What are the Secrets of the World’s Largest Birds?

and that's actually when the Oregon Zoo stepped in. So one of the strange things about condor eggs is that sometimes the chicks aren't actually strong enough to break out of the shells. So the caretakers at the zoo like they stand by ready with a chisel to help them break out. And in fact, it worked so well that the zoo is now raised more than seventy condor chicks. That's awesome. But what do they do then? Do they

release them into the wild? Yeah, but if the chicks are raised in captivity without their parents, the minders have to be really careful about how they feed them, because you know, they don't want these birds to be too trusting of humans, so they have these hand puppets made to look like condors, and that's what they used to feed the little hatchlings. But reading that story made me think, you know, maybe it's time to do an episode on some of the world's largest birds and also all the

secrets we definitely don't know about them, So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm mongo Iss Articula and my good pal Will Pearson's on vacation today. But I am so thrilled because I get to hang out with the wonderful Gabe Luisier, who's on the line with me. Hey, Gabe, how's it going. Hey, it's going well.

Thanks for having me. It's great to have you, gave And on the other side of the soundproof glass car having into the biggest, fattest turkey I've seen this side of Thanksgiving. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. And I've got to say, while Tristan's on theme as usual, it does feel a little weird to watch him chow down on a bird while we're also talking about birds. Yeah, I mean, I was hoping we'd get to see Tristan in like a big bird costume today, or maybe find

out that he's secretly been taking falconry classes or something. Well, we should put that in the suggestion box for next time, I think. But today's episode is all about the world's largest birds. Yeah, that's right. We scoured the skies to find the most oversized birds out there, and now it's time to spill all their juicy secrets, like how have large birds adapted for survival and how they got so

big in the first place. But you know, a mango, I'm curious, where do you want to start with this one? So I thought I kicked things off with a nice, feel good story about one of the world's largest birds, which is the wandering albatross. And this species of albatross is big by just about any measure. Their bodies are about three and a half feet from bill to tail. They weigh twenty some pounds on average. But without a doubt, their biggest and most striking feature has to be their

enormous wingspan. Because you know, I'm sure you probably know this. Wandering albatrosses have the largest wingspan of any living bird. It's between eleven and twelve feet from tip to tip, and with wings that big, you know, these birds are

obviously built for flight. They've actually been known to circumnavigate the Southern Ocean up to three times in a single year, and one bird in particular is known to have traveled nearly four thousand miles in just twelve days, which is so impressive of course, but like, what's their secret for covering that kind of distance? Because you have to think that flapping a pair of twelve foot wings must take

an awful lot of energy. Yeah, there's really no way an albatross could do that by flapping like they'd be exhausted within an hour tops. Instead, albatross has actually used this method called dynamics soaring, and it allows them to a glide across these incredible distances without needing to flap their wings. And this works because the birds have this special tendon in each of their shoulders that helps lock

their wings into place. It's kind of a birdie cruise control, and once their wings are locked into position, albatross is simply glide along, swooping as needed to catch the wind and gradually rise back up. That's really cool, but I mean they never have to stop and take a rest or anything. No, not really. I mean it's hard to walk on land with that twelve foot wingspan. So apart from mating season, wandering albatrosses tend to stick to the

air as much as possible. And there is one exception though, if an albatross goes crazy and just eats way too many fish, they might need to take a break and float on top of the water for a while, you know, until they've digested. Well that's pretty cute, but I think you said you had a feel good story about albatross is like, well, what exactly does that mean? Yeah, that's right,

and it's actually about one albatross in particular. Her name is Wisdom, and as of this year, she's going to be sixty seven years old, which makes her the world's oldest known wild bird. She was born sometime in one but this Biologists started tracking her in nineteen fifty six, and since then, Wisdom has managed to rack up somewhere between two to three million miles in flying time, which is the equivalent of about four to six trips to the moon and back. Gosh, that's incredible, or at least

