Speaker 1: Imagine the place where you can escape for a day,
Speaker 1: get immersed in a world of rooms, inspiration, and expertise
Speaker 1: where you can lay luxury, accommodation and kids cam fees
Speaker 1: from ninety five sets. Take ITTs are free to everyone
Speaker 1: and include all the attractions you've just imagined a day
Speaker 1: out at the kia Ikia the Wonderful every Day.
Speaker 2: Oh hey, it's your little brother who gets up at
Speaker 2: four thirty am on Christmas and jumps on your face
Speaker 2: until you're awake because it's time to unwrap Tonka trucks
Speaker 2: and drink Swiss miss with dehydrated marshmallows Ali Ward and
Speaker 2: it's the holiday's kiddos. So, after asking Twitter if I
Speaker 2: should take a week off or not, a lot of
Speaker 2: you said no, bitch, get to work. I need a
Speaker 2: new app and I respect that, but others convince me
Speaker 2: to just be like an alive human and hang out
Speaker 2: with my family and rest for a week. So you
Speaker 2: are getting an encore episode of Birds now. Some of
Speaker 2: you might even be listening to this to pregame for
Speaker 2: the annual Autobahn Society's Christmas Bird Count, which great news
Speaker 2: I just find out goes until January fifth. So if
Speaker 2: you're inspired after this episode to do some bird counting,
Speaker 2: a little bird watching, look up the Christmas bird count
Speaker 2: and join a group in your area. You can do that.
Speaker 2: You can meet new bird friends. And if you don't
Speaker 2: think you care enough about birds yet to go outdoors
Speaker 2: in head to toe fleece in the winter, just give
Speaker 2: me an hour, give me one hour. This episode's going
Speaker 2: to make a bird nerd out of you. Just wait. Okay,
Speaker 2: So this was recorded last year and compared to newer episodes,
Speaker 2: it has way fewer bells and whistles and by that
Speaker 2: I mean DJ horns, but the passion is all there.
Speaker 2: It has some bananas information you do not want to
Speaker 2: miss Holy turkey butts. I loved recording it. But first,
Speaker 2: a few things I just want to say up top.
Speaker 2: A quick thank you to everyone who's been listening and sharing,
Speaker 2: ologies and gramming and tweeting about it. Thank you to
Speaker 2: patrons at patreon dot com slash ologies for supporting the
Speaker 2: show submitting questions. You can join that club for a
Speaker 2: dollar a month. Thank you to anyone getting shirts and
Speaker 2: hats and tots at ologiesmerch dot com, and thank you
Speaker 2: for rating and subscribing. Thank you for the reviews on
Speaker 2: iTunes like a bird spotter hiding in the bushes with binoculars.
Speaker 2: I just delight in encountering your reviews and I read
Speaker 2: you a new one each week. John Lammers, thanks for
Speaker 2: saying Ali Ward is largely responsible for the strange looks
Speaker 2: I get walking to work, I hope, and bonus, the
Speaker 2: pins in the merch section of the site are a
Speaker 2: great way of silently self identifying as someone looking for
Speaker 2: the super nerdy conversation at your next social gathering. Thanks
Speaker 2: for that, John Lamers. Okay, onto the episode Ornithology Birds
Speaker 2: but birds, birds, birds, birds, boyds, triper chirps, flabby flappers. Now,
Speaker 2: the etymology of ornithology comes from the Greek ornis for bird.
Speaker 2: Pretty straightforward. Now, I don't know how you feel about birds.
Speaker 2: I've always had kind of like a distant wonder about them.
Speaker 2: I don't know if birds would let me pet them.
Speaker 2: I'm like, birds, do we even like me? And it
Speaker 2: turns out yes, birds can think you're cool, which was
Speaker 2: a surprise to me and maybe to you too. Okay,
Speaker 2: here's the last year's birds, So listeners, you send in
Speaker 2: questions before I record, and I was shocked that a
Speaker 2: lot of the questions were like, why is insert species
Speaker 2: such a dick? And why do birds poop on me?
Speaker 2: And what did I ever do to birds? Was essentially
Speaker 2: the gist of a lot of the questions. So we
Speaker 2: definitely have a pr problem here, and this episode, I
Speaker 2: think is going to turn you around because birds are Yes,
Speaker 2: they are insane, and they have weird buttholes stay tuned,
Speaker 2: and they can mock your voice and one of them
Speaker 2: can mimic the sound of a chainsaw. Also, they're dinosaurs
Speaker 2: that are alive. Now, if you were a bird publicist,
Speaker 2: you'd be like, I don't even know where to start
Speaker 2: with your personal brand, what is your deal? So let's
Speaker 2: let an ornithologist speak for them, if you will. Now,
Speaker 2: I've been aware of the more Lab of Zoology on
Speaker 2: the Occidental College campus ps Obama. Went there for a
Speaker 2: few years, and I was really stoked to get a
Speaker 2: green light for a really last minute visit last week
Speaker 2: with the collections manager at the lab, who oversees some
Speaker 2: really really rare specimens. They date back some of them
Speaker 2: as far as the seventeen nineties, and it's down to earth,
Speaker 2: dryly funny. He was sporting a baseball cap and a
Speaker 2: plaid shirt and a beard. He's like a mellow guy
Speaker 2: in a beef jerky commercial. And he's so passionate and
Speaker 2: knowledgeable about birds. I could have filled up three episodes
Speaker 2: just answering your questions. But we chatted for a bit
Speaker 2: and I asked all I could. And I feel a
Speaker 2: kinship with birds that makes me want to wink at
Speaker 2: them and say, hey, man, we're cool, So please enjoy
Speaker 2: James Maylee. I just say, like, tell me what you
Speaker 2: wait for breakfast? I'll check your levels.
Speaker 3: I had some tater tots, eggs and bacon.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a dope breakfast. And you are technically
Speaker 2: an ornithologist?
Speaker 3: Correct?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: So when did James become a card carrying ornithologist versus
Speaker 2: a bird thirsty fanboy?
Speaker 3: Since I believe the summer of two thousand and one
Speaker 3: is when I started getting paid to conduct research on birds,
Speaker 3: which I technically think is when you become an ornithologist.
Speaker 2: Is when they pay you, or when you get a
Speaker 2: certain certification.
Speaker 3: When you get paid.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, the first dollar exchange is and then you
Speaker 2: change your business card?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Have you been a burder for a long time? Side note?
Speaker 2: I edit from transcriptsive interviews done by artificial intelligence, and
Speaker 2: this transcribed to have you been a burger for a
Speaker 2: long time? Uh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been a burger for a long time. I
Speaker 3: was super into birds when I was a little kid,
Speaker 3: and then I didn't think birds were cool enough, so
Speaker 3: I didn't pay attention to birds for a while. Then
Speaker 3: I got back into birds in high school, and then
Speaker 3: in college I went full in.
Speaker 2: You went full Burdener.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: So like there was a period in junior high where
Speaker 2: you were liked birds. No, I like Miami Vice. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: birds are like whatever. We'll see you in a couple
Speaker 2: of years. Yep. Why did you start liking birds when
Speaker 2: you were a kid?
