. It's
just a very complicated picture. There's all things like overfishing of things that they rely upon. There is other issues. I'm trying to think if tourism, for example, can be considered one. If tourism becomes unmanaged or over kind of populating areas. They obviously they nest on land and so and they only lay one egg a year, so very very important that egg. And so if that becomes damage that can cause huge issues. Invasive species that can get
down the burrows. I think it was in Iceland. I think it was in Iceland a while ago there was a sort of release of mink escape and they can get down the burrows. So there are all of these factors that affect the puffins, and so while there are still a large number of them, there's life is coming at them in every angle. Yeah, and so they're the type of species that it's very very complicated picture to
kind of protect them. But I think, like if I was trying to turn it into kind of a hopeful, practical thing for you that you can actually do, rather than just paint this horrible image, which I don't like. I don't like that at all. I think there's always stuff that can be done, and I think it's just being honest about the facts and dealing with those things and providing people with the information to kind of deal with them. And I think the things that you can
do are very very practical things. By looking after the ocean, by kind of if you are you can help to protect things like the puffin, which seems like a really simple, silly thing, but by taking seriously things like sustainable fishing practices, anti littering practices taking place in beach queens, doing kind of policy rallying for your local politicians to take climate change and ocean issues seriously. All of these things do
feed into species that we love, like the puffin. So while the kind of picture might seem on a very surface level quite a scary one, there is so much that we can do to go out there and protect species like the puffin that we love. And the good thing about the ocean is even if you don't love puffins, there are thousands of other species that all of those things will positively benefit one of.
Those species too. That depends on the oceans. But yeah, I think the really hopeful part of it to me is that the puffin population right now is still pretty robust. They're not on the precipice yet, but we love them and we don't want to see them go. Well, now is the time to really care about conservation efforts towards the puffin and research into what we can do to
help protect them. So we're going to take a quick break and when we return, we're going to talk about a related species of bird, another ak, called the razor bill. So we are back and we're now going to talk about the razor bill, also known as the lesser ak, which is the closest living relative of the extinct great ak. The great ak was this amazing bird that was sort of penguin like. It had a bit of a longer neck, it had a longer, bigger beak, and it was this
pretty pretty interesting seafaring bird. It was flightless, but unfortunately that one did go extinct due to over hunting. But the razor bill is perhaps the closest thing we have to the extinct grade ac, except that it is not flightless. It actually can fly, and it is found in the Atlantic Ocean just below the Arctic circle. And you mentioned that you have seen some of them near where you grew up.
Yes, yes, so, yeah, the coastline round Fife is home to some incredible, incredible species and I'll like the the diversity of different things is just fantastic. And yes, so you will get things, as I said, like oystercatchers, organets, guillemots, turns, eiders, shags, all sorts of amazing birds, but of course also the razor bill, which is yes, I'll never forget. It was one of my proudest moments was like during university after with an exchange with actually the same lecture, who was
quite to me not to heartback. He did like a quiz of like local seabirds, of like you would just put pictures up and like see if we could get what they were right, every single one.
Including of course our star of the razor bill.
And I was like, yes, a little bit of like Scottish pride for like our local species.
I was like, yes, but yes, well it is. It is quite I think striking bird. They have black plumage with a white chest and a hooked bill with white stripes, a pair of the stripes I actually go from their bill under their eyes. It looks like some kind of beautiful makeup. The insides of their mouths are actually bright yellow, so they are quite a sleek and striking looking bird.