I think it's incredible. I mean, I actually don't know how long albatross is typically lived, do you. Yeah, I mean it depends on the species, but they live I guess for you to fifty years if they're lucky. Albatrosses are one of those rare species of birds and wild animals in general. I guess that sometimes live long enough

to die of old age. Well, I guess that's, you know, one of the perks of that wandering lifestyle, right, because I mean, if you're constantly on the move flying over an ocean, you pretty much have an unlimited food supply right there below you, and most predators wouldn't be able

to keep up with you anyway. Yeah, that's definitely true, and amazingly the biggest threats to albatrosses are natural disasters and also I guess the consumption of plastic, both of which Wisdom has managed to avoid for almost seven decades now. But perhaps the most interesting thing to me was that she's birth and raised over forty chicks over her long lifetime, and that includes her most recent one, which was hatched

just this spring. I've always thought albatrosses were really cool, you know, partially because of all the old sea myths around them, and also that epic collar ridge poem. But you know, nowadays they mostly make the news. You know, there's like YouTube videos and stuff that just kind of make fun of how silly they look when they're trying to walk on land, which kind of a bummer. I mean, even the name albatross, which is pretty awkward in its own right, Like it was apparently just taken from words

used to describe other sea birds. So it comes from algatas, which was I guess, this Arabic word for a sea eagle, and and then that was adapted into a Spanish word alcatraz, which was the word for a pelican, and then finally the word made into English. I guess this is the seventeenth century, and that's when we got the word albatross. Well. As poorly conceived as that name is, I think penguins might have it even worse. And that's because way back

when sailors actually used to call them ours feet. That's ridiculous, I know, and I mean you can guess why. Yeah, I mean, it's on account of their short legs and their feet being so close to their backsides. But you know, thankfully the Welsh did come up with their own name penguin,

which literally translates as white head. So I like, how both these names that are on such random characteristics, Like you know, if if I was defining a penguin the fact that it's bum touches his feet like that wouldn't be a defining characteristic, you know, or or that they

have white heads, like do penguins even have white heads? Well, I mean the white head name it was actually another are a case of mistaken bird identity, just you know, just like with the albatross, the Welsh applied the name penguin to their local great ac population, and you know, and ac being another kind of giant black and white see birds. So the thinking is that some sailors just mistook penguins for ox and the name just stuck. I mean, I think we've got to make emotion to stop letting

sailors name things because they always get it wrong. But I'm with you. Also, this is kind of random, but have you heard Benedict Cumberbatch try to say the word penguins, Like, for whatever reason, he always winds up calling them penguins

or penglings. It's just hilarious because he winds up doing all this like penguin content, like he was in this cartoon penguin movie and he did the narration for a BBC documentary about penguins, and the whole time he's just butchering the name, Like I have no idea how he lands these gigs or why no one corrects him. That's pretty hilarious. I had no idea, but I'm going to

YouTube it right after this episode. Should but you know, since we're on the subject of penguins or penguins if you prefer, we should really take a few minutes to talk about the largest of their kind, which of course our emperor penguins, and these big birds stand around four ft tall, which makes them the largest of the eighteen

penguin species found on Earth. And you know, also a far cry from the smallest penguin species, and that's the little blue penguin, which is only about sixteen inches tall, and that's when it's fully grown. I love that blue penguins are so little, like like they're almost like a pocket penguin. I just wanted to think, what I like stuff it into my pockets. But let's talk more about these emperors, Like is it just their size that sets the emperors apart, or are they different from other penguins

in other ways as well? Yeah, well, one difference is that emperor penguins don't do anything the easy way, like, for instance, other penguins in the southern hemisphere, they make the sensible decision to lay their eggs, you know, during the relatively warm summer months, and that's the same time when Antarctic cruizes make their rounds. But emperor penguins they actually wait until winter arrives to do their mating. And even then, emperors don't head for the warmth of the coasts,

you know, to lay their eggs. Instead, they do the opposite and head south into the harshest weather. That's not if I've learned anything from marsh of the Penguins. It's that emperors don't make things any easier on themselves during their incubation periods. Like I know, most penguin species will build nests out of like loose feathers or tiny pebbles

and keep their eggs there until they've hashed. But emperor penguins have a different system, right, Like, they incubate their one egg for the entire season, and they do it by standing still and I think balancing it on top of their feet. Yeah, that's right. And and this method, it really wouldn't work at all if it weren't for some pretty impressive teamwork on the part of their parents. Like because as soon as the mother penguin lay her egg, she high tails it towards the sea to feed and

build up her fat reserves. So for the next eight or nine weeks after that, the task of incubation is left to the emperor dads, who are able to keep their egg warm thanks to uh, this special loose fold of skin that contains a high concentration of blood vessels and this featherless patch of skin it kind of drapes over the egg at all times to to keep it from freezing. And that's why the father stands still for

months on end. I've actually read that male emperor penguins typically burned through nearly half their body weight while waiting for their mates to return. So this is actually one of those rare cases in the animal kingdom where the plumpest and pudgest males are also the most desirable. I mean that they're you know, easily the best equipped to