Speaker 3: Uh? My parents had feeders in the backyard and I
Speaker 3: would just spend hours staring out the window at the birds.
Speaker 3: And I was like two, so I was just really
Speaker 3: really an them. I love seeing the colors and just
Speaker 3: what they were doing. And I actually memorized all the
Speaker 3: birds that came into the feeder. And I tricked my
Speaker 3: parents into thinking I knew how to read, because they
Speaker 3: would point to a bird in the feel Good and
Speaker 3: I would say what it was. But I couldn't read
Speaker 3: yet how old were you, I don't know, like two something.
Speaker 2: So you were like mini bird genius. Yeah, James's uncle
Speaker 2: is a big burder and his dad is into birds too.
Speaker 3: I think they just thought it was natural to be
Speaker 3: into birds.
Speaker 2: Do you think it's in your genes?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I think so what does it mean to be a burder?
Speaker 2: Because I'm not hip with like bird culture, but I
Speaker 2: understand it is like the cult of ornithology. Like birders
Speaker 2: they're out there with the binoculars, they count how many
Speaker 2: species they see per year, Like what is that? Like?
Speaker 2: How do you? How do you get jumped into that gang?
Speaker 3: So there's a whole range of birders. There's casual birders
Speaker 3: who just like birds and they'll have feeders up in
Speaker 3: the yard or not and just look at birds and
Speaker 3: appreciate them and not even really care that much about
Speaker 3: what they're seeing and how many they're seeing. And then
Speaker 3: there's the other extreme, which are listers.
Speaker 2: Okay, so listers love numbers. They really focus on seeing
Speaker 2: as many species as they can in a given place
Speaker 2: at a given time. And for some reason during this part,
Speaker 2: I couldn't stop gasping because this whole subculture just totally
Speaker 2: delights and baffles me. Like I used to be a
Speaker 2: goth in college, and every once in a while we'd
Speaker 2: take someone who is not goth to a club and
Speaker 2: they would be like, what is happening. We're like, Oh,
Speaker 2: that guy smoking a cigarette out of a cigarette holder
Speaker 2: he fashioned from computer parts. Oh, he's just a cybergth Like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's a Victorian goth over there. So my introduction to
Speaker 2: this bird world is like if you took a jock
Speaker 2: and ducked him into a basement at a gothic industrial dungeon,
Speaker 2: and we're just like, oh, yeah, there's a lot to learn.
Speaker 3: And so anytime a rare bird shows up, they'll chase it.
Speaker 3: So they'd get in their car or get in a
Speaker 3: plane and fly there and try to see it. And
Speaker 3: there's people that have done that for the world. A
Speaker 3: big year for the world. I think the record was
Speaker 3: just broken. It was like six thousand something species. It
Speaker 3: was just insane.
Speaker 2: So they'll hear like a duck build spoon bill that
Speaker 2: is probably not a real bird, is like was seen
Speaker 2: in Monterey, and then they'll go try to see if
Speaker 2: they can catch that one before it flies somewhere else. Yep,
Speaker 2: that's like the Dave Matthews band. People are like fish people.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, pH fish people? I mean right,
Speaker 2: no one follows. So have you ever been have you
Speaker 2: ever been kind of like embedded with a group of
Speaker 2: a really zealous birders or what do you say? Your
Speaker 2: work is kind of like being a professional lister.
Speaker 3: I am not. I don't keep a list, Okay. I
Speaker 3: keep track of the birds that I see generally, and
Speaker 3: I know the ones I've seen and haven't seen. I
Speaker 3: really enjoy birds, and I just like watching them all
Speaker 3: the time, but I generally don't chase.
Speaker 2: Okay, So, who has seen the most birds is? Right now?
Speaker 2: The record seems to be one John Hornbuckle, who himself
Speaker 2: sounds like a type of bird, like a hornbuckle john
Speaker 2: boy anyway. Of the approximately ten thousand known species of birds,
Speaker 2: John Hornbuckle has seen ninety six hundred, according to a
Speaker 2: master list at surfbirds dot com. I also find it
Speaker 2: really curious in looking at this list that he's like
Speaker 2: the top burger in the world. But he's very blase,
Speaker 2: and his name is an all lowercase. Everyone else's name
Speaker 2: upper and lowercase umlats hyphens. He's just got one lowercase,
Speaker 2: like he entered it while he was on his phone,
Speaker 2: like in line of the post office, so casual. He
Speaker 2: describes himself as a victim of an obsession for birding.
Speaker 2: Like most addictions, it has its dangers, some of which
Speaker 2: I have fallen foul love, but it has given me
Speaker 2: much pleasure and purpose to life. I imagine John Hornbuckle
Speaker 2: standing at a window cupping a mug of hot herbal
Speaker 2: tea with these words running in a voiceover like a
Speaker 2: pharmaceutical ad. Now, as I started getting deeper into the
Speaker 2: cult of birding research, one story donkey kicked me right
Speaker 2: in the heart. The record for one lister lifelong top
Speaker 2: Birder belonged to a middle aged woman named Phoebe Snetsinger
Speaker 2: who was diagnosed with a fatal cancer, and so she
Speaker 2: turned her attention toward birding to lift her spirits. Get this.
Speaker 2: Her cancer went into remission, but she had developed a
Speaker 2: birding addiction that compelled her to travel around the world.
Speaker 2: At times in severe peril. She was attacked by five
Speaker 2: men with machetes and survived. I won't even go into
Speaker 2: the details. And she continued her tracks. She kept going.
Speaker 2: She missed her mother's funeral she missed her daughter's wedding
Speaker 2: in a quest to see more birds, and cancer never
Speaker 2: took her life. Rather, Phoebe was killed in a car
Speaker 2: crash in Madagascar. Well birding, Oh man, who oh? What's
Speaker 2: my point? People love birds? People love birds, which leads
Speaker 2: me to realize birds are very lovable. This is such
Speaker 2: a silly question. I'm sure you get asked this a
Speaker 2: million times all the time. Do you have a favorite bird?
Speaker 3: No, Okay, I don't, dang it. I have some birds
Speaker 3: that I'm particularly fond of, and mostly it's the birds
Speaker 3: that I've studied that I've gotten to know really really well.
Speaker 3: So there's these birds in California called Ridgeways Rail. They're
Speaker 3: only found in salt marshes in San Francisco, LA and
Speaker 3: San Diego and a few places in between. So obviously
Speaker 3: they're not doing great. They're endangered.
Speaker 2: James studied the Ridgeway Rail for his dissertation and Baller Alert.
Speaker 3: And actually I named them that you did. Yeah, that
Speaker 3: was pretty cool me and my advisor did.
Speaker 2: Okay, what was the what was the whiteboard like when
Speaker 2: you were coming up with brainstorming names to get to
Speaker 2: name a bird?
Speaker 3: Well, so the scientific name was already decided because that
Speaker 3: takes priority. But if there's no standardized common name, you
Speaker 3: can come up with whatever standard English name you want to.
Speaker 3: The scientific name is railis obsoletis whoa. So I didn't
Speaker 3: want to go with obsolete rail because that's a little
Speaker 3: too dark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little insulting. Yeah, I'm right here, I know.