Its wingspan can get up to around twenty seven inches or up to seventy centimeters, and from head to foot they can get to be around seventeen inches or forty three centimeters tall. They live in colonies on island cliffs. This is their lifestyle is similar or to the puffin. Of course they're quite different looking from the puffin, but yeah, they live in colonies on island cliffs, and so they are like a lot of species of ox, they are monogamous,
or these ones have more of a lifetime monogamy. Other species of ox may just have seasonal monogamy. So females will select a mate and they will typically pair for life, although sometimes females will encourage other males to mate with her just in case her chosen mate is shooting blanks. So there's sometimes a little bit of you know, a little bit of strategy there. But yeah, they will both incubate the egg, which is precariously placed in a crevice
or ledge on the cliff side. They don't really build nests. Sometimes they just kind of like put random garbage around the egg, just like maybe some grass or something. But they don't really built construct a nest. It is just kind of sitting there on a ledge and they will wait for it to hatch. And once it is hatched, the hatchling spins sometime being cared for by its parents, sheltered under their wings for warmth, and they co parent
relatively equally in about twenty days. Once it is ready, it will follow its father uh and jump right off of the cliff of its precarious nesting era into the cold waters below, guided by its father. So it gets quite a rude awakening once it's old enough, in terms of like, well, you're old enough. Now you've got to jump off this cliff into this chili water because your dad is waiting for you.
I mean that trial by fire or by water. I suppose that that's I can't I'm trying to think twenty years old. I was probably twenty No, I'm not twenty old. I was probably still just lying there a little bundle of nothing. Yeah, this bird is diving into the ocean.
Good, I mean impressive, impressive. I'm very impressed.
We can barely lift our heads at twenty days. I don't really know too much about child development stages, but yeah, like it takes us a while just to be able to lift our own huge, heavy heads, whereas this little thing in twenty days is jumping off of a cliff and swimming. It can't fly yet, but it can swim, so it will follow its father out into the ocean, and they actually spend their entire winter almost entirely in
the water, either floating or flying or diving. And just as the puffin can dive, underwater, so can the razor bill. But the razor bill is a bit bigger, a bit more muscular, so it can actually dive up to one hundred and twenty meters under the water and it will catch fish and they we mentioned earlier seagulls and how goals will sometimes kind of of be in competition with puffins with other species of birds because they are kleptoparasites. They which is a fancy way for naming a thief.
It will steal fish from other birds. Sometimes it steals fish right from the mounds of other birds and so the so the razor bill will actually solve this problem by eating fish underwater. So it will catch its fish while it's diving, and it will consume fish underwater because it is less likely to be stolen from which is just it's I would love it if I could go snorkeling but also be eating a sandwich. But if I tried that, I'd get water like in my mouth up
my nose. Sandwich would get soggy. Can't happen.
No, even if you're a big fan of sushi, I don't think that's a good idea. I can't see it being a great.
Plant yeah, so this is interesting and I'm sure you will appreciate this. Hundreds of years ago, people who lived on Scotland's frigid Saint Kilda Island would scale the treacherous cliffs to collect the eggs of the razor bill and would bury them in peat ash to preserve them so that they could be eaten during the harsh winters. Now, in modern times, people don't do this, at least they're not supposed to. They are protected by the Migratory Bird Act.
But yeah, I mean back, you know, back in the day, like a lot of times, like you think of an island of being a paradise, but islands in these environments near Scotland, near Iceland, they are extremely cold. The winters are very harsh and so being able to preserve food that you can eat throughout the winter can be critical for humans to survive in these areas.
That's why do you think the Scottish people invented steam trains, We invented television, we invented telephones. We have nothing to do except be cold and creative up here, so we have to come up with stuff, and clearly it comes into food as well. We can't prioritizing random really difficult food to get.
Yeah, like you know, I mean, if you think, like wow, an egg that you've buried in pete ash doesn't sound very good. I don't know what to tell you, but there are a lot of egg recipes that involves preserving them in some way. Of course, my favorite egg is the soy marinated eggs you get in ramen. But I feel like it is a creative way to be able to eat eggs throughout the winter.
There is an iconic I think it isn't like, well, it's a Scotch egg now, ye, which I don't know. If you get so listeners, you can think about we've gotten a bit more modern. We no longer climb cliffs and berry eggs. We cover them in breadcrumbs insteads.
Yeah, bread crumbs sound a little bit more appetizing than pete ash. I will give you that. I'm not gonna blame people hundreds of years ago for having to resort to pete ash, but yees, bread crumbs sound very nice. I don't think i've had a Scotch egg before. It is like it's a fry, it's a what so it's covered in bread crumbs and fried right.
