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I think she's got my nose.
Thankfully she didn't get mine.
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Okay. So I just wanted to say really quick cool merch announcement. If anyone needs tots and mugs and hats and all kinds of cool stuff. My friends Shannon Feltis and her sister Bonnie Dutch have been awesome at helping me set up a merch site. It's at ologiesmerch dot com and this week we just put them up limited edition enamel Ologies pins. They come in a pack of five. The first four episodes are each represented in this little cool pin, and then there's an Ologies logo pin also,
so they're super awesome. They're limited editions, so if you want them, get them. Just wanted to tell you up top, Okay, onto the episode.
Birds, Birds, Birds, Birds, Birds, Birds, Birds, burbs, burbs boyds, Chirpy chirps, flappy flappers. Last week I covered death and dying and it was enlightening and shockingly not a bummer. But I wanted to get into birds to just kind of shake off that October.
Let's just talk about birds. So I don't know how you feel about birds. I've always had kind of a distant wonder about them. But I'm also like birds, you would never let me pet you, any of you, which is kind of a really bitchy way to evaluate an animal. It's like can I pet it?
No?
I don't care. That's about to change, So listeners, you send in questions before I record, and I was shocked that a lot of the questions were like why is insert species such a dick? And why do birds poop on me? And what did I ever do to birds? Was essentially the gist of a lot of the questions. So we definitely have a pr problem here, and this episode, I think is going to turn you around because birds are, Yes,
they are insane. I mean they fly first off, which is something that only superheroes and people on angel dust can do, and they have weird buttholes stay tuned, and they can mock your voice, and one of them can mimic the sound of a chainsaw. Also, they're dinosaurs that are alive now and their knees are sometimes backwards. So if you were a bird publicist, you'd be like, I don't even know where to start with your personal brand? What is your deal? So let's let an ornithologist speak
for them, if you will. Now, I've been aware of the more Lab of Zoology on the Occidental College campus ps Obama, went there for a few years, and I was really stoked to get a green light for a really last minute visit last week. I just recorded this a few days ago with the collections manager at the lab who oversees some really really rare specimens. They date back, some of them as far as the seventeen nineties, and it's down to earth, dryly funny. He was sporting a
baseball cap and a plaid shirt and a beard. He's like a mellow guy in a beef jerkey commercial. And he's so passionate and knowledgeable about birds. I could have filled up three episodes just answering your questions. But we chatted for a bit and I asked all I could, and I feel a kinship with birds that makes me want to wink at them and say, hey, man, we're cool, so please enjoy James Maylee, I just say, like, tell me what you wait for breakfast. I'll check your levels.
I had some tater tots, eggs and bacon.
That sounds like a dope breakfast. And you are technically an ornithologist, correct, right?
Yes?
So when did James become a card carrying ornithologist versus a bird thirsty fanboy?
Since I believe the summer of two thousand and one is when I started getting paid to conduct research on birds, which I technically think is when you become an ornithologist.
Is when they pay you, or when you get a certain certification.
When you get paid, okay, yeah, the.
First dollar exchanges and then you change your business card.
Yeah.
Have you been a Burger for a long time? Side note I edit from transcriptsive interviews done by artificial intelligence, and this transcribed to have you been a Burger for a long time?
Uh? Yeah, I've been a Burger for a long time. I was super into birds when I was a little kid, and then I didn't think birds were cool enough, so I didn't pay attention to birds for a while. Then I got back into birds in high school, and then in college I went full in.
You went full Burdener yep. So like there was a period in junior high where you were like spurds. No, I like Miami Vice. Yeah exactly, birds are like whatever, We'll see you in a couple years.
Yep.
Why did you start liking birds when you were a kid?
Uh? My parents had feeders in the backyard and I would just spend hours staring out the window at the birds. And I was like two, so I was just really really into them. I love seeing the colors and just what they were doing and I actually memorized all the birds that came into the feeder, and I tricked my parents into thinking I knew how to read, because they would point to a bird in the field gud and I would say what it was, but I couldn't read yet.
How old were you, I don't know, like two something.
So you were like mini bird genius. Yeah, James's uncle is a big birder and his dad is into birds too.
I think they just thought it was natural to be into birds.
Do you think it's in your jeens?
Yeah? I think so what does it mean to.
Be a birder? Because I'm not hip with like bird culture, but I understand it is like the cult of ornith like birders. They're out there with the binoculars, they count how many species they see per year, Like what is that?
Like?
How do you get jumped into that gang?
So there's a whole range of birders. There's casual birders who just like birds and they'll have feeders up in their yard or not and just look at birds and appreciate them and not even really care that much about what they're seeing and how many they're seeing. And then there's the other extreme, which are listers.