Speaker 3: But they're almost gone, so maybe, and I went with
Speaker 3: Ridgeways rail, which is a mouth. People complain about it
Speaker 3: because it's hard to say, but a lot of bird
Speaker 3: names are hard to say, so yeah, it's it's just
Speaker 3: because they're not used to it right now.
Speaker 2: Ridgeway's rail is I by the way, I've said Ridgeway's rail,
Speaker 2: Ridgway rails. Ridgeway rails wrong several times. Ridgeway's rail is.
Speaker 2: It's cute as hell. It's like this chicken sized bird.
Speaker 2: It looks kind of like a cross between a duck
Speaker 2: and a pigeon, and it's the color of like if
Speaker 2: you were holding a yam and dropped it in potting soil.
Speaker 2: It's cute. And Robert Ridgeway was this really influential and
Speaker 2: amazing ornithologist. He was responsible for understanding a lot of
Speaker 2: avian diversity.
Speaker 3: He was the dude, and he has no bird in
Speaker 3: the US named after him, so I wanted to pay
Speaker 3: homage to him. And he described the first rails out here.
Speaker 2: Did you hear from his family at all?
Speaker 3: I haven't no, do they know? Maybe I don't shoot
Speaker 3: him a tweet? Yeah, I should try.
Speaker 2: I really really wanted the Ridgeway family to know about
Speaker 2: this bird, so I took a research tangent and I
Speaker 2: found out Robert Ridgeway had one child named Audubon, and yes,
Speaker 2: he named his child after a bird painter, and Audobon himself,
Speaker 2: an ornithologist, sadly died young in his twenties, no kids,
Speaker 2: so he had no grandkids. So then I dove deeper
Speaker 2: and I found out that Robert Ridgway's brother was also
Speaker 2: a bird painter who worked at the La County Natural
Speaker 2: History Museum. John Ridgeway lived in Glendale. So at nine
Speaker 2: pm on a Friday night, I started to gently stalk
Speaker 2: anyone with the last named Ridgeway from Glendale, California, and
Speaker 2: I sent a few Facebook messages and friend requests saying, Hey,
Speaker 2: I don't know if you're related to these ornithologists, but
Speaker 2: I have some information about a bird that was named
Speaker 2: after them. I even sent one message via LinkedIn. None
Speaker 2: of my messages were returned, but I tried. I was
Speaker 2: starting to watch the people related to the birdwatcher. That
Speaker 2: a birdwatcher I know anyway, would you say that he's
Speaker 2: kind of your ornithological hero a little bit?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean he was doing ornithology at a time
Speaker 3: that was really really different. But he has eye for
Speaker 3: subtle differences and different populations and understanding how birds live
Speaker 3: in this world. It was just amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think about studying birds and what you do, and
Speaker 2: I just can't imagine how big of a challenge it
Speaker 2: is when you see something and it'll just a light
Speaker 2: on a branch and then be gone. Is that like
Speaker 2: a fun game to you or do you ever get
Speaker 2: frustrated by that?
Speaker 3: I definitely get frustrated sometimes. But when you bird as
Speaker 3: much as I do, there's not you don't encounter that
Speaker 3: many birds that you can't identify pretty quickly from site
Speaker 3: and or sound. And so even if a bird lights
Speaker 3: on a branch for a second, if I get a
Speaker 3: good look at it, there's a pretty good chance I'll
Speaker 3: know what it is.
Speaker 2: You know what's up. Yeah, have you been through so
Speaker 2: many different pairs of binoculars to find the best kind.
Speaker 3: I actually don't own a pair of binoculars at the moment. Yeah,
Speaker 3: how is that possible?
Speaker 2: You're I know, it's ridiculous, Okay, listen, not this is crazy.
Speaker 3: So my first pair of binoculars, I really loved those.
Speaker 3: They they lasted for ten years. And I was robbed
Speaker 3: at gunpoint in Honduras and they stole it, stole my pair.
Speaker 3: So I lost my original pair, Oh my god. And
Speaker 3: then I was given a pair by somebody else and
Speaker 3: I left those on a table at the San Diego Zoo.
Speaker 3: Not as traumatic as story. But then we have binoculars
Speaker 3: here at the Moral Lab that i'd use. That I
Speaker 3: just use.
Speaker 2: What about the so in Honduras that was doing field work?
Speaker 3: It was? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is that probably? I'm sure that's the most dramatic thing
Speaker 2: that's happened, right or I mean the field work must
Speaker 2: take you all over the all of the globe, right
Speaker 2: it does.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I've spent quite a bit of time in Peru, Panama,
Speaker 3: Costa Rica, Honduras and Mexico, and those are the main
Speaker 3: places have been, and a lot of time in Alaska
Speaker 3: all over the state.
Speaker 2: When you're doing field work. What's a typical day like
Speaker 2: for you when you're not getting robbed at gunpoint, which,
Speaker 2: by the way, I'm so sorry that happened. That's horrifying.
Speaker 3: It was a while ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, field work for ornithologists can involve danger, clearly, and
Speaker 2: it sounds otherwise kind of like camping, but also carrying
Speaker 2: so much equipment and while taking notes on everything and
Speaker 2: data and observations, and you don't get much sleep. So
Speaker 2: on a recent expedition in Mexico.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we were usually just exhausted and would just build
Speaker 3: a campfire and you know, grab some tequila and just
Speaker 3: chill out for an hour or two. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So what is it about ornithology? Why do people go
Speaker 2: so crazy for birds? Well, some social psychology studies point
Speaker 2: two perhaps like a holdover instinct in humans just to
Speaker 2: hunt stuff. I get it. I get it. I've spent
Speaker 2: long hours, late nights on Amazon just looking up shit.
Speaker 2: People go on eBay to buy old VHS tapes, other
Speaker 2: people twitch for birds. Makes sense. Do you, as an
Speaker 2: ornithologist have a favorite movie about birds or least favorite
Speaker 2: movie about birds?
Speaker 3: I honestly generally don't watch movies about birds because it's
Speaker 3: usually so wrong. Like I've never seen the movie The
Speaker 3: Big Year, which is all about birds.
Speaker 2: Oh is it? I don't know that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's with Jack Black and Steve Martin and Owen Wilson,
Speaker 3: and it's all about these three birders who are trying
Speaker 3: to break the record for most species seen in the
Speaker 3: US and one year her an Aba area in one year.
Speaker 2: And you're just like, no, we got so much wrong.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I just don't want to, you know.
Speaker 3: It's like I don't even want to look because I'm
Speaker 3: like one of those I'm one of those people who
Speaker 3: when I'm watching a movie and the wrong bird calls
Speaker 3: in the background, I get super annoyed. So a lot
Speaker 3: of movies for me, I have to like just pretend
Speaker 3: that they're getting it right.
Speaker 2: Like the bald eagle, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 3: A classic one. These are red tailed hawks screech, yeah,
Speaker 3: instead of Well, bald eagles sound pretty stupid.
Speaker 2: So what do they sound like?
Speaker 3: Uh, they kind of sound They're like high pitched and squealing.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about the bald eagle being our
Speaker 2: national bird rather than the turkey? Was it Ben Franklin
Speaker 2: that said let's make the turkey or national bird.