So there's a couple of different a couple different variations. And this is where the Scottich people who are listening will come at me for defining it in the wrong. A couple of different ways you can have it. You will occasionally get little mini Scotch eggs, which are essentially just like a little mini bit of like scrambled egg covered in like bread crumb type structure. And then you will get like a big Scotch egg, which would be
like maybe a whole boiled egg. Sometimes if they're feeling a little feisty, they'll put something like bacon or something in there as well, and then they will yeah, cover it in bread crumbs, fry it, do whatever you need to do to maintain that as a ball. And it's I mean, it sounds it sounds unusual, but it's it's pretty good.
It sounds good.
It sounds delicious. It sounds like a delicious, heart healthy breakfast. No, it does sound very good, but yeah, I mean it is. I think it is interesting that these birds, you know, have such a I think that with most species of animals like you can often find a human connection. I mean, it speaks more to our desperation as humans where we
try to exploit every niche there is. But yeah, we've gone from trying to exploit the razorbills to nowadays like they are protected, uh and we are just I mean, like the the I'm sure that they face a lot of the same conservation issues as puffins do. They depend on waters, they depend on fish populations, on temperatures not rising too much. So if we you know, all of these birds depend on us to you know, try to
try to not exploit the earth too much. And you know, I think that is that that's kind of a constant theme with these birds.
Yeah, yeah, and I would imagine, yes, when you go out to places like the Isle of May, you see all of these various different species and they might be there at different times of the year, or they might
use different parts of islands of different habitats. But like by protecting areas like that, you do you have those effects of kind of as we were talking about before, you have the effects on more than just maybe the puffin or more than just the razor build Like all of these things are impacted by the tricky stuff, and therefore when the good stuff happens, they are also impacted by it.
As well, so, yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I think it is. I think it's something that to me means a lot because I know about the sad story about the great awk that went extinct, which was this amazing animal. It was really interesting as well because it showed us sort of this evolutionary path from a flighted bird to a flightless bird, similar to a penguin that swims rather than flies.
It would be really amazing if the great auk was still alive, and yet it's not, because the it went extinct before. You know, I think it went the last ones went extinct in the eighteen hundreds. Do you know if that's right?
I think so, I do know, I'll check it.
It doesn't matter. I think the last ones went extinct in the eighteen hundred. So this is like there were some kind of vague conservation efforts that were going on at this time, but I think that we just didn't
take it as seriously as we do now. The more species we see endangered or even going extinct, we're realizing more and more like, oh, we actually really need to do something otherwise, Yeah, we're gonna lose We're going to lose a lot more animals than I think we could have ever imagined pre industrialization.
And I always think it's a shame for the ok because it is when people think of extinct.
Birds, they're always always going to think Dodo.
Like if you say name and extinct birds, but if you look like I would say, aside from the Dodo, this is probably the most iconic. Like if you were to look at pictures of birds that have gone extinct throughout time, this is an iconic, iconic The drawings and things of the time are like very iconic things. And so you even if you don't maybe know what it doesn't come straight to your head, when you look up the images of this incredible word, you'll know, you'll probably
know it. And it is it's a shame that that we've let things like that historically have kind of slipped away. When the conservation perhaps wasn't a concept and wasn't an idea that we're going people's head through people's heads. They were just in the space of exploring and conquering and doing all sorts of very questionable things. And so yeah, these animals slipped away. And when we're now in a place that we can do stuff about it, and we can, we know we should know, and we do know better,
and we know how we can make a difference. Then it would be a shame to let the razor bill and the puff end and all these things go the same way.
Yeah, it's yeah, yeah, and exactly in the razor bill right now is doing all right. So again, I feel like it's great to start caring about conservation, what we can do to protect species before they start to get into just the absolute red zone danger zone, because often once their population has dwindled down to that point, it can be too late. So yeah, I think that with the puffins, with the razor bills, they're still doing okay.