survive those long months without a meal. Yeah that's true, but you know, just so people know that we aren't body shaming penguins or anything, I want to mention that emperor penguins male and female, are actually quite athletic, or

you know, at least they are in the water. In fact, while most aquatic birds would be lucky to dive two hundred feet or so underwater, the emperor penguin is capable of diving a stunning undred feet or more, and the amount of time they can stay under is just as impressive. Like I read, the longest dive on record for an emperor is just under twenty eight minutes, so that actually is staying to me like the fact that then go fift hundred feet under the water that that's incredible. But

what is their secret? Well, it comes down to this amazing trick of physiology. So basically, they can metabolize oxygen at a slower rate during a dive than they would otherwise, like when resting. And this is how Live Science explains it. Quote, the penguins can switch between two modes of oxygen use, either starving their muscles or giving them an extra shot

of oxygen to help keep them working. And so emperors they actually have one other trick up their sleeves as well, which is that their brains have evolved to tolerate extremely

low levels of oxygen without shutting down. So not only can these birds control their flow of oxygen, they can survive on a reduced flow for periods of time that would result in brain damage or even death and just about any other animal alright, So clearly they're the Olympic divers of the animal kingdom, even if their parenting habits

are a little unusual. But now that we've covered everyone's favorite flightless water birds, what do you say we switch gears and talk about some of their land loving cousins. Calmed down for that, But first, let's take a quick break. You listen to part Time Genius and we're talking about the secrets of the world's largest birds. Okay, Gabe, So we've already covered the biggest fire a big swimmer, but inch for inch and pound pound, the planet's tallest and

heaviest bird actually does neither of those things. And of course we're talking about the ostrich here. Now. However awkward they might look, ostriches are actually built for land speed. In fact, they're capable of sprinting up to forty three miles per hour in the short burths, and that actually makes them the fastest bipedal runners on the planet. But it's not just their speed that's so impressive. Their endurance

is absolutely staggering as well. Ostriches are able to maintain speeds of thirty one miles per hour for up to ten miles at a time, which is you know why you never want to challenge an ostrich to a foot race, right we all know that old saying. Yeah, but you know, I did some reading on what makes ostriches such great runners, and it turns out the key to their speed is actually their toes. Really, so why is that? Well, so most birds have three or four toes on each foot,

but ostriches only have two. And while you might think this would hinder the birds balance in some way, the reduced number of toes actually greatly improves their running form. And as it turns out, two toed feet result in less mass at the end of each leg, and that's why ostriches can cover up to sixteen feet in a single stride. Six ft in a single stride. That's crazy, but you know, this whole two toe thing actually does

make sense. I I read somewhere that hoofed animals once had more toes than they do now, but gradually, over the course of millennia, their toes dwindled down to just two per foot, and they, I guess it, became some of the fastest runners in the world as a result of that. But that's really fascinating to me. Yeah, that is interesting. And you know, another thing I didn't realize is that people have been racing ostriches, you know, for sport,

like the way we race horses. And this has been going on for over a hundred years at this point, and weird are still The practice got its start in Florida, and that's where ostrich r of course it did, right, of course, and that's where ostrige race tracks first started popping up up and this was in the late nineteenth century. Tourists would pay fifty cents to mount these giant birds

and attempt to ride them. And you know, I say attempt because of course, writing an ostrich is easier said than done, right, Like, they don't take well to training, and it's next to impossible to make them run in a straight line. Not to mention how hard it is to hang onto the back of something that's moving at forty miles per hour. You know that there's actually a way around that problem now that there's this annual event at the Meadowlands called the Ostrich Derby, and I've never gone,

but it just sounds so great to me. So instead of writing the birds bare back, the jockeys are actually being pulled along in these brightly colored chariots and the whole thing is completely ridiculous, but it's got its own audience. Two thousand eighteen was actually the seventh year the races have been held, and you and I should really go to this. Oh yeah, we gotta get tickets next year.