Speaker 3: That's my understanding, although I don't really know if that's true,
Speaker 3: but that's what I've always understood, is that he wanted
Speaker 3: the wild turkey to be the national bird. I would
Speaker 3: actually rather be the wild turke, honestly, because turkeys are
Speaker 3: super smart. They might not seem it, but they are.
Speaker 3: They're very good at like outwitting us, and you know,
Speaker 3: people go to great lengths to shoot them because they're
Speaker 3: so smart and they have super good vision. I've lived
Speaker 3: in Alaska for long enough to see kind of what
Speaker 3: bald eagles really are. Yeah, which, if you ever go
Speaker 3: to Homer, Alaska, they've been there. Did you look at
Speaker 3: the dumpster behind the McDonald's because it was probably full
Speaker 3: of eagles?
Speaker 2: No, no, I have to go back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're really scavengers. They Oh my god, they're sort
Speaker 3: of There are some birds that only steal from other
Speaker 3: birds and other things. They're called klepto parasites. But bald
Speaker 3: eagles are not klepto parasites. They can catch their own food,
Speaker 3: but more often than not, I've seen them steal food
Speaker 3: and like I saw one steal a flounder from a river, Otter.
Speaker 3: It's like, come on that river Otter is just finally
Speaker 3: caught his dinner and you steal it. This is rude.
Speaker 2: That is a pretty American tradition. Yeah, in terms of
Speaker 2: that Ben Franklin story, Okay, so we were both a
Speaker 2: little bit wrong about this. He didn't push for the
Speaker 2: turkey to be the national bird. He just said later
Speaker 2: he threw a bunch of shade at it. In a
Speaker 2: private letter to his daughter, he said, for my own part,
Speaker 2: I wish the bald eagle had not been chosen as
Speaker 2: representative of our country. He said, he's a bird of
Speaker 2: bad moral character, and he does not get his living, honestly.
Speaker 2: Ben Franklin also said that, you know, the turkey is
Speaker 2: a much more respectable bird. It's a little vain and silly,
Speaker 2: but it's a bird of courage. So then I typed
Speaker 2: bald eagle plus dumpster into Google, and sure enough I
Speaker 2: found this all these eagles. So I don't know what's
Speaker 2: going on in this dumpster today. Something struck me as
Speaker 2: kind of eerily familiar about the voice, and then I
Speaker 2: realized it was just the honey tones of an Alaskan
Speaker 2: who goes by Pam as a US and she had
Speaker 2: a video that went viral a few years ago of
Speaker 2: a bald eagle and a fox chilling on her porch.
Speaker 2: I highly recommend just brewing yourself some decaf cozying up
Speaker 2: to her channel because it is like weird bald eagle diaries.
Speaker 2: It feels like you accidentally fell into someone else's dream.
Speaker 2: Are there any myths or misconceptions about birds that you're like,
Speaker 2: I got to go straight in there and bust that.
Speaker 3: That one bird brands is really aggravating because birds are
Speaker 3: incredibly smart. I mean, they're that smart on a level
Speaker 3: that we don't really appreciate. I feel like, so magpies
Speaker 3: can recognize themselves in a mirror.
Speaker 2: For more on this mirror self recognition test and its
Speaker 2: history and which animals look in it and aren't like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm looking good, listen to the episode on primates.
Speaker 3: There's not very many organisms that can do that, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, cats, dogs, we think of them as kind
Speaker 3: of smart, right, but they can't figure that out. But
Speaker 3: birds can. They're tool users. I mean, parrots are just
Speaker 3: unbelievably smart. The most famous one is a parrot that
Speaker 3: was studied by Irene Pepperberg, who studied this really beautiful
Speaker 3: African gray parrot and just incredible research done with that bird.
Speaker 2: Look this up and whoa oh shit, y'all. Okay, the
Speaker 2: Wikipedia for this bird just as Alex in parentheses parrot.
Speaker 2: He just has one name. He's known like he's Adel
Speaker 2: or Madonna. So Alex was an African gray parrot, and
Speaker 2: researchers said his name stood for Avian Learning Experiment. So also,
Speaker 2: when an acronym is made to spell a word, by
Speaker 2: the way, that's called called a backronym, which delights me
Speaker 2: because I always wondered when you see an acronym that's
Speaker 2: like kind of like ugh, Okay, I guess that works
Speaker 2: that there's actually a word for that. Backronyms are sometimes
Speaker 2: created to name laws, and the official title of the
Speaker 2: USA Patriot Act from two thousand and one is Uniting
Speaker 2: and Strengthening America by providing appropriate tools required to intercept
Speaker 2: and obstruct Terrorism. It spells USA Patriot. Okay, that's a stretch.
Speaker 2: So Alex was said to have a one hundred word vocabulary,
Speaker 2: this parrot, and the intelligence of a five year old human.
Speaker 2: So what they say was really exceptional is that he
Speaker 2: appeared to understand what he said so he could describe
Speaker 2: a key as a key, no matter what color or
Speaker 2: size it was. He's like, I know it's a key. Guys,
Speaker 2: you put a key in front of me, I'm able
Speaker 2: to say that's key. I also find this adorable. Alex
Speaker 2: called an apple a banari, which one linguist thinks is
Speaker 2: a combination of banana and cherry, which are two fruits.
Speaker 2: He was down with. So he was in that lab
Speaker 2: making up portmanteaus, and I think, frankly that makes him
Speaker 2: a poet. He was also a bitch when he needed
Speaker 2: to be. If he said want a banana and someone's like, okay,
Speaker 2: here's a nut, he quote stared in silence, asked for
Speaker 2: the banana again, or took the nut and threw it
Speaker 2: at the researcher, or otherwise displayed annoyance before requesting the
Speaker 2: item again. He's salty with those nuts, man. Now. Alex
Speaker 2: died really young for a parrot. He was only thirty
Speaker 2: one years old, and he died suddenly of heart trouble,
Speaker 2: they think, and a lot of well cared for African
Speaker 2: grays live like into their sixties. If you get an
Speaker 2: African gray parrot, you're gonna die with that parrot. They
Speaker 2: live kind of forever, so this is so precious. Just
Speaker 2: grab onto your hearts, you guys. Alex's last words where
Speaker 2: you'll be good, see you tomorrow, I love you, And
Speaker 2: they were the same words he would say every night
Speaker 2: when Irene Pepperberg left the lab feelings Speaking of birds speaking,
Speaker 2: are there any birds that in the wild have the
Speaker 2: most beautiful call to you?
Speaker 3: I would say the one that I'm most commonly heard
Speaker 3: as sandhill cranes. If you've ever been where there's big
Speaker 3: flocks of sandhill cranes, there was this incredible trumpeting sound
Speaker 3: that they do in the air, and they'll form these
Speaker 3: huge flocks in the winter. They would come through fairbanks
Speaker 3: in the fall, and their calls just, I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's haunting, it's really beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how about when? And I'm forgetting the name? Is
Speaker 2: it a murmur of birds?
Speaker 3: Murmurration?
Speaker 2: Murmurration? Can you explain at all how a murmuration works?