You know, they are definitely something that we can preserve that it is not at all a reach, I think to protect them and prevent them from ever becoming endangered or god forbid, extinct.
It's absolutely it's yeah. When you have that's the thing, when you have things like this that they are still plentiful, Let's do it, Let's do the work now. And I think it's it's one of those things that I guess the people who listen to this show, the people I talk.
To regularly, like we're all aware.
Of animals, we have an interest in animals, And I think what we can do is go out and tell people and like when they see a razor bill, which they might not like everybody maybe knows what seagull is or whatever, when they see a razor bill, whatever it is, tell people about them, Tell people about the issues they face, Tell people about the kind of great ak and the dodo or the puffin or whatever it is, and like, make people aware of all these things, because it's it's yeah,
it's our duty is animal lovers who listen to these podcasts and who like go out and we see animals, and we watch animals and we love them. To go out and spread this to as many people as possible, and hopefully by making more people aware, we won't. Yeah, we can make a real, real difference to them.
Absolutely, you heard the man. You've just been recruited for the puff and Army. Get out there and spread the word of Puffins. Well, we are going to take a quick break and when we get back, we're going to talk about one of my favorite of the ox because it is so goofy and so silly and so wonderful, the crested Oklet. But we will talk about that when we get back. So now we're going to talk about the crested auklet. It is a fantastic bird. I feel like it is not a super famous bird, and yet
it is just so silly and goofy. I don't know why it doesn't get more attention. So the crested auklet is the fancy, ostentatious cousin of the puffin. They are found in the Northern Pacific and Bearing Sea. They are a little bit smaller than a puffin, about seven to eleven ounces and up to ten inches or twenty seven centimeters tall. They spend a lot of time in the
water diving for krill and other small marine crustaceans. And just like puffins, and just like razor bills, they seem to be able to fly underwater, so they can swim with their wings, and they look quite elegant when they do so. It has a sleek black body with a gray chest, a short orange bill that curves up, and what seems like a smile. It is. It's got a very goofy looking bill that is fixed in this permanent,
very silly smile. They also have these bright teal eyes, white eyeliner, and most notably, this very fancy little plume that sprouts up from the top of their bill and curves over. It makes them look like little flappers, little little party birds. Both males and females have these crests. Males have slightly larger crests that tend to be a little more showy, but females have them as well, which is very interesting.
So I actually don't know, I know, I actually don't know a lot about this. I'm quite excited to hear what you have to say, because I am aware of them, and I'm aware of how charmingly goofy they are. They have that, as you say, that little face, like it's the face that I make whenever I make a bad joke. Well, I think that's really funny. Yeah, they have that little charm and so I'm excited. Yeah, I'm excited to hear what you have to say, Like, I can't wait to learn more.
Yeah. So what's interesting about them, I think is that they seem to exemplify this trait. And we see this in a lot of species of ox, which is the male and female are actually quite similar looking, so they both have these ornamental crests. In a lot of bird species, the female can be somewhat plain looking, and it's the male who has all the ornamentation, all of the bright colors. But in this case, the males and females are pretty similar, just like you see in puffins, just like you see
in razor bills. But because this one is so highly ornamented with that little crest there, it raises a lot of questions in terms of like, how does their mating dynamics work? So they also have sorry, so they use this crust to attract mates. But that is not the only thing that they have. They also produce their own perfume or cologne or whatever you want to call it that smells like tangerines apparently, which is just such an
lovely little detail about these birds. They have a sink land located between their shoulder blades, and they produce this like tangerine scent that is used as an attractive perfume for mates.
I mean, because I've heard of like things like the binterrong for example, that smells like popcorn. Yeah, very infamously smells like salted popcorn. Yeah, I have that. I feel like a tangerine maybe is a slightly nicer, a nicer scent to have around you.
All the time.
I can at least I can imagine someone going out and being like, I want to smell like tangerines, rather than going in and wanting to smell like pop points. So that's a it's a charming way to kind of, yeah, attract each other, who yeah, hook each other in.