Okay, so listers love numbers. They really focus on seeing as many species as they can in a given place at a given time. And for some reason during this part, I couldn't stop gasping because this whole subculture just totally delights and baffles me. Like I used to be a goth in college, and every once in a while we'd take someone who is not goth to a club and they would be like, what is happening. We're like, oh, that guy smoking a cigarette out of a cigarette holder
he fashioned from computer parts. Oh, he's just a cybergoth. Like, oh, that's a Victorian goth over there. So my introduction to this bird world is like if you took a jock and ducked him into a basement and a gothic industrial dungeon, and we're just like, oh, yeah, there's a lot to learn.
And so anytime a rare bird shows up, they'll chase it. So they'd get in their car or get in a plane and fly there and try to see it. And there's people that have done that for the world. A big year for the world, I think the record was just broken. It was like six thousand something species. It was just insane.
So they'll hear like a duck build spoon bill that is probably not a real bird, is like was seen in Monterey, and then they'll go try to see if they can catch that one before it flyes somewhere else. Yep, that's like the Dave Matthews band. People are like fish people, you know what I mean? pH fish people? I mean right, No one follows. So have you been have you ever been kind of like embedded with a group of a
really zealous birders or what do you say? Your work is kind of like being a professional lister.
I am not. I don't keep a list, Okay. I keep track of the birds that I see generally, and I know the ones that I've seen and haven't seen. I really enjoy birds, and I just like watching them all the time, but I generally don't chase.
Okay, So who has seen the most birds is? Right now? The record seems to be one John Hornbuckle, who himself sounds like a type of bird like a hornbuckle john boy anyway. Of the approximately ten thousand known species of birds, John Hornbuckle has seen ninety six hundred, according to a master list at surfbirds dot com. I also find it really curious in looking at this list that he's like the top birder in the world. But he's very blase, and his name is an all lowercase. Everyone else's name
upper and lowercase, umlat's hyphens. He's just got one lowercase, like he entered it while he was on his phone, like in line of the post office, so casual. He describes himself as a victim of an obsession for birding. Like most addictions, it has its dangers, some of which I have fallen foul love, but it has given me much pleasure and purpose to life. I imagine John Hornbuckle standing at a window cupping a mug of hot herbal tea with these words running in a voiceover like a
pharmaceutical ad. Now, as I started getting deeper into the cult of birding research, one story donkey kicked me right in the heart. The record for one lister lifelong top birder belonged to a middle aged woman named Phoebe Snetsinger who was diagnosed with a fatal cancer, and so she turned her attention toward birding to lift her spirits. Get this, Her cancer went into remission, but she had developed a birding addiction that compelled her to travel around the world,
at times in severe peril. She was attacked by five men with machetes and survived. I won't even go into the details. And she continued her tracks. She kept going. She missed her mother's funeral, she missed her daughter's wedding in a quest to see more birds, and cancer never took her life. Rather, Phoebe was killed in a car crash in Madagascar. Well birding, Oh man, who oh, what's my point?
Uh?
People love birds? People love birds, which leads me to realize birds are very lovable. This is such a silly question. I'm sure you get asked this a million times all the time. Do you have a favor?
No, Okay, I don't. I have some birds that I'm particularly like fond of, and mostly it's the birds that I've studied that I've gotten to know really, really well. So there's these birds in California called Ridgeways Rail. They're only found in salt marshes in San Francisco, LA and San Diego and a few places in between, so obviously they're not doing great. They're endangered.
James studied the Ridgeway Rail for his dissertation, and ball Or alert and actually.
I named them that you did. Yeah, that was pretty cool me and my advisor did.
Okay, what was the what was the whiteboard like when you were coming up with brainstorming names to get to name a bird.
Well, so the scientific name was already decided because that takes priority. But if there's no standardized common name, you can come up with whatever standard English name you want to. The scientific name is Raylis obsoletist.
WHOA.
So I didn't want to go with obsolete rail because that's a little too dark, it's.
A little insulting. Yeah, I'm right here, I know.
But they're almost gone, so maybe, and I went with Ridgeways rail, which is a mouthful. People complain about it because it's hard to say that. A lot of burd names are hard to say. So yeah, it's just because they're not used to it.
Right now, Ridgeway's rail is. By the way, I've said Ridgeways Rail, Ridgway rails, Ridgeway rails wrong several times. Ridgeways rail is. It's cute as hell. It's like this chicken sized bird. It looks kind of like a cross between a duck and a pigeon, and it's the color of like if you were holding a yam and dropped it in potting soil. It's cute. And Robert Ridgeway was this really influential and amazing ornithologist. He was responsible for understanding
a lot of avian diversity. He was the dude, and.
He has no bird in the US named after him. So I wanted to pay homage to him. And he described the first rails out here.
Did you hear from his family at all?
I haven't.
Did they know?
Maybe I don't know? Shoot him a tweet, Yeah, I should try.