I do want to mention though, that if you ever come face to face with a wild ostrich, running away is not in your best interests well, I mean, there's a good chance the ostrich will give chase. And remember these things can top out at like forty five miles per hour, so they will catch you right. And male ostriches can go to be I think nine ft tall and over three pounds, so you definitely don't want to

be on the receiving end of that. But uh, Ostriches are sometimes known to attack humans if they feel their territories being threatened, but if running is out, Like, what is your best bet for surviving an angry ostrich attack? Well, I looked into that because obviously ostrich attacks are such a common threat that it's really just irresponsible to not be prepared for one. And so this is the advice

I found in Discovery News. Instead of running away in terror, they recommend quote hiding, playing dead until the bird becomes bored and leaves, or standing your ground and fighting the ostrich off with a long pole. I like this idea of like fighting an ostrich off in a long pull, and it makes a lot of sense to me. Right, never go anywhere without your ostrich pole and you'll be just fine. That's good advice. But you know, before we move on from ostrages, I do want to talk about

a couple other ways that these massive birds tip the scales. So, for one thing, they have the largest eyes of any land mammal on Earth. Each eye is roughly two inches across, which means they're about as big as a billiard ball and even larger than the bird's own brains. Ostriches also have the largest eggs in the world, which I guess an average one comes in and about six inches in diameter and weighs more than three pounds, which is about as much as two dozen chicken eggs. Good lord, that

is one big omelet. Also, they're like people do eat them, right like Aurent Ostrich eggs a delicacy in some places, definitely, and a single egg provides quite a meal. I think it's roughly two thousand calories, so basically a day's worth. Wow. Well, I know there's at least one more giant bird we wanted to cover today. But if you don't mind, there are a couple of misconceptions about as are just that

have always bugged me. So I'd like to take a couple of minutes to set the record straight on those. And and actually I want to start with the idea that ostriches bury their heads in the sand. Sure, so I I remember this from mental class, but I remember thinking it was just an illusion, right, Like, ostrich heads are pretty tiny compared to the rest of their bodies, so if you're looking at them at a distance and they're like nibbling at food, it just might look like

their heads stuck in the ground. Yeah, that that's definitely true. But you know, actually some researchers think the real root of the myth has more to do with the nesting habits of ostriches. So the birds they have to dig some pretty big holes to stow those massive eggs you mentioned, and sometimes these holes are up to eight feet wide and two feet deep. And you know, it's during the

egg incubation period where all the confusion comes in. Like ostrich parents take turns rotating their eggs with their beaks, which you know obviously requires them to stick their heads pretty far into the nest. So you know, to an observer, it might look like the ostriches bury in its head in the sand, but that's actually not what's going on at all. That's really fascinating. I've never heard that. But um,

do you have like another austar smith you wonder? Sure? Yeah, yeah, And and this one it actually goes beyond just ostriches because it concerns the origin of an entire family of flightless birds known as rattites. So along with ostriches, the rabbits family also includes other big birds like EMUs and rays, as well as tiny flightless birds like Kiwi's. And for the longest time, researchers have assumed that rabbites never had

the ability to fly at all. And that's because we know that the wings of these birds are still functional rather than ornamental. So in Ostrich, for example, uses its wings like a rudder. Not only are they good for maintaining balance, they also helped the birds turn and break

when running at high speeds. So the thinking has been that, you know, since their wings don't seem to be vestigial, rabbites probably always lacked the ability to fly, and instead they simply evolved from other ancient flightless birds, which is really interesting. But I think we're saying is that theory is now being challenged. Is that right, right? Yeah, that

is right. More recent research suggests that the ancestors of rabbites spread to more isolated regions at a time when their wings were still used for flying, and you know, they likely did this as a way to avoid becoming the lunch of their larger dinosaur cousins. And you know, then as the dinosaurs died out and the continents began to separate, these now isolated birds found themselves at the top of the food chain and suddenly without the need

to escape to higher ground anymore. So once the need for flight was removed, so too was the need to stay small and you know, in order to be able to fly, and and that enabled the birds to independently evolve and become larger as well as flightless, which you know makes a lot of sense. And it also explains why far flung islands are home to so many big flightless birds, right Like, Uh, New Zealand had this twelve but tall, five pound moa bird and that was until

humans hunted it to extinction in the thirteenth century. And Madagascar was also home to this elephant bird. I'd never heard of this bird, but it's amazing. It was an astonishing ten ft tall and nine pounds. Yeah, and I mean jack birds can thrive in these islands settings, partially because there aren't any you know, predators for them to

worry about, aside from humans, right exactly. Well, with all that in mind, what do you say we talk a little about another member of the ratsite family, one of the world's biggest and most misunderstood birds, the island dwelling cassowary. Sure, so this is actually what I've been waiting to talk about. But before we do, let's take another quick break. Alright, mangoes, So you said you were excited to talk about castlewaries