Speaker 2: A murmuration is a flock of birds like starlinks, in
Speaker 2: these liquid looking formations. They're just they're bogglingly gorgeous to watch.
Speaker 2: It's so weird. Look it up. It's like a living
Speaker 2: lava lamp in fast motion. It's like a screensaver someone
Speaker 2: would stare at in college while being on drugs in
Speaker 2: the dorms or something. But like birds, because I look
Speaker 2: at it and I'm like, oh, that's that's like witchcraft,
Speaker 2: Like that's so beautiful and crazy. Is it fluid dynamics?
Speaker 2: Is it? Is it like crowd thing? How do they
Speaker 2: do that?
Speaker 3: I have no idea.
Speaker 2: Okay, I could make something up a little info on that.
Speaker 2: So murmurations tend to happen when there's a predator around
Speaker 2: and the birds are evading it. And this is really cool.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter the size of the flock. Each bird
Speaker 2: is reacting not to the size of a huge flock,
Speaker 2: but just to the seven birds around it. They calculated this.
Speaker 2: They used physics. I don't know. Some Italian researchers came
Speaker 2: up with it. So it's like you're super in tune
Speaker 2: with your little posse and then a bunch of little
Speaker 2: posse's make up this one big, swirling, diving, massive monster posse.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's incredible. I know, I love watching it.
Speaker 3: It's amazing. I've seen it so many times and I've
Speaker 3: never seen them like crash.
Speaker 2: Did you care about dinosaurs when you were a kid,
Speaker 2: or do you care about the link that birds are
Speaker 2: dinosaurs or do you are you like dinosaurs? Can take
Speaker 2: it a hike, Take a hike.
Speaker 3: Okay, I love dinosaurs. When I was a little kid.
Speaker 3: Oh really, it was super into dinosaurs, and I didn't
Speaker 3: make the connection between birds and dinosaurs. And I don't
Speaker 3: think scientists had solidified that until I had gotten super
Speaker 3: into birds.
Speaker 2: M h.
Speaker 3: I like to remind myself every now and again. Then
Speaker 3: I'm going dinosaur watching.
Speaker 2: You're going dinosaur Yeah, correct me if I'm wrong. I
Speaker 2: feel like if Steve Jobs had to design an orifice,
Speaker 2: it would be a kloeca. So simple, it's one thing.
Speaker 2: Kloaca is his like the home button on an iPhone.
Speaker 2: It's really all you need. It's a one stop shop
Speaker 2: for liquid waste, solid waste, and then as bonus, it's
Speaker 2: also a sex portal. So birds get it on via
Speaker 2: what is called no joke, a chloacal kiss. They just
Speaker 2: smooch butts, sometimes only for a few seconds. Now, if
Speaker 2: you've heard gossip about like duck mating, well a lot
Speaker 2: of it might be true waterfowl gonads. Google it or
Speaker 2: you can go straight to an article on that geo
Speaker 2: called duck penises grow Bigger among rivals, which was written
Speaker 2: by a friend of mine, Jason Goldman, who's a wildlife journalist,
Speaker 2: great icebreaker topics. He covers some good ones. Now back
Speaker 2: to Kloika's why is it? Reptiles and birds are just
Speaker 2: like I got a single port here, don't worry about it.
Speaker 3: They have a whole different physiological mechanism for waste excretion
Speaker 3: than we do and reproduction. So yeah, they all have
Speaker 3: internal gonads too, which it would be weird if they didn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be yeah.
Speaker 3: But they have a really different sort of kidney system
Speaker 3: than we do, and so they are able to produce
Speaker 3: their waste sort of as one product and shoot it out.
Speaker 3: It's much more efficient. They're not as good at excreting
Speaker 3: salt from their blood with their kidneys as much as
Speaker 3: weed are. But a lot of birds have a salt
Speaker 3: gland in their head. Well, they have two salt glands
Speaker 3: in their head, so it isn't all out of one.
Speaker 2: They excrete salt from a gland in their head.
Speaker 3: They do.
Speaker 2: It's nothing crazy and weird about that or anything.
Speaker 3: Nope. Yeah, they're these like little mini kidneys that rest
Speaker 3: on the top of their skull, and they filter salt
Speaker 3: out of the blood. It's super high efficiency so that
Speaker 3: they can drink sea water, so like seabirds can drink
Speaker 3: the ocean water and it's no problem. But if you're
Speaker 3: ever on the beach and you see a gull with
Speaker 3: a with a droplet dripping off the tip of its bill,
Speaker 3: that's salt water that's excreted from their salt glands, so
Speaker 3: it comes out the nostrils and drips down off the
Speaker 3: hook of the bill.
Speaker 2: So there they have a n asshole, I guess. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so they're peeing out of their face pretty much, no
Speaker 2: big deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I wonder if they'll ever study that that method of
Speaker 2: excretion in terms of like a desalination, you know, like,
Speaker 2: will they ever look at that, like a maybe we
Speaker 2: can attach that as a backpack so seafarers can. I
Speaker 2: don't know, I'm applying for a patent. Moving on, I
Speaker 2: have a question about male and female birds. Okay, why
Speaker 2: is it that, at least in the human species, ladies
Speaker 2: were painting our faces, we're dressing up. Men are like whatever,
Speaker 2: I'm wearing beige again. Why is it in birds the
Speaker 2: men are very decked out and fancy, and the ladies
Speaker 2: are like, I'm a little bit bigger and I'm beige.
Speaker 3: So that's not always the case in birds. There are
Speaker 3: some species in which the females are much brighter than
Speaker 3: the males. Yeah, and they have a different mating system.
Speaker 3: So in the vast majority of birds, about ninety percent
Speaker 3: of species, they're monogamous. And in a lot of those
Speaker 3: there you can't tell males and females apart at all.
Speaker 3: Oh but in situations where there's really strong sexual selection
Speaker 3: on males that's put on them by females, and in
Speaker 3: a lot of those situations it's a there's a like
Speaker 3: a resource involved, so there's like resource defense. Polygyny is
Speaker 3: one system where a male with a like really bright ornament,
Speaker 3: who's like the strongest male defends a resource and all
Speaker 3: the females that come in can like mate with him.
Speaker 2: Is that that's polygyny. That's the opposite of monogamy.
Speaker 3: Nologeny is one male, multiple females, got it. Polyandry is
Speaker 3: one female multiple males. Oh and in those birds, the
Speaker 3: females are brighter than the.
Speaker 2: Males really yep, So whoever is kind of attracting the
Speaker 2: most mates is going to be as decked out.
Speaker 3: And the birds that have probably the craziest like difference
Speaker 3: between males and females are these birds that do a
Speaker 3: thing called lacking. If you don't know what lacking is,
Speaker 3: it's pretty fantastic. So what happens is these males they
Speaker 3: all gather together and display. They're not displaying to each other,
Speaker 3: they're displaying to any female that will come in.
Speaker 2: What you know, how, sometimes it's secretly awesome to have
Speaker 2: a cold because you're in quarantine. You're not allowed to
Speaker 2: breathe on anyone, so you can just sit alone and
Speaker 2: watch weird videos for like a week. So I just
Speaker 2: sampled a few minutes of lecking videos. It's l e
Speaker 2: kki n G and I want to go lick some doorknobs.