I really really wanted the Ridgeway family to know about this bird. So I took a research tangent and I found out Robert Ridgeway had one child named Audubon, and yes, he named his child after a bird painter, and Audobon himself an ornithologist, sadly died young in his twenties, no kids, so he had no grandkids. So then I dove deeper and I found out that Robert Ridgeway's brother was also a bird painter who worked at the La County Natural
History Museum. John Ridgway lived in Glendale. So at nine pm on a Friday night, I started to gently stalk anyone with the last named Ridgeway from Glendale, California, and I sent a few Facebook messages and friend requests saying, hey, I don't know if you related to these ornithologists, but I have some information about a bird that was named after them. I even sent one message via LinkedIn. None
of my messages were returned, but I tried. I was starting to watch the people related to the birdwatcher that a birdwatcher I know. Anyway, would you say that he's kind of your ornithological hero a little bit?
Yeah? I mean he was doing ornithology at a time that was really really different, but he has eye for subtle differences and different populations and understanding how birds live in this world. It was just amazing. Yeah.
I think about studying birds and what you do, and I just can't imagine how big of a challenge it is when you see something and it'll just alight on a branch and then be gone. Is that like a fun game to you or do you ever get frustrated by that?
I definitely get frustrated sometimes. But when you bird as much as I do, there's not you don't encounter that many birds that you can't identify pretty quickly from sight and or sound. And so even if a bird lights on a branch for a second, if I get a good look at it, there's a pretty good chance I'll know what it is.
You know what's up?
Yeah?
Have you been through so many different pairs of binoculars to find the best kind?
I actually don't own a pair of binoculars at the moment. Yeah, how is that possible? You're I know, it's ridiculous.
Okay, listen, not this is crazy.
So my first pair of binoculars, I really love those. They they lasted for ten years. And I was robbed at gunpoint in Honduras and they stole it, stole my pair. So I lost my original pair, Oh my god. And then I was given a pair by somebody else and I left those on a table at the San Diego Zoo. Not as dramatic as story. But then we have binoculars here at the Moral Lab that I'd use. That I just use.
What about the what was so in Honduras that was doing field work?
It was? Yeah?
Is that probably that? I'm sure that's the most dramatic thing that's happened, right or I mean, the field work must take you all over the all over the globe, right.
It does. Yeah. I've spent quite a bit of time in Peru, Panama, Costa Rica, Honduras, and Mexico and those are the main places have been, and a lot of time in Alaska all over the state.
When you're doing field work. What's a typical day like for you when you're not getting robbed at gunpoint, which, by the way, I'm so sorry that happened. That's horrifying.
It was a while ago.
Yeah, field work for ornithologists can involve danger, clearly, and it sounds otherwise kind of like camping, but also carrying so much equipment and while taking notes on everything and data and observations, and you don't get much sleep. So on a recent expedition in Mexico.
Yeah, we were usually just exhausted and would just build a campfire and you know, grab some tequila and just chill out for an hour or two. Yeah.
So what is it about ornithology? Why do people go so crazy for birds? Well, some social psychology studies point to perhaps like a holdover instinct in humans just to hunt stuff. I get it, I get it. I've spent long hours, late nights on Amazon just looking up shit. People go on eBay to buy old VHS tapes, other people twitch for birds. Makes sense. Do you, as an ornithologist have a favorite movie about birds or least favorite movie about birds?
I honestly generally don't watch movies about birds because it's usually so wrong. Like I've never seen the movie The Big Year, which is all about birds.
Oh is it? I don't know that.
Yeah, it's with Jack Black and Steve Martin and Owen Wilson, and it's all about these three birders who are trying to break the record for most species scene in the US and one year her an Aba area and one year.
And you're just like, no, we got so much wrong.
I don't know. I just don't want and you know, it's like I don't even want to look because I'm like one of those I'm one of those people who when I'm watching a movie and the wrong bird calls in the background, I get super annoyed. So a lot of movies for me, I have to like just pretend that they're getting it right.
Like the bald Eagle, Yeah, that's.
A classic one. These are red tailed hawks screech, yeah, instead of well, bald eagles sound pretty stupid.
So what do they sound like?
Uh, they kind of sound they're like high pitched and squealing.
Do you feel about the bald eagle being our national bird rather than the turkey? Was it Ben Franklin that said let's make the turkey or national bird.
That's my understanding, although I don't really know if that's true, but that's what I've always understood, is that he wanted the wild turkey to be the national bird. I would actually rather be the wild turkey, honestly, because turkeys are super smart. They might not seem it, but they are. They're very good at like outwitting us, and you know, people go to great lengths to shoot them because they're
so smart and they have super good vision. I've lived in Alaska for long enough to see kind of what bald eagles really are.
Yeah.
No, which if you ever go to Homer, Alaska, I've been, They've been there. Yes, did you look at the dumpster behind the McDonald's because it was probably full of eagles?
No, but no, I have to go back.
Yeah, they're really scavengers. They oh my god, they're there are some birds that only steal from other birds and other things. They're called klepto parasites. But ball eagles are not klepto parasites, so they can catch their own food. But more often than not, I've seen them steal food. And like I saw one steal a flounder from a river otter. It's like, come on, the river otter's just finally caught his dinner and you steal it. It's just rude.