just like I am. So would you mind giving us a quick rundown of their stats, because I somehow feel they're not as well known as ostriches and penguins and all these other birds we've been talking about. Yeah, that's definitely true. Cassowaries are large, flightless birds. They've got black and blue feathers and these big protective frills on the sides of their heads called casks. And there are only

three species in the world at this point. To live in the rainforests of New Guinea off the coast of Australia, and the third and largest one lives at the wet tropics. This is in the northern tip of Australia. You know. Birds of the third species are called southern cassowaries, and they typically weigh in around uh a hundred thirty pounds. They stand about six ft tall, and they're also fiercely territorial. If you intrude on their habitats, they'll happily slice you

up with their terrifying five inch long claws. Yeah, castawaries are famous for that kind of deadliness, and and with good reason, honestly, Like I was reading this article in Smithsonian Dot com and the author Jacob Brogan. He said that cassowaries resemble quote an ostrich as described by HP Lovecraft, or maybe a turkey fused with a veloci raptor. And I mean, if those descriptions don't sell you on how dangerous these birds are, consider that they're also sometimes nicknamed

murder birds. Yeah, and I mean, not only do they have those razor sharp clause you mentioned, they also have one of the strongest kicks of any animal. And they also have a tendency to charge their victims at up to thirty miles per hour and then they pounce on them by leaping up to five feet in the air. That's terrifying. And it also makes me wonder, like what if they remade the movie Birds with murder birds Like

that would be so much scarier. But you know, you mentioned before the break that cassowaries are somewhat misunderstood, and and I was hoping you clarify that a little bit. Yeah, well, it's just like with ostriches, you know, cassowaries aren't some kind of malicious human hunters like we might think of them. They're actually shy, peaceful, and pretty harmless when left to themselves, and in fact, a cassowary hasn't killed a human since nineteen six and even then that was only in self defense.

And you know, while over a hundred humans have been injured by cassowaries since then, we've actually done way more damage to them, like car accidents and habitat loss. Those kinds of things have decimated the southern cassowary population in Australia, and in fact, they're now list is endangered and only around fifteen hundred to two thousand or thoughts to be left in the wild at this point, and and it really it could be even fewer than that for all

we know. So one of the things I didn't get too that was curious about the castawary is is how did the locals feel about them? Because on one hand, I think the birds would figure into like culture and folklore, and on the other hand, people probably don't want these giant dinosaur birds just slicing up their neighbors, right, Yeah, that's a good point, and you know, I'd say it's

kind of a rocky relationship at the best. But the cassowaries definitely have their supporters, like in fact, you'll often see signs along the highways in Australia now that encourage motorists to be cassowary on right, And you know that's just to you know, get people to keep an eye out for the birds while they're driving. And as for folklore, castawaries have always been a big part of the mythologies

of Australia's rainforest tribes. For example, some locals believe that cassowaries are cousins to human beings, while others say that they are human beings who have been reincarnated as birds. And and actually this last part there, it's actually even inspired a bit of envy and in some of the female locals, like they'll joke that they'd like to reincarnate as female cassowaries, since it's the males of that species rather than the females who sit on all the eggs

and then raise the chicks that hatch from them. Well, you know, even apart from the stress free reincarnation for females, Australians do have another reason to stand up for the castagary cousins. Oh yeah, and what's that. Well, apparently cassowaries are masters of seed dispersal, which means they're a big part of why Australia still has as much rainforest as it does. And this is something I learned from a nat Geo article by Olivia Judson, so I just want

to go ahead and read her explanation of this relationship. Quote. As Australia's fruit eaters in chief, cassawaries are also chief architects of the forest. In the course of a day, a single adult cassawary eats hundreds of fruits and berries. Cassowary digestion is gentle, though, and does not harm the seeds which emerge intact, and so as a cassawary wanders through its territory, eating, drinking, bathing, and defecating, it moves seeds from one part of the forest to another, sometimes

over distances of half a mile or more. It also moves seeds up hills and across rivers. It's short, it transports in ways that gravity alone cannot by means that their fruit scented droppings, then, castawaries are a powerful vehicle for spreading seeds around. That is pretty awesome, And you know now that you mentioned it. That's something I read about large birds in general, like how the growth or

loss of rainforests is directly tied to their presence. I mean, the tallest, hardiest trees, those tend to come from bigger seeds, and without birds big enough to carry or swallow them, the odds of those seeds ever taking root is pretty slim. So in a very real way, the future of our rainforest depends on the existence of big, weirdo birds like