I do not encourage you to harass these birds, but part of me does want to like catch one just to kind of huff it, just smell it, get a little whiffin some some bird watching in aromatherapy all at once. But yeah. So what's interesting is that both males and females select based on physical appearance of course that lovely tangerine smell and the general vibes that they're getting from
the other bird. So mating occurs at sea, and males, like many other bird species, do not have a penis, so the act of copulation has to be highly cooperative, highly synchronized. It is this acrobatic teamwork that needs to happen. And so as the male hovers over the female like while they are on the water, they will engage. They will engage in a chloacal kiss, which is how birds without penis is made. And what is achloacal kiss, well chloeka is that I like to call it the hole
that does it all. It's found in birds and reptiles and so that like with achloacal kiss, it's just like what you would imagine, like basically, you know, two holes just like touching and then exchange of semen and that is how they mate. And so this because this requires such cooperation. The female really has to be into the male. The male has to be into the female, which I love.
It's it's they both really have to want this to happen and be really into the mating and so that they can coordinate this highly acrobatic mating ritual.
I'm just really sad for the listeners that they didn't get to see the hand actions which kiss is. It really pains a very accurate picture of what it is like.
You just make it oh with one hand and oh with the other and just kind of, you know, make them kiss. This is the one time a kiss can get you pregnant. So they are monogamous, but only for one breeding season and then they may or may not go back on the market. Around forty five percent of crusted auklets remain with their partner for the next breeding season and then the rest of them go back out on the open market. So both the mother and father will incubate and care for the egg and hatchlink just
like we see in razor bills. There is a theory that it is not a coincidence that birds speak. She's like crested auklets or even puffins and razor bills both have this equitable parental care where both the male and the female take care of their young, and this absence of sexual dimorphism, or at least less observable sexual dimorphism. So sexual dimorphism is when you have one sex looks quite different from another sex. Think of a peacock. You
have the peacock. He's brilliant blue, brilliant green, has this amazing fan tail. And then the female, the pea hen, is brown. She's lovely, she's a lovely bird, but she's brown. She doesn't have that amazing tail. Because she is the one selecting the mate. It's from her perspective, from her judging eye, discerning eye, that she will determine who to
mate with. Whereas with puffins, with razorbills, and with this crested auklet, both the females and males are judging each other, and so there is this theory that because the male is actually investing so much in parental care, it is in his best interest to also select for a highly
fit female as it is for the female. So like for a lot of bird species, the male will mate with the female and then it's off and it's done, and it has no involvement in the care of the offspring, and a lot of species there is actually this parental care, so the male will actually care for the offspring help the female. This happens in everything from two cans to penguins.
You know, you have this co parenting and so the idea is that you are more likely in these co parenting situations to have less sexual dimorphism, less difference between males and females, and more ornamentation in both males and females because they are both trying to impress each other.
Mm hmmm. I love that. I think that's yeah, it's it's impressive. It's actually so.
I I work part time at Edin Brazoo and we have gentoo penguins, king penguins and northern rock copper penguins. They are and it's just when when this is being recorded, it's just the season where they're starting to lay eggs and kind of have this like scenario, and it's it's funny.
It's it's funny to watch when you have these kind of two parents who are equally trying to like equally rambunctious, equally kind of wanting to show off to each other, but also equally protective and kind of like back off from our egg because type scenario. It's really it's it's fun to see like these co parenting like scenarios and how they work in the animal kingdom, because yeah, it's it's fun when it's it's interesting and it's not the kind of stereotypical, Oh there is a male lion who
is surrounded by all of these females. Like, it's interesting when you have this kind of partnership going on in the relationships that form, and I think that.
It forms quite charming stories and like you.
Kind of get connected to these these love stories and these bonds because you get you put, as we often do, you put your own emotions into it.