That is a pretty American tradition. Yeah, in terms of that Ben Franklin story, Okay, so we were both a little bit wrong about this. He didn't push for the turkey to be the national bird. He just said later he threw a bunch of shade at it. In a private letter to his daughter, he said, for my own part, I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as representative of our country. He said, he's a bird of bad moral character, and he does not get his living, honestly.
Ben Franklin also said that, you know, the church is a much more respectable bird. It's a little vain and silly, but it's a bird of courage. So then I typed bald eagle plus dumpster into Google, and sure enough I found this. Look at these all these eagles.
So I don't know what's going on in this dumpster today.
Something struck me as kind of eerily familiar about the voice, and then I realized it was just the honey tones of an Alaskan who goes by Pam as a US and she had a video that went viral a few years ago of a bald eagle and a fox chilling on her porch. I highly recommend just brewing yourself some decaf cozying up to her channel because it is like weird bald eagle diaries. It feels like you accidentally fell
into someone else's dream. Are there any myths or misconceptions about birds that you're like, I gotta go straight in there and bust that that.
One bird brands is really aggravating, because birds are incredibly smart. I mean, they're that smart on a level that we don't really appreciate. I feel like, so magpies can recognize themselves in a mirror.
For more on this mirror self recognition test and its history and which animals look in it and aren't like, hey, I'm looking good, listen to the episode on primates.
There's not very many organisms that can do that, right, I mean cats dogs we think of them as kind of smart, right, but they can't figure that out. But birds can. They're tool users. I mean, parrots are just unbelievably smart. The most famous one is a parrot that was studied by Irene Pepperberg who studied this really beautiful African gray parrot and just incredible research done with that bird.
Look this up and whoa oh shit, y'all. Okay, the Wikipedia for this bird just as Alex in parentheses parrot. He just has there's one name he's known like he's Adele or Madonna. So Alex was an African gray parrot, and researchers said his name stood for Avian learning Experiment. So also, when an acronym is made to spell a word by the way, that's called a backronym, which delights me because I always wonder when you see an acronym that's like kind of like ugh, okay, I guess that
works that there's actually a word for that. Backronyms are sometimes created to name laws, and the official title of the USA Patriot Act from two thousand and one is Uniting and Strengthening America by providing appropriate tools required to intercept and obstruct terrorism. It spells USA Patriot. Okay, that's a stretch. So Alex was said to have a one hundred word vocabulary this parrot, and the intelligence of a
five year old human. So what they say was really exceptional is that he appeared to understand what he said, so he could describe a key as a key, no matter what color or size it was. He's like, I know it's a key. Guys, you put a key in front of me, I'm able to say that's key. I also find this adorable. Alex called an apple a banari, which one linguist thinks is a combination of banana and cherry, which are two fruits. He was down with. So he was in that lab making up portmanteaus, and I think,
frankly that makes him a poet. He was also a bitch when he needed to be. If he said, wan a banana and someone's like, okay, here's a nut, he quote stared in silence, asked for the banana again, or took the nut and threw it at the researcher, or otherwise displayed annoyance before requesting the item again. He's salty with those nuts, man. Now. Alex died really young for a parrot. He was only thirty one years old and
he died suddenly. Heart trouble, they think. And a lot of well cared for African grays live like into their sixties. If you get an African gray parrot, you're gonna die with that parrot. They live kind of forever. So this is so precious. Just grab onto your hearts, you guys. Alex's last words were you'd be good, see you tomorrow. I love you, And they were the same words he would say every night when Irene Pepperberg left the lab.
Feelings Speaking of birds speaking, are there any birds that in the wild have the most beautiful call to you?
I would say the one that I'm most commonly heard as sand hill cranes. If you've ever been where there's big flocks of sand hill cranes, they have this incredible trumpeting sound that they do in the air, and they'll form these huge flocks in the winter. They would come through fairbanks in the fall and their calls just, I don't know, it's haunting, it's really beautiful.
Yeah, how about when and I'm forgetting the name? Is it a murmur of birds?
Murmuration?
Murmuration? Can you explain at all how a murmuration works. A murmuration is a flock of birds like starlinks in these liquid looking formations. They're just they're bogglingly gorgeous to watch. It's so weird.
Look it up.
It's like a living lava lamp in fast motion. It's like a screensaver someone would stare at in college while being on drugs in the dorms or something, but like birds. Because I look at it and I'm like, oh, that's that's like witchcraft, Like that's so beautiful and crazy? Is it fluid dynamics? Is it? Is it like crowd thing? How do they do that?
I have no idea. Okay, I could make something up.
But a little info on that. So murmurations tend to happen when there's a predator around and the birds are evading it. And this is really cool. It doesn't matter the size of the flock. Each bird is reacting not to the size of a huge flock, but just to the seven birds around it. They calculated this. They used physics, I don't know, some Italian researchers came up with it.
So it's like you're super in tune with your little posse and then a bunch of little posse's make up this one big, swirling, diving, massive monster posse.