the Castle area like that. And you know, in fact, there was this one study down on a particular tree that only grows in a small region of Australia's coastal rainforest, and it went a long way towards showing just how crucial castawaries are for the tree's survival. And that's because, according to the report, without passing through one of these giant birds, only four percent of these tree seeds ever

take root and grow. But after passing through a castawary, a looping two were shown to grow into adult trees. I mean, that's remarkable, Like of those seeds that go through castuwaries end up growing into trees. But why is that exactly? That's the thing no one knows exactly. It's it's still one of the best kept bird secrets out there. And you know, because I like that idea of going out, you know, with an air of mystery. What do you say we just leave the discussion there and jump straight

into the fact off for it it? H yeah, okay, So I'll go first, because I can't bear going through an episode like this without at least mentioning the fastest predator on the planet, the peregrine falcon, And they have two unbelievable abilities. The first is their eyesight, and I read somewhere that their vision it's about twelve times that of humans, and they can actually use it to spot a smaller bird from up to five miles away. And once this prey is spotted, I mean it might as

well call it quits. Because peregrine falcons can fly over a hundred and eighty miles per hour when they hit peak speeds. That's terrifying. You know. I was at the beach and walking with like, um a trade of food and fries on it for for my kids, and this seagull just swooped down and picked up one fry off the plate, and I just remember being stunned at like how fast it was and how accurate, and the fact that like a falcon can do that at a hundred

eighty miles per hour is so scary to me. But you know, we talked about penguins earlier, but I wanted to note that while we think of penguins mainly being at the South Pole, there are definitely a few other spots where you can find them. In fact, the majority of the world's eighteen penguin species also live around New Zealand. But the reason I bring this up is because a few years ago there was this fossil that was discovered on what might be the largest penguin species to ever live.

It was probably over fifty million years ago, but the penguin was six ft tall and two twenty pounds. So even the Emperor penguin, which is gigantic, but seem tiny next to this thing that's scared to even think about. If if you search online for the bird hat craze of the late eighteen hundreds, or if you listen to the podcast Dressed, you will realize that this was a really serious fat At some point these bird hats. Women all over the US and Europe were wearing these hats

with feathers and even entire birds propped on top. Like I was reading an article from Popular Science that talked about how someone reported back after taking two strolls through Manhattan in eight six and on this stroll they counted seven hundred hats and five hundred and twenty five of

them were topped by feathers or just entire birds. So I mean the craze it actually got so big that several bird species became at risk of or even outright endangered, and a campaign to stop the practice launched, and much of this work led to the birth of the earliest auto bonn societies, as well as the first federal conservation legislation, which was the Lacy Act of n So do you know that one of the ways researchers can take a census of large birds on remote islands is from space?

And this is how researchers studying albatross in New Zealand and on islands off the coast of Argentina actually keep a better account of the birds. So it's with a little help from cameras on satellites orbiting the Earth, researchers can actually look at images and count the pixelated white dots to see how many albatrosses are there, and ends up being way cheaper and much less labor intensive than having to travel and count them all in person. Oh

my bad. Well, you know, they might be able to count birds from space, but one thing they won't be able to do is take birds into space. Why is that, Well, it's because birds need gravity to swallow. So unless we come up with another way to assist birds and swallowing, chances are you know, NASA is not going to be bringing any birds on future Shuttle launches, at least not anytime soon. Well, it just seemed wrong to me to do an episode on Big Birds and not at least

mentioned Big Bird himself. So, you know, Carol Spinney, who is the voice of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch. It turns out that if it wasn't for the encouragement of a mentor, he might not have made it past the first year of the show. When Spinney moved to New York City, he didn't have much money. New York City is obviously very expensive, and he didn't feel like he was fitting in with the rest of the cast.

So just a few months into the gig he mentioned this to Kermit Love, who's the man who built Big Bird, And you know, he said, I might be quitting, and Kermit encouraged him to give it some time, and in fact he told him you'll never get an opportunity like this again. It will get better given another mom and nearly five decades later, I'm pretty sure he's glad he got that advice. Yeah, I would say so, and I mean, because there's just no way I could beat a big

bird fact. I think you'll have to take the trophy for today. Well, I'll take that honor from your gives. So thank you so much and for all you out there. If we missed any bird facts, be sure to email us at part Time Genius at how stuff works dot com, where hit us up on Facebook or Twitter. Thank you so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the important

things we couldn't even begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay Blues years our lead searcher with support from the Research Army, including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eves. Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what

you heard, we hope you'll subscribe. And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave a good review for us. Do we do we forget Jason? Jason who