I reckon they could be more interesting here than beetles About 10,000 species of which 200 or so have recently become extinct. Many others are 'on the cusp', and maybe we'll get to that later. They are fabulous by way of flight, with a few undertaking absurdly long annual migrations. Their bones are highly evolved towards minimal weight/strength. They have the only 'two-way' lung ventilation system yet evolved on Earth. As dinosaur remnants, they have found ways to 'make a go of it' across more environments than any other critters. Sometimes by trading sky flying for water flying (penguins). Must be good to be a bird, because some species put huge efforts into mate attraction and choice. In all these ways, there is nothing like birds. And so, we love them, watch them and sometimes eat them. Following the novel lung thing, they vocalize with fabulous variety in sounds that humans can hear. Elephants and crocodiles are too low, and bats are too high. So again, for this we love birds, and somehow are less impressed by sounds made by insects and frogs in our hearing range. Viewed strictly as helping humans, some birds limit populations of insects competing with us for crops. But some birds also directly compete with us for crops, so it is complicated. A few bird species eat mosquitoes, my least-favorite animal group, so we had better not snuff those (by windmills, windows, cats, or chemicals etc.).. A few bird species now close to extinction have attracted conservation efforts (money). I expect those to fail, in general. One that has received (I don't know how many) millions$ is the California Condor. It is the most obnoxious bird you could imagine. Yet I don't want them to all die. Yet, they will, because gun hunters in the American southwest can't manage to spend a bit more for bullets that don't contain lead. California Condors are done, and the money spent to save them probably won't help much in conserving other bird species, because Condors are so different. Anyway, birds are as they are, and were what they were, and in the future, will be something less. What are your thoughts about birds?
More than a few science fiction writers have suggested bird-species will replace primates as the next, dominant species. So walking the dogs, the parking lot Killdeer had a lot of fun. Bob Wilson
One family (with crows and ravens) has some extremely clever examples, with not many grams of brain. Elsewhere, nest weavers that actually tie knots.
I'm sure there are parrots and myna birds that speak better Japanese and Chinese than both of us. Best of all, they'll work for beetles. Bob Wilson
An African Gray sang opera for Johnny Carson. It may have been the Most Funny Thing Ever, but seems not to have made any highlight DVDs.
Where we are in the 'burbs, seems to be a lot more varieties of birds these days. Not sure if it's location (a bit further outa town), global warming (more species coming from the South), or I'm just paying more attention. I suspect all three.
They host a surprising diversity of birds, apparently because planted trees are more varied than one might expect in the local climate. A more classical view of urban forests is just pigeons and sparrows. if your city streets are all planted with the same trees, this may result. Plus, there are windows, wires and cats aplenty. We expect this to reduce numbers, but they can increase diversity at a particular level of ‘take’.
KennyGS, woodpeckers bash holes in trees to get at beetle larvae that harness fungi to decompose wood. As such it is 'love' for me. How these beetle larvae obtain enough nitrogen to obtain enough nitrogen to make a go of it is nothing short of magical. The woodpeckers protect their brains (such as they are) with internal airbags. Again, nothing short of magical. You can say pecker all you want. Like this: pecker PECKER PECKER Another bird (sapsucker) damages trees just enough to make sap leak out. Some of that ferments to ethanol and sapsuckers get high. Earth lost its dinosaurs, but birds as their surviving descendants are doing their best to keep things interesting
We had some sorta sapsuckers that practically ringed our big birch tree. They systematically punched holes like collars on the trunks, to the point that some portions of the tree croaked, we had to get sections pruned.
When I first moved to work at a gold mine in NV, there was very public concern as we documented killing more migratory birds than all of the other mines in NV combined. Very shortly it was discovered that this was because we were the only gold mine not lying about how many birds we killed each year. While I was there, we tried shotguns, (blanks) cannons, (likewise) owls, (silhouettes, animatronic, and live) nets, and tents in vain attempts to distract birds over 12 years. Our management consistently rewards employee innovation, so it did get solved. Some guy was watching his children play in the ball pit at a McDonalds Play Place and noticed that the flat mat balls did not reflect. One theory about how the birds always found the water in our cyanide ponds was that they saw reflections. Soon a demonstration pond was filled with blue, yellow and red balls. and indeed no birds came to it if enough layers of balls covered all angles of reflection. When the employee presented his solution to management, it clearly worked but left them with two problems: 1) Someone had stolen a LOT of McDonald's play place balls, and you can't offer to give them back once you have floated them in cyanide. 2) to cover all our ponds we were going to need a LOT more balls. Management solved both issues by meeting with the local McDonalds and confessing. They offered to buy ALL new play place balls if the manager would give them the name and address of the company that made them. We bought the balls and had another, larger batch made in black (the black balls allow the ponds not to freeze in the winter as bad) Even some 5 years later when I looked out over the cyanide ponds (my window had a good view) I would see one in a thousand red, blue or yellow ball in among the black. They are not killing birds in NV anymore. Armor Balls floating cover: hollow plastic balls
"you can't offer to give them back once you have floated them in cyanide" No, I guess not eh? Gold, as much as we love it, is an environmental train wreck in the extraction phase.
Back to birds. Let's just say you want to recreate a tropical forest in a cleared area. Best way seems to be: Plant a few fast-growing 'anything' trees Birds will eat seeds (from somewhere else) and sit it your trees Birds will poop those seeds (along with nitrogen, 'cause we're talking about poop) Tree species diversity magically develops Does not cost much Birds do the work Very clean, unless you are standing under them
i have taken to birdwatching the past few years. we have a nice variety of cardinals, titmice, chickadee's, woodpeckers, grosbeaks, bluebirds, hummingbirds, hawks and a few more i can't think of right now. i like how the woodpeckers will fly to the feeder for a seed every now and then, and go back to work on our old norway maple.
absolutely. since i retired, it has become a favorite hobby. can get expensive though, these birds don't eat like birds!