I mean it's incredible. I know, I love watching it. It's amazing. I've seen it so many times and I've never seen them like crash.
Did you care about dinosaurs when you were a kid, or do you care about the link that birds are dinosaurs? Or do you are you like dinosaurs can take a hike? Take a hike.
Okay, I love dinosaurs. When I was a little kid. Oh really, I was super into dinosaurs and I didn't make the connection between birds and dinosaurs, and I don't think scientists had solidified that until I had gotten super into birds.
Mm hmm.
I like to remind myself every now and again that I'm going dinosaur watching.
You're going dinosaur yeah, correct me if I'm wrong. I feel like if Steve Jobs had to design an orifice, it would be a kloeca. So simple, it's one thing, So a kloeca is his like the home button on an iPhone. It's really all you need. It's a one stop shop for liquid waste, solid waste, and then as bonus, it's also a sex portal, so birds get it on via what is called no joke a chloacal kiss. They
just smooch butts, sometimes only for a few seconds. Now, if you've heard gossip about like duck mating, well a lot of it might be true waterfowl gonads. Google it or you can go straight to an article on that geo called duck penises grow Bigger among rivals, which was written by a friend of mine, Jason Goldman, who's a wildlife journalist, great icebreaker topics. He covers some good ones.
Now back to klocas, why is it? Reptiles and birds are just like I got a single port here, don't worry about it.
They have a whole different physiological mechanism for waste excretion than we do and reproduction. So yeah, they all have internal gonads too, which it would be weird if they didn't.
Yeah, that would be it.
Yeah, But they have a really different sort of kidney system than we do, and so they are able to produce their waste sort of as one product and shoot it out. It's much more efficient. They're not as good at excreting salt from their blood with their kidneys as much as we are, but a lot of birds have a salt gland in their head. Well, they have two salt glands in their head, so it isn't all out of one.
Excreete salt from a gland in their head they do. It's nothing crazy and weird about that or anything.
Nope. Yeah, there are these like little mini kidneys that rest on the top of their skull and they filter salt out of the blood. It's super high efficiency so that they can drink sea water, so like seabirds can drink the ocean water and it's no problem. But if you're ever on the beach and you see a gull with a with a droplet dripping off the tip of its bill, that's salt water that's excreted from their salt glands. So it comes out the nostrils and drips down the off the hook of the bill, So.
They have a nasshole, I guess. Yeah, so they're peeing out of their face.
Pretty much, no big deal.
Yeah, I wonder if they'll ever study that that method of excretion in terms of like a desalination, you know, like will they ever look at that, like a maybe we can attach that as a backpack so seafarers can I don't know, I'm applying for a patent. Moving on, I have a question about male and female birds. Okay, why is it that, at least in the human species, ladies were painting our faces, we're dressing up, men are
like whatever, I'm wearing beige? Again, Why is it in birds the men are very decked out and fancy and the ladies are like, I'm a little bit bigger and I'm beige.
So that's not always the case in birds. There are some species in which the females are much brighter than the males. Yeah, and they have a different mating system. So in the vast majority of birds, about ninety percent of species, they're monogamous, and in a lot of those you can't tell males and females apart at all. Oh, but in situations where there's really strong sexual selection on males that's put on them by females, and in a lot of those situations it's a there's a like a
resource involved, so there's like resource defense. Polygyny is one system where a male with a like really bright ornament, who's like the strongest male defends a resource and all the females that come in can like mate with him.
Is that that's polygyny. That's the opposite of monogamy.
Yeah. Plogyeny is one male multiple females, got it. Polyandry is one female multiple males. Oh and in those birds, the females are brighter than the males.
Really yep, So whoever is kind of attracting the most mates is going to be as decked out.
Yeah. And the birds that have probably the craziest like difference between males and females are these birds that do a thing called lecking. If you don't know what lecking is, it's pretty fantastic. So what happens is these males they all gather together and display. They not displaying to each other, they're displaying to any female that will come in.
What you know, how, sometimes it's secretly awesome to have a cold because you're in quarantine. You're not allowed to breathe on anyone, so you can just sit alone and watch weird videos for like a week. So I just sampled a few minutes of lecking videos. It's l e kki n G and I want to go lick some doorknobs. I just want to get up in some Nike will and some of these videos, Oh, they're so good.
And so they just do all these crazy elaborate displays, and the one who's looking the best and is displaying the best gets the females.
It's a Miss Universe pageant, but with male birds pretty much.
Yep, it's really incredible. Yeah.
Do you have a favorite documentary about birds?
Life of Birds?
Yeah?
Yeah, the whole thing. Yeah.
Is it a series?
Yeah, it's a six part series by BBC narrated by it Attinburgh. Of course.
I watched Planet Ear at the Albatross portion where he was waiting for his mate to come back. I was like, should I be crying right now? Because I am?
Yeah, you should be okay. Yeah.
How did you feel about Portlandia's sketch about put a bird on it?
I loved it. I agree if you put a bird on it, people will buy it. I'm the same way. It doesn't matter, like if I see a product with a bird on it, that will buy it.