You go on, yeah, that's just the sweetest thing.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean I think that for a lot of people who are in equitable, say relationships, it is. It is much more relatable when you see a bird like this, like ah, the both the male and female are taking care, they're young, they both want to make a good impression on each other. It's not so lopsided. I think it does appeal very much to sort of modern you know, my feminist sensibilities. Of course, I can't
project those onto a bird. And you know, I don't like I'm not like oh, lions tho, it's misogyn those sexists. And of course things like with lions and other animals that have sort of this more like harem structure where you have multiple females to one male. Often it's put through this framework of like, well, you know, these females are submissive to this male. But you can also look at it as like these are matriarchal societies because the male is interchangeable. The males can come and go, a
new male can come and take over. But the female lions are somewhat consistent, and they actually form the main social group of the pride, and they can collectively chase
away a male that they don't like. So they're all sorts of really interesting dynamics and animals that are maybe less relatable to us as humans, but definitely for these birds it is somewhat I think in a way it's very charming because it's relatable to me as someone who likes to be an equal in relationships, and so it's like, yes, crestedoclet, that's great. You guys treat each other good.
Mm hmmm hmmm, it's yeah.
It's reminding me of like the pride I felt in that we have currently. So as as happens the penguins don't well and birds and things that will pair up occasionally, there will be a couple of men who decide we're gonna we're gonna pair up have a kind of companion relationship for a year, and it's this whole conversation is
reminded me. This year at Edinburgh, there's two males. Snowflake who is the sweetest, one of the most iconic because he has a condition where his feathers are all all kind of white and wow, so he's one of the and he's paired up this year with another one of the males, and just to really hit home, I'm like, yes, i'd love you too for each other. We did they did an exercise with a group who they got to paint little pebbles, so the penguins will will all kind
of fight over these pebbles to build their nests. And even when it's men, like two males, they will still build this nest and they will still kind of form this thing. And one of the children painted a rainbow one of the pebbles, and these two penguins, who have decided to have this like relationship together for a year, picked the rainbow penguin the rainbow pebble, and I was like, yes, I love it.
So much, so cute, I love I love this. I want to see a Pixar movie of Snowflake. That is that's fantastic. It must be such a pretty bird as well. I love the both the melanistic and the albino or the animals that have these like interesting coat patterns. I didn't realize that that this could happen. Well, I guess, yeah, of course it could happen with penguins. It just never occurred to me. But that's fascinating. I have to I have to check out a picture of Snowflake. I'm sure very cute.
I'll try and find one and same one across because thank you a star, a star.
Oh, congratulations Snowflake. That is I'm happy for him. He's thriving, he's in his lane with his rocks and his wonderful partner. Fantastic. Well, before we go, I want to play a little game called Guess he's squawking? The Mystery animal sound game. Every week I play a mystery animal sound and you the listener, and you're the guest. Try to guess who is making that sound. It can be any animal in the world on the planet Earth. If there's any animals outside of
planet Earth, I would also include them. So far, no luck, but yes, So the hint for last week's mystery animal sound was this, don't call this great animal a peasant, all right, Jack, You have any guesses as to what this could be? So the.
So the clue made me think it was some kind of and the noise really makes me think it's a bird. Really makes me think it's maybe some kind of owl. But I could be miles off there, and I am not the expert on bird song that I should be given the topic of this week's episode.
But yeah, we'll go with some kind of owl.
I mean, look, I'll put it this way, if I had to play my own game, I don't think i'd be very good at it. You are right that it is a type of bird. Congratulations to Auntie B, Grant W and Maran D who all guessed correctly. This is not an owl but a great argus pheasant. So oh, it's not the most common bird when one thinks of a bird. So I was a little bit mean this week did a pretty hard one. But these are found in the rainforests of Borneo, and they actually look a
bit like peacocks. In fact, they are in the same family as peacocks. It is the largest pheasant in the world, with males weighing around six pounds or over two point seven kilograms, and with a body length including its tail, of up to around eighty inches or two hundred centimeters. Females are mostly brown, as we talked about earlier with the difference between males and females and peacock species, so in this the great argus pheasants, females are mostly brown.