Speaker 2: I just want to get up in some Nike will
Speaker 2: and some of these videos, Oh, they're so good.
Speaker 3: And so they just do all these crazy elaborate displays,
Speaker 3: and the one who's looking the best and is displaying
Speaker 3: the best gets the females.
Speaker 2: It's a Miss Universe pageant, but with male birds pretty.
Speaker 3: Much Yep, it's really incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you have a favorite documentary about birds, Life
Speaker 2: of Birds, Yeah, yeah, the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Is it a series?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a six part series by BBC, narrated by
Speaker 3: David Attenborough. Of course.
Speaker 2: I watched Planet Ear at the Albatross portion where he
Speaker 2: was waiting for his mate to come back. I was like,
Speaker 2: should I be crying right now? Because I am?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you should be okay? Yeah.
Speaker 2: How did you feel about Portlandia's sketch about put a
Speaker 2: bird on it?
Speaker 3: I loved it. If you put a bird on it,
Speaker 3: people will buy it. I'm the same way. It doesn't matter,
Speaker 3: like if I see a product with a bird on it,
Speaker 3: that will buy it.
Speaker 2: Do people give you a lot of birdie gifts?
Speaker 3: Yes? All words? Yeah, yeah, books, everything.
Speaker 2: Do you ever get sick of it or you like,
Speaker 2: bring it on?
Speaker 3: I'm fine with it. Yeah, it makes it easier. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And everybody who would get me anything knows that. Just
Speaker 3: get them something with a bird you'll be thrilled.
Speaker 2: Okay. I have some questions from listeners. Are you ready?
Speaker 3: Yep?
Speaker 2: Warning some of these might be very stupid. Okay, those
Speaker 2: are the best kind.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 2: We're going to start with patrion listeners. They get first
Speaker 2: crack Okay, but before we take questions from you, our
Speaker 2: beloved listeners, we're going to take a quick break for
Speaker 2: sponsors of the show. Sponsors. Why sponsors, You know what
Speaker 2: they do? They help us give money to different charities
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Speaker 2: Okay, your questions. John Worster wants to know how fast
Speaker 2: do hummingbirds beat their wings? And how many calories a
Speaker 2: day do they need?
Speaker 3: I don't know the question the answer to either of
Speaker 3: those questions.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'll lock it up. I could google it, all right, John,
Speaker 2: I looked it up. Here's the deal. The fastest recorded
Speaker 2: rate is about eighty beats per second, but the average
Speaker 2: is around fifty three beats per second. And these tiny
Speaker 2: birds consume between three point one four and seven point
Speaker 2: six calories a day, which totally non scientific estimate. I
Speaker 2: think that's like a sip of soda.
Speaker 3: But I know that. So hummingbird's the smallest humming bird
Speaker 3: on Earth. The b hummingbird in Cuba has a heart
Speaker 3: rate of twelve hundred beats per minute, so super high metabolism.
Speaker 3: And they have to drink some nectar like pretty much
Speaker 3: as soon as they wake up. So I have hummingbird
Speaker 3: feeders at my house and they're out there well before dawn,
Speaker 3: the feeders covered. If they don't get some sugar water
Speaker 3: after a long night, they're they're dead.
Speaker 2: They're chasing that dragon.
Speaker 3: But they're also on a constant sugar high.
Speaker 2: No wonder why they're heart rate so high. Yep, at
Speaker 2: least it's not caffeinated at least not like a monster
Speaker 2: energy drink and your bird feeder. That would be insane.
Speaker 2: Jordan asked, wants to know why do Australian magpies attack
Speaker 2: people during swooping season?
Speaker 3: So I'm not familiar with Australian magpies, but I'm guessing
Speaker 3: that that's when they're nesting and they want you to
Speaker 3: get away from their nest or they're young. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's usually the answer to why a bird is swooping
Speaker 3: at you.
Speaker 2: That means get away from my babies. Yep, okay, so
Speaker 2: get away from their babies. That's how you stop that exactly.
Speaker 2: Paul Hanley wants to know what's the deal with Vox
Speaker 2: swifts and chimneys. Swifts and chimneys? Do you know anything
Speaker 2: about this?
Speaker 3: I do well. First of all, it's Vox's.
Speaker 2: Swift, thank you. It was Vaux, and I went for
Speaker 2: the fancy.
Speaker 3: Pronunciation everybody does. But the guy's last name was Vox.
Speaker 3: Who it's named after.
Speaker 2: Gosh, I tried. I overshot that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it's okay, it's common, very very common. They're
Speaker 3: super similar, but they're basically just Eastern and Western replacements
Speaker 3: for one another. So boxes are only in the west
Speaker 3: and chimneys are only in the east. You can tell
Speaker 3: them apart, but you almost never find them together, so
Speaker 3: you can pretty much know which one you're looking at
Speaker 3: depending on where you are.
Speaker 2: Zoe wants to know. Is bird watching a gateway drug
Speaker 2: to ornithology?
Speaker 3: It can be.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so watch yourself unless you want to become
Speaker 2: an ornithologist and start getting paid for it. Don't get
Speaker 2: into birding.
Speaker 3: It's not a bad gig.
Speaker 2: Michael Sandembaga said, how smart are crows because they definitely
Speaker 2: seem like they're watching me plotting something.
Speaker 3: Crows are incredibly smart, and they are watching and plotting something,
Speaker 3: so they can recognize faces of people.
Speaker 2: Mm hm.
Speaker 3: They all also have their own dialect, so they have
Speaker 3: their own voices and they can recognize each other by voice.
Speaker 3: They all sound the same to us, but they're not.
Speaker 3: There's some really really cool studies that people have done,
Speaker 3: especially in Seattle, like using masks to see if crows
Speaker 3: really can recognize individual faces and they can't.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. So they might be like, Oh, I
Speaker 2: know that guy. He comes out with with some leftover
Speaker 2: Freedo's after lunch, and I'd be like I hate that guy.
Speaker 2: He's always by my nest. Yep, totally, So don't fuck
Speaker 2: with a crowd. No, no, don't do it. They know
Speaker 2: you like that guy. Blake Hawkins wants to know is
Speaker 2: there any hierarchy of intelligence of birds? Is there one
Speaker 2: species that extremely intelligent and others that are maybe not
Speaker 2: so much.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's definitely true. So the corvids, which are the
Speaker 3: crow's ravens and J's magpies, those are among the smartest.
Speaker 3: They're probably the smartest songbirds pass erings, and then parrots
Speaker 3: are incredibly smart. Birds like American coots.
Speaker 2: Just the fact that it's called an American coot.
Speaker 3: It's a coot, I know. So if you ever look
Speaker 3: at a coot, and they're very common and most people
Speaker 3: just don't pay any attention to him. They have a
Speaker 3: huge body and a tiny h they're just they're cute,
Speaker 3: but they're really stupid.
Speaker 2: They sound like you're drunk uncle at the holidays who
Speaker 2: makes sexist remarks that everyone ignores American coot?
Speaker 3: Pretty much?