Do people give you a lot of birdie gifts?
Yes? All birds? Yeah, yeah, books, everything.
Do you ever get sick of it or you like, bring it on?
I'm fine with it. Yeah, it makes it easier. Yeah, And everybody who would get me anything knows that just get them something with a bird. He'll be thrilled.
Okay, I have some questions from listeners. Are you ready?
Ye?
Warning, some of these might be very stupid. Okay, those are the best kind.
All right.
We're going to start with petrion listeners. They get first crack.
Okay.
But before we take questions from you, our beloved listeners, we're going to take a quick break for sponsors of the show. Sponsors. Why A sponsors? You know what they do? They help us give money to different charities every week. So if you want to know where Ologies gives our money, you can go to alleyword dot com and look for the tab Ologies gives back. There's like one hundred and fifty different charities that we've given to already, with more
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Well, it's definitely.
A dou a rubber rewiring replumbing, but I love it.
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Okay your questions. John Worcester wants to know how fast do hummingbirds beat their wings and how many calories of day do they need?
I don't know the question the answer to either of those questions.
Yes, I'll lock it up there. I could google it all right, John, I looked it up here's the deal. The fastest recorded rate is about eighty beats per second, but the average is around fifty three beats per second. And these tiny birds consume between three point one for and seven point six calories a day, which totally non scientific estimate. I think that's like a sip of soda.
But I know that. So hummingbird's the smallest hummingbird on Earth. The b hummingbird in Cuba has a heart rate of twelve hundred beats per minute, so super high metabolism. And they have to drink some nectar like pretty much as soon as they wake up. So I have hummingbird feeders at my house and they're out there well before dawn, the feeders covered. If they don't get some sugar water after a long night, they're they're dead.
They're chasing that dragon, but they're.
Also on a constant sugar high.
No wonder why they're heart right, So I yep. At least it's not caffeinated. At least it's not like a monster energy drink and your bird feeder. That would be insane. Jordanes wants to know why do Australian magpies attack people during swooping season.
So I'm not familiar with australiallion magpies, but I'm guessing that that's when they're nesting and they want you to get away from their nest or they're young. I mean, that's usually the answer to why a bird is swooping at you.
That means get away from my babies. Yep, okay, so get away from their babies. Yeah, that's how you stop that exactly. Paul Hanley wants to know what's the deal with vox swifts and chimneys. Swifts and chimneys. Do you know anything about this?
I do well. First of all, it's Fox's.
Swift, thank you. It was Vaux and I went for the fancy pronunciation everybody does.
Sorry, but the guy's last name was Vox. Who it's named after.
Gosh, I tried. I overshot that one.
Yeah, no, it's okay. It's common, very very common. They're super similar, but they're basically just Eastern and Western replacements for one another. So Voxes are only in the West and chimneys are only in the East. You can tell them apart, but you almost never find them together, so you can pretty much know which one you're looking at depending on where you are.
Zoe wants to know. Is bird watching a gateway drug to ornithology?
It can be.
Okay, yeah, so watch yourself unless you want to become an ornithologist and start getting paid for it. Don't get into birding.
It's not a bad gig.
Michael Sandembaga said, how smart are crows because they definitely seem like they're watching me plotting something.
Crows are incredibly smart, and they are watching and plotting something, so they can recognize faces of people.
M hm.
They all also have their own dialect, so they have their own voices and they can recognize each other by voice. They all sound the same to us, but they're not. There's some really really cool studies that people have done, especially in Seattle, like using masks to see if crows really can recognize individual faces. And they can.
Oh my god. So they might be like, oh, I know that guy. He comes out with with some leftover FreeDOS after lunch, and m'd be like, I hate that guy. He's always by my nest.
Yep, totally, So don't fuck with a crow.
No, no, don't do it. They know you, ye like that guy. Blay Hawkins wants to know is there any hierarchy of intelligence of birds. Is there one species that extremely intelligent and others that are.
Maybe not so much.
Yes, that's definitely true. So the corvids, which are the crow's ravens and jays, magpies, those are among the smartest. They're probably the smartest songbirds, passerings, and then parrots are incredibly smart. Birds like American coots.
Just the fact that it's called an American coot.
It's a coot, I know. So if you ever look at a coot, and they're very common and most people just don't pay any attention to them. They have a huge body and a tiny hull. They're just they're cute, but they're really stupid.
They sound like your drunk uncle at the holidays who make sexist remarks that everyone ignores American coot pretty much. Okay, This next question is from the Facebook group. Owls really turn their heads one hundred and eighty degrees.
Yes, why, they have really flexible necks. Okay, yeah, but they're also really adapted at So owls have ears at different heights on their head.
Oh so one's over here, one's over there.
Yeah, so one's higher than the other, and that way they can like more. They can better get sound. They can like triangulate sound so that if they hear like a little mouse that's running behind them, they turn their head all the way around. Then they can hear exactly where the mouse is and go get it. They don't look wonky, No, they don't.
