Sparrowhawks v. Pigeons

Birders mainly are mild-mannered.  Mostly we agree with one another.  We are in favor of preserving as much wild habitat as possible for birds, we are polite to one another even when disagreeing about what kind of warbler that is over there in those bushes, and hardly ever get into fisticuffs with one another.

Occasionally however, disagreements erupt.  One such recurring disagreement is between pigeon fanciers and everybody else.  This disagreement arises because many species of hawks, accipters and falcons are pigeon fanciers also.  They enjoy eating them.

The latest such disagreement rages in Scotland.  Pigeon lovers want Scottish Sparrowhawks removed from about 40 pigeon lofts on private land kept by people who race pigeons.

First, we’d better define what we mean by a Sparrowhawk.  The term is in common use around the world and often describes different raptor species.  And, as we told you before, we have a friend who divides all raptors — except eagles — into two species, “Sparrow Hawks” and “Chicken Hawks,” the distinction based solely on whether the raptor is large enough to carry away a full grown chicken or only a little sparrow — our friend takes an unscientific delight in naming the birds he sees.

In Great Britain, the word “Sparrowhawk” describes Accipiter nisus. Larger than Kestrels, they are sometimes confused with Peregrine Falcons or Goshawks.  Like those species, the females are larger than the males. The females are large enough to take a pigeon but the males manage only smaller song birds.

This week we had news that an attempt is to be made in Scotland to relocate Sparrowhawks which, allegedly are preying on about 40 lofts of released racing pigeons.  At a cost of several hundred thousand pounds, the project is causing some controversy.  Experts estimate that Sparrowhawks take fewer than one percent of the pigeons, that they will simply find their way back, or that other hawks will immediately move into the vacated ecological niche caused by the removal.  The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals also weighed in, noting that Sparrowhawks are often injured when trapped.

But The Scottish Homing Union, representing about 3500 pigeon keepers is delighted.  One of its leaders reports that watching a hawk kill a pigeon is “totally devastating. . . It takes about 20 minutes to kill a pigeon and it can be horrific.”

We accept the testimony of that pigeon lover.  Except for one piffling point: If she loves pigeons so much, why did she stand by and watch for twenty minutes as one was tortured to death, rather than just shoo the Sparrowhawk away?  Nevertheless, we believe her.  Oh, one other minor point: What exactly takes so long for a hawk to dispatch a pigeon?  We don’t know about Scottish Sparrowhawks, but the hawks around here don’t take nearly that long.  One bite removes the pigeon’s head from its body as efficiently as a guillotine.  The pigeons we have seen taken didn’t live 20 seconds, let alone 20 minutes. Nevertheless, if her testimony is good enough for the Scottish Government, it is good enough for us. Send those Sparrowhawks to Siberia.

How else can pigeons ever expect to get to the top of the avian food chain?

Spatuletail Hummingbird

© Roger Ahlman

One of the rarest of hummingbirds, the Spatuletail lives in Peru, only on the east bank of the Rio Utcubamba, much of which is accessible by car. Wildlife photographer Greg Homel got high definition video of a male Spatuletail in a courting display. Spend a minute watching it. By the way, those are not leaves stuck on his tail; that is his tail.

Then, if you have just a little more time spend a few more minutes at the Peru Birding Routes web site. In turn, that will make you want to spend a few weeks in Peru in order to see the birds which live there.

And, according to the American Bird Conservancy, you can also travel to an accessible hummingbird feeder which is currently frequented by some Spatuletail Hummingbirds. But you shouldn’t wait, the bird is endangered as humans continue to cut down the small area of forest which is its only home.

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We found the photo of the Spatuletail on the home page of Andean Birding another web site that will make you want to leave for Peru as soon as you pack your gear.

Mirrors and Magpies

Not many beings on this planet can look in a mirror and realize they are seeing an image of themselves. Even humans need a few years before we figure it out. Orangutans, Chimpanzees and probably dolphins and elephants can do it but, until recently, that was about it as far as we knew. Even Border Collies, widely acknowledged as some of the smartest dogs, think that is an entirely different dog in the mirror. They try to herd it.

Now comes news that we at the top of the mammalian food chain aren’t the only ones who look in mirrors and see ourselves.

Magpie with Yellow Sticker Affixed

Magpies are corvids, members of the same family as crows, ravens, jays and nutcrackers. That means they’re smart. So smart in fact that they spontaneously recognize mirror images of themselves — as mirror images of themselves.

How do we know this? We don’t speak Magpie and they don’t speak Human. So, scientists placed stickers on the bodies of Magpies in positions that the Magpies could only see in a mirror. When no mirror was present the Magpies did not notice the stickers. When a mirror was present , they removed the stickers from their bodies, without bothering to try to remove them from the mirror image first. They knew that was only a reflection and went after the real thing.

As the BBC puts it, the experiment was, “the first time self-recognition has been observed in a non-mammal.” (I have a prejudice against exclamation points, but it seems to me that sentence deserved one.)

We’ll have more to say about this experiment and its implications for our view of cortex-free intelligence and about social cooperation in other species in a subsequent post. In the meantime, you can read the report of the experiment and watch additional videos of the Magpies at work. Here is one of the videos from the experiment.

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Thanks to the authors of the study, Helmut Prior, Ariane Schwarz,and Onur Güntürkün for sharing their report, photos, and videos with us laypeople.

Laws of Nature

Barn Swallow

The Law That Marries All Things

1.
The cloud is free only
to go with the wind.

The rain is free only
in falling.

The water is free only
in its gathering together,

in its downward courses,
in its rising into air.

2.
In law is rest
if you love the law,
if you enter, singing, into it
as water in its descent.

3.
Or song is truest law,
and you must enter singing;
it has no other entrance.

It is the great chorus
of parts. The only outlawry
is in division.

4.
Whatever is singing
is found, awaiting the return
of whatever is lost.

5.
Meet us in the air
over the water,
sing the swallows

Meet me, meet me,
the redbird sings,
here here here here.

Wendell Berry

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Thanks to JJ Cadiz for the photo of the barn swallow.

Birdwatcher - The Life of Roger Tory Peterson

Birdwatcher:The Life of Roger Tory Peterson by Elizabeth Rosenthal

For birdwatchers, Roger Tory Peterson was a pioneer. When I was a young girl, already a member of the Junior Audubon Society at age 8, Roger Tory Peterson was my hero. The 70 million birdwatchers in the United States owe a great debt to him. 2008 marks both the 100th anniversary of his birth and the 10th since his death. Born with artistic talent and a love of birds, Peterson published his first bird identification guide in 1934. Before that book, no field guides for the general public existed and birding was a rare pastime. A