They're somewhat plain, whereas males have this bright blue head, this blue rust and brown feathers. They're not as brightly colored as peacocks. They're not as spectacularly colored, but their feathers still have these mini eye spots just like the peacock. You see all of these eye spots on their feathers. The great argus pheasant also has these eye spots that are meant to impress females, and they will fan out
their tail in this amazing display. And so the male will clear a staging area and issue a call just like the one you heard, and as soon as it attracts its audience, hopefully a female who comes to listen, the male will fan out its tail like a peacock and dance for the female in hopes of enticing her to mate.
Not just a singer, you're also a dancer. Is there a triple threat? Is there a third magic skill that they have?
I mean probably the fan of tails with like so many eyes that makes them sound like a biblical angel where they're like, be not afraid, I just want to mate with you.
So it's a strong image.
Actually, I feel like we would all be enticed in if all of a sudden something appeared out of nowhere with a thousand heights, like amazed anyway by what it was.
Well onto this week's mystery animal sound. The hint is this Madagascar native is named after the following alarm call, ge, do you have any guesses?
So I know there is a Madagascar native that is a very iconic famous animal that is named after its call, but that doesn't sound like what its name is.
So that's kind of that has thrown me. I have like because to me, my guess just based on the clue would have been raped. But that's not what I would have imagined that to sound like. So I'm like, I'm very like thrown off, So I think I'm gonna have to go with that and just like, wait and see.
You are absolutely correct, and therefore I am going to bleep out your answer, but everyone will know that you are correct. So uh, yes, I guess you get a little extra hint there. You might be surprised to find out what its name is because it's call maybe doesn't sound as similar to its name as you would think, but it is meant to be an on amanopoia name. So good luck everyone, see if you can get it just as Jack has. And if you have a guess, and even if you think it's a wild guess, I
don't care. Write to me at Creature Feature Pod at gmail dot com. Jack, thank you so much for joining me today to talk about puffin's conservation and some other species of ox. Where can people find you?
So yes, thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure. It was such a full circle moment for me to come and be able to talk about puffins.
So it's been so fantastic.
If you're interested in learning more about me and what I do, I am the host of Panglin the Conservation Podcast, which can be found on Spotify or Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts from. If wherever you're listening to this, I suppose you can also search for me. And that show is a celebration of all of the
kind of underappreciated stories. It started off as a celebration of the pang and then I realized there are so many other animals which fall under this category of weird, underappreciated, bizarre creatures that people need to know more about, and so we've kept that as the title, and I've moved on now to talk about everything from giraffes to amphibians, to orchids to all sorts of.
Bizarre, amazing things.
And so yes, I'm there I'm at pangling podcast.
On all of the social media's.
If you're interested on me, on me personally rather than the content. If you're satisfied with your animal podcast content by listening.
To this one impossible. No one can ever be satisfied.
No, I don't think so. I don't think so. But if you are, you can find me on Twitter. I'm at only Jack Baker on Twitter. I'm at the only Jack Baker on Instagram all over the place. Find me, ask me questions, tell me to talk more about puffins.
I'll do anything.
You know. I'm there, Send him puffin paraphernalia. Yeah, this time, this time I'm ironic.
Yeah.
Well, my favorite I didn't get to I didn't mention it during. My favorite favorite piece of puff and memorabilia in the house is not mine, but it's my mom's. We went to Iceland one year and they are in a gift shop. Was three puffins, like and they had their arms out like kind of like hooked like this, and there it's a wine bottle carrier. They just carry a bottle of wine. And I think it's fantastic.
It's wonderful. I want that so much. I'm gonna have to go there just to get this puff and wine carrier. Well, thank you, Thank you guys so much for listening. If you're enjoying the show and you leave a rating or review, I would deeply appreciate that. I read all the reviews and I appreciate every single one of your ratings. Thank you so much, and thank you to the Space Classics for They're a super awesome song. XO. Lumina. Creature Feature is a production of iHeart Radio four more podcasts like
the one you just heard. Visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts, or hey, guess what where we listening to your favorite shows. I don't judge you. In fact, you could listen to it in any way.
That's fine.
See you next Wednesday. Mm hmm