You know, they don't look like like sloth from Goonies or anything.
Right, if you open but if you have a dead one. We had one that just got hit by a car not too long ago, well a couple of years ago. But and if you open it up, yeah, you could see the flaps on either side are completely different heights. Yeah, it's neat.
Oh, I had no idea. What's the most absurd bird ever?
I think the most absurd bird and also a little bit scary is called a horned screamer. It's a great name and I would I would recommend everybody to look it up. There's some great YouTube videos of horn screamers screaming.
A horn screamer sounds like the worst guy to frat party.
Yeah, seriously, you would not want to go dressed up as a horn screamer to a Halloween party. But they have a giant bony feather coming out of their head. So they're sort of like a unicorn in that respect, but they're related to geese sort of. But they have a bill like a vulture, and their feet aren't webbed.
Oh no.
And they scream you can hear them for over a mile.
Oh my god.
And they're super territorial, so they have the huge wingspurs on their wings that they like try to kill each other with.
Okay, hell, yes, I look this up. Are you kidding me? So the visual of this is like two angry, uh hairy toddlers screaming at each other, honking like pingpong back and forth, but each with a single bouncing like a needle like spike emerging from the top of their heads. So whatever you're picturing in your mind, trust me, the reality is weirder. You must get up in this. I'm gonna get a big horned screamer tattoo right across my
back and shoulders. Lily Masa wants to know why do we call people chickens when chickens are actually mean and cocky as fuck.
That's a good question. I don't know. Chickens are kind of scared generally, I mean, they're a little flighty, maybe.
That's why they're so mean, is because they're scared.
Well, I would say roost, yeah, hens not so much.
Okay, yeah, I'll look into that, all right. I looked into chicken etymology and I didn't come up with much, but I did find so many entries on English as a second language forums asking if I mid quote one directly, I would like to know that what is meaning don't be chicken, and how can use it? It's a good question. Now, to be fair, I'm not a French as a first language speaker, and I have always wondered why if someone is mad at you in France they call you a
duck because canard in French is duck. And my mom always told me if someone calls you a duck in French, you're really you're in some hot water. Now. I just found out looking at this that non French speakers often mishear that in what they're really being called is a conard, which in English does not mean duck. It is more it's more into a kloka, is what that means. I think we should start calling people kloe because oh, this is so sad. Still, Ryan wants to know there are
some birds the partner for life. Say one of them dies, does a surviving bird repartner, and is there like a tinder for birds.
The surviving partner does re finds a new mate. Okay, yeah, so they're you know, it's all driven by the desire to reproduce, and so you're not gonna have a bird that suddenly turns that off even though it's mate died. And a lot of birds seem like they mate for life, but they don't. They actually really switch partners every year. Yeah, so we've.
Been led wrong. Like I've heard that penguins are maybe not as monogamous.
Yeah, so most monogamous birds are not fully monogamous. They're most most of them are promiscuous, so they're socially monogamous, but they're promiscuous. There's some birds that do this to the incredible, to an absolute extreme. There's some fairy wrens in Australia.
Uh huh.
I think they're called superb fairy wrens.
Side note, the bird names are killing me.
It's so out of control that sometimes not a single egg and a female's nest was laid by her or was sired by her partner, so that every single egg that's in her nest, she copulated with another male.
Get a girl, and but it looks as though she is partnering with and rearing them with one male.
Yeah.
Does the male know about this?
I mean he must because he's he's doing it too. Yeah, he's doing it too with every other female in the area.
So it's kind of like a like a new age. We're together, but we're not shackled to one another. M hm. Exactly do you think that people use birds and their monogamy or lack of monogamy to justify their own behaviors? Definitely, Okay, Yeah, Heather Ennis wants to know why do I always see pigeons with one clubbed, stumpy foot. I think maybe that that isn't an accurate sample population.
Uh, it's for a couple of reasons.
I'd love that he has an answer for this.
So often they'll get something stuck on their foot.
Like spoiler alert, it was a tangly hairball, So.
We caught it and pulled the hair ball off it. But I think that's it. Their feet, They're all they're always walking around on the ground, Yeah, getting into things, and so I think, yeah, they just get into something that tangles on their foot and then they lose it.
Street birds. Man, Samara wants to know our bird cage is cruel and should we give them big averies or just not have them as pets.
I think we should just not have them as pets. Yeah, bird cages are are cruel. Birds meant to live and fly around the world. It's like we saw something that has evolved to flow and decided they shouldn't anymore keep them in her house. It's just kind of rude.
I used to go on this walk, beautiful house, beautiful neighborhood, and it had this one circular window up on the top floor and there was a bird cage next to it, and I for like a year or two I walked past and I was always like, man, what's that bird? Thinking that bird's like, come on man, like in a mansion, granted, but in a cage behind the circular like porthole window.