Speaker 2: Okay. This next question is from the Facebook group Can
Speaker 2: owls really turn their heads one hundred and eighty degrees?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: Why they have really flexible necks. Okay, yeah, but they're
Speaker 3: also really adapted at so owls have ears at different
Speaker 3: heights on their head.
Speaker 2: Oh one's over here, one's over there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so one's higher than the other. And that way
Speaker 3: they can like more, they can better get sound. They
Speaker 3: can like triangulate sound so that if they hear like
Speaker 3: a little mouse that's running behind them, they turn their
Speaker 3: head all the way around. Then they can hear exactly
Speaker 3: where the mouse is and go get it.
Speaker 2: They don't look wonky, No, they don't. You know, they
Speaker 2: don't look like like sloth from Goonies or anything.
Speaker 3: Right, if you open but if you have a dead one.
Speaker 3: We had one that just got hit by a car
Speaker 3: not too long ago, well a couple of years ago.
Speaker 3: But and if you open it up, yeah, you could
Speaker 3: see the flaps on either side are completely different heights. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's neat.
Speaker 2: Oh, I had no idea. What's the most absurd bird? Ever?
Speaker 3: I think the most absurd bird and also a little
Speaker 3: bit scary, is called a horned screamer. It's a great
Speaker 3: name and I would recommend everybody to look it up.
Speaker 3: There's some great YouTube videos of horn screamers screaming a.
Speaker 2: Horn screamer sounds like the worst guy to frat party.
Speaker 3: Yeah, seriously, you would not want to go dressed up
Speaker 3: as a horn screamer to a Halloween party. But they
Speaker 3: have a giant, bony feather coming out of their head,
Speaker 3: so they're sort of like a unicorn in that respect.
Speaker 3: But they're related to geese sort of. But they have
Speaker 3: a bill like a vulture, and their feet aren't webbed.
Speaker 3: Oh no, and they scream you can hear them for
Speaker 3: over a mile.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And they're super territorial, so they have these huge wingspurs
Speaker 3: on their wings that they like try to kill each
Speaker 3: other with.
Speaker 2: Okay, hell, yes, I look this up. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 2: So the visual of this is like two angry, hairy
Speaker 2: toddlers screaming at each other, honking like ping pong back
Speaker 2: and forth, but each with a single bouncing like a
Speaker 2: needle like spike emerging from the top of their heads.
Speaker 2: So whatever you're picturing in your mind, trust me, the
Speaker 2: reality is weirder. You must get up in this. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna get a big horned screamer tattoo right across my
Speaker 2: back and shoulders. Lily Masa wants to know why do
Speaker 2: we call people chickens when chickens are actually mean and
Speaker 2: cocky as fuck.
Speaker 3: That's a good question. I don't know. Chickens are kind
Speaker 3: of scared generally. I mean, they're a little flighty.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's why they're so mean. It's because they're scared.
Speaker 3: Well, I would say roosters are mean hens not so much.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I'll look into that, all right. I looked
Speaker 2: into chicken etymology and I didn't come up with much,
Speaker 2: but I did find so many entries on English as
Speaker 2: a second language forums asking if I mid quote one directly,
Speaker 2: I would like to know that what is meaning don't
Speaker 2: be chicken? And how can use it? It's a good question. Now,
Speaker 2: to be fair, I'm not a French as a first
Speaker 2: language speaker, and I have always wondered why if someone
Speaker 2: is mad at you in France they call you a duck,
Speaker 2: because canard in French is duck, and my mom always
Speaker 2: told me if someone calls you a duck in French,
Speaker 2: you're really you're in some hot water. Now I just
Speaker 2: found out looking at this non French speakers often mishear that,
Speaker 2: and what they're really being called is a conard, which
Speaker 2: in English does not mean duc it is more. It's
Speaker 2: more into a kloka is what that means. I think
Speaker 2: we should start calling people kloe because oh this is
Speaker 2: so sad. Sill Ryan wants to know. There are some
Speaker 2: birds the partner for life, say one of them dies,
Speaker 2: does a surviving bird repartner, and is there like a
Speaker 2: tinder for birds.
Speaker 3: The surviving partner does re it finds a new mate. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 3: so they're you know, it's all driven by the desire
Speaker 3: to reproduce, and so you're not gonna have a bird
Speaker 3: that suddenly turns that off even though it's mate died.
Speaker 3: And a lot of birds, ah seem like they made
Speaker 3: for life, but they don't. They actually really switch partners
Speaker 3: every year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we've been led wrong. Like I've heard that
Speaker 2: penguins are maybe not monogamous.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so most monogamous birds are not fully monogamous. They're
Speaker 3: most most of them are promiscuous, so they're socially monogamous,
Speaker 3: but they're promiscuous. There's some birds that do this to incredibly,
Speaker 3: to an absolute extreme. There's some fairy wrens in Australia.
Speaker 2: Huh.
Speaker 3: I think they're called superb fairy wrens.
Speaker 2: Side note the bird names are killing me.
Speaker 3: It's so out of control that sometimes not a single
Speaker 3: egg and a female's nest was laid by her or
Speaker 3: was sired by her partner, so that every single egg
Speaker 3: that's in her nest she copulated with another male.
Speaker 2: Get a girl, and but it looks as though she
Speaker 2: is partnering with and rearing them with one male.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Does the male know about this?
Speaker 3: I mean he must because he's he's doing it too. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's doing it too with every other female in the area.
Speaker 2: So it's kind of like a like a new age.
Speaker 2: We're together, but we're not shackled to one another.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Do you think that people use birds and their monogamy
Speaker 2: or lack of monogamy to justify their own behaviors?
Speaker 3: Definitely?
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah. Heather Ennis wants to know why do I
Speaker 2: always see pigeons with one clubbed, stumpy foot. I think
Speaker 2: maybe that that isn't an accurate sample population.
Speaker 3: Uh, it's for a couple of reasons.
Speaker 2: I love that he has an answer for this.
Speaker 3: So often they'll get something stuck on their foot.
Speaker 2: Like spoiler alert, it was a tangly hairball, so.
Speaker 3: We caught it and pulled the hairball off it. But
Speaker 3: I think that's it. Their feet, They're all They're always
Speaker 3: walking around on the ground, yeah, getting into things, and
Speaker 3: so I think, yeah, they just get into something that
Speaker 3: tangles on their foot and then they lose it.
Speaker 2: Street birds many Samara wants to know our bird cage
Speaker 2: is cruel and should we give them big averies or
Speaker 2: just not have them as pets.
Speaker 3: I think we should just not have them as pets. Yeah,
Speaker 3: bird cages are are cruel. Birds meant to live and
Speaker 3: fly around the world. It's like we saw something that
Speaker 3: has evolved to fly and decided they shouldn't anymore. Keep
Speaker 3: them in her house. It's just kind of rude.
Speaker 2: I used to go on this walk, beautiful house, beautiful neighborhood,
Speaker 2: and it had this one circular window up on the
Speaker 2: top floor and there was a bird cage next to it,
Speaker 2: and I for like a year or two I walked
Speaker 2: past and I was always like, man, what's that bird?
Speaker 2: Thinking that bird's like, come on man, like in a mansion, granted,
Speaker 2: but in a cage behind the circular like porthole window.
Speaker 2: And I was like, man. Then one day I walked
Speaker 2: by and there was a the window was open and
Speaker 2: there was a note taped to the gate that said
Speaker 2: lost bird, like.
Speaker 3: The bird made it. Yeah, finally like hell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, that bird was like waiting for these wings
Speaker 2: to grow back. I'm out of here. And I got
Speaker 2: like kind of happy, and then I was like, dude,
Speaker 2: you're never getting your bird back. Ginger Larsen wants to
Speaker 2: know what can we learn from birds?
Speaker 3: So much? I mean there's so many they can do,
Speaker 3: so many incredible things that we're not even close to
Speaker 3: being able to.
Speaker 2: Do, Like fly, for example, with their arms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like fly, and they can migrate these incredible distances.
Speaker 3: They can navigate using the stars. I mean, there's so
Speaker 3: many things that they have learned how to do and
Speaker 3: a vault to be able to do that we can't.
Speaker 3: And you know, we rely on these various systems to
Speaker 3: be able to do what we can right.
Speaker 2: Cough the internet and cell phones cough.
Speaker 3: But they can fly away better than we can.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so you can learn. We've already learned so
Speaker 2: much about aviation from birds. I mean, hello, every time
Speaker 2: you get an airplane, you're like, hi, it's a big
Speaker 2: metal bird. Everything from the two wheels at the bottom
Speaker 2: to like the wings we've just made a big bird.
Speaker 2: Alison Throckmorton wants to know does rice make some bird's
Speaker 2: stomachs explode?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, that is a myth.
Speaker 3: Oh it is a lot of birds eat rice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so if you're having a wedding, you can still
Speaker 2: get pelted with rice.
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Oh who started that?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean we can eat dried rice
Speaker 3: and it doesn't make our stomach explode.
Speaker 2: They don't have like a crop or something where it
Speaker 2: expands or.
Speaker 3: I mean they birds can eat like bones, so they
Speaker 3: can handle some rice.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's good to know. This question was asked by
Speaker 2: Darren Ficcirellirelli. Darren Ficarelli. Sorry, sorry, what is the worst bird?
Speaker 2: And why is it? A Canada goose? I feel like
Speaker 2: they came into this with an agenda.
Speaker 3: They really did, and I completely understand. Canada geese are
Speaker 3: just so mean. They're really really mean.
Speaker 2: But Canadians are so nice.
Speaker 3: Canadians are nice. It's not their fault that the geese
Speaker 3: are something mean. The geese they're just really productive and
Speaker 3: they have adapted to us by nesting in all these parks.
Speaker 2: And are they just entitled?
Speaker 3: Yeah, they have their park to themselves and they don't
Speaker 3: want you messing with it, and they're gonna bite you
Speaker 3: and hiss at you and chase you.
Speaker 2: Two last questions, what is one thing about your job
Speaker 2: that you don't like the worst part of your job?
Speaker 2: And then we'll ask with your favorite part more than
Speaker 2: your favorite moment on your job has been what's the
Speaker 2: shittiest thing about being an orthologist? Is it getting pooped on?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Okay, I don't mind that at all. Okay, I would
Speaker 3: say the worst part is when I find and a
Speaker 3: beetle infestation in the collection. Oh, there's nothing that makes
Speaker 3: me feel worse than that. It's like when I go
Speaker 3: out in the collection and I find damaged specimens kind
Speaker 3: of regardless of how they're damaged, it just makes me
Speaker 3: so mad and it just ruins like my week. I
Speaker 3: get so angry. I like tell John, and.
Speaker 2: John is another ornithologist and an evolutionary biologist that you
Speaker 2: will meet in a few episodes. Very cool dude.
Speaker 3: Then he gets angry and yeah, So it's that that
Speaker 3: is by far the worst, And that's sort of like
Speaker 3: a minor thing. It doesn't happen a lot, but it
Speaker 3: really is. Like my job as a collections manager is
Speaker 3: to like maintain the integrity of this collection, and like
Speaker 3: that's the job. And when I find that that's not
Speaker 3: taking place, it just makes me so angry. So then
Speaker 3: I dump a bunch of mothballs in there and freeze
Speaker 3: all the birds so they kill everything.
Speaker 2: But you're just like her, it's like Hulk turn into Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, I basically should just leave because I'm just
Speaker 3: going to be such a grouch for the rest of
Speaker 3: the day.
Speaker 2: And then what about your favorite thing about what you do?
Speaker 3: I think the favorite my favorite thing about what I
Speaker 3: do is I get paid to study birds. I mean,
Speaker 3: just to be able to do that and like get
Speaker 3: paid to do it.
Speaker 2: It's incredible, especially since some people are spending literally their
Speaker 2: retirement chasing birds around the globe. And you're like, negative,
Speaker 2: I'm getting the money.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like I would do this. I do this
Speaker 3: in my free time. I actually get to get paid
Speaker 3: for it. It's great.
Speaker 2: Don't tell your bosses that.
Speaker 3: Well, they do it too, so it's okay.
Speaker 2: So if you're like listening to this at the bus
Speaker 2: stop and you see a bird, just say to it, hey, man,
Speaker 2: I know more about your butt and your brain than
Speaker 2: I ever thought I would and birds. They're pretty cool
Speaker 2: little muffins. So to watch any of the links that
Speaker 2: I mentioned, you can go to aliward dot com slash ologies,
Speaker 2: where I kind of like flacidly post a blog a
Speaker 2: lot of links up there. Hopefully it'll be up by
Speaker 2: the time you're listening to this. I don't know, guys,
Speaker 2: it's my birthday and I'm I'm recording this outro in
Speaker 2: my closet because the sound is good here. I just
Speaker 2: I want to get this episode up and so that
Speaker 2: sounds so pathetic, but I'm having a pretty good time.
Speaker 2: What was gonna say? Oh yeah. Also, you can see
Speaker 2: inside the More Lab of Zoology on Instagram. Their account
Speaker 2: is mlz birds and they sometimes give tours of a lab.
Speaker 2: They're doing one through Atlas Obscura November eleventh here in La.
Speaker 2: If there are still tickets left, get on it. If
Speaker 2: you ever want to submit questions for upcoming ologists patrons
Speaker 2: on Patreon get first Crack so you can support there.
Speaker 2: You can also join the Ologies podcast group on Facebook.
Speaker 2: It's a good group of people, So if you're a dick,
Speaker 2: don't don't join. But if you're but if you're not,
Speaker 2: then hop into it because it's a party. I'm Ali
Speaker 2: Ward or ologies pod on Twitter. I'm also on Instagram
Speaker 2: and ologies and Ali Ward, So stay tuned for next week.
Speaker 2: I'm not quite sure what episode it's going to be yet.
Speaker 2: I'll figure that out later, but it'll probably be full
Speaker 2: of stupid questions for smart people, because honestly, I kind
Speaker 2: of think that they secretly like it, and I don't
Speaker 2: want to know if that's not true. To be honest,
Speaker 2: all right, ologyites by pacodermatology, cryptozoology, lithology andology, meteorology, apology, seriology,
Speaker 2: and philidology. I guess this was before I started saying
Speaker 2: bye bye mhm