And I was like, man. Then one day I walked by and there was a the window was open and there was a note taped to the gate that said lost bird. Like the bird made it finally like hell, yeah, man, that bird was like waiting for these wings to grow back. I'm out of here. And I got like kind of happy, and then I was like, dude, you're never getting your bird back. Ginger Larsen wants to know what can we learn from birds.
So much? I mean there's so many they can do, so many incredible things that we're not even close to being able to.
Do, Like fly, for example, with their arms.
Yeah, like fly, and they can migrate these incredible distances. They can navigate using the stars. I mean, there's so many things that they have learned how to do and a vault to be able to do that we can't. And you know, we rely on these various systems to be able to do what we can.
Right cough the internet and cell phones cough.
But they can fly away better than we can.
So yeah, so you can learn. We've already learned so much about aviation from birds. I mean, hello, every time you get an airplane, you're like, hi, it's a big metal bird. Everything from the two wheels at the bottom to like the wings. We've just made a big bird. Alison Throckmorton wants to know does rice make some bird's stomachs explode?
No? Oh, okay, that is a myth. Oh it is a lot of birds eat rice.
Huh.
Yeah, so if you're having a wedding, you can still get pelted with rice? Yes, Oh who started that?
I don't know. I mean we can eat dried rice and it doesn't make our stomach explode.
They don't have like a crop or something where it expands.
Or I mean they birds can eat like bones, so they can handle some rice.
Okay, that's good to know. This question was asked by Darren Ficciarellirell Darren Ficarelli. Sorry, sorry, What is the worst bird? And why is it? A Canada goose? I feel like they came into this with an agenda.
They really did, And I completely understand. Canada geese are just so mean. They're really really.
Mean, but Canadians are so nice.
Canadians are nice. It's not their fault that the geese are so mean. The geese they're just really productive and they have adapted to us by nesting in all these parks.
And are they just entitled?
Yeah, they have their park to themselves and they don't want you messing with it, and they're they're gonna bite you and hissit you and chase you.
Two last questions, what is one thing about your job that you don't like the worst part of your job, and then we'll ask with your favorite part more than your favorite moment on your job has been. What's the shittiest thing about being an ornthologist? Is it getting pooped on?
No? Okay, I don't mind that at all. Okay, I would say the worst part is when I find and a beatle infestation in the collection. Oh, there's nothing that makes me feel worse than that. It is like when I go out in the collection and I find damage specimens kind of regardless of how they're damaged, it just makes me so mad and it just ruins like my week. I get so angry. I like tell John, and.
John is another ornithologist and an evolutionary biologist that you will meet in a few episodes. Very cool dude, and then.
He gets angry and yeah, So it's that that is by far the worst. And that's sort of like a minor thing. It doesn't happen a lot, but it really is. Like my job as a collections manager is to like maintain the integrity of this collection and like that's the job. Yeah, and when I find that that's not taking place, it just makes me so angry. Then I dump a bunch of mothballs in there and freeze all the birds so they kill everything.
But you're just like, it's like Hulk turning into hole.
Yeah, I mean I basically should just leave because I'm just going to be such a grouch for the rest of the day.
And then what about your favorite thing about what you do?
I think the favorite My favorite thing about what I do is I get paid to study birds. I mean, just to be able to do that and like get paid to do it.
It's incredible, especially since some people are spending literally their retirement chasing birds around the globe and you're like, negative, I'm getting the money.
Yeah, it's like I would do this. I do this in my free time. I can't actually get to get paid for it. It's great.
Don't tell your bosses that.
Well, they do it too, so it's okay.
So if you're like listening to this at the bus stop and you see a bird, just say to it, hey, man, I know more about your butt and your brain than I ever thought I would, and birds pretty cool little muffins. So to watch any of the links that I mentioned, you can go to aliward dot com slash ologies, where I kind of like flacidly post a blog, a lot of links up there. Hopefully it'll be up by the
time you're listening to this. I don't know, guys, it's my birthday and I'm I'm recording this outhro in my closet because the sound is good here. I just I want to get this episode up. So that sounds so pathetic, but I'm having a pretty good time. What I was gonna say. Oh yeah. Also, you can see inside the More Lab of Zoology on Instagram. Their account is MLZ birds and they sometimes give tours of a lab. They're doing one through Atlas Obscura November eleventh here in La.
If there are still tickets left, get on it. If you ever want to submit questions for upcoming Ologists patrons on Patreon get first Crack so you can support there. You can also join the Ologies podcast group on Facebook. It's a good group of people, so if you're a dick, don't don't join, but if you're But if you're not, then hop into it because it's a party. I'm Ali Ward or ologies pod on Twitter. Uh. I'm also on Instagram and Ologies and Ali Ward, So stay tuned for
next week. I'm not quite sure what episode it's going to be yet. I'll figure that out later, but it'll probably be full of stupid questions for smart people, because honestly, I kind of think that they secretly like it, and I don't want to know if that's not true. To be honest, all right, ologyites.
Bye, pacodermatology, hobology, crypto zoology, lithology and technology, meteorology, pology, anthology, seriology, elinology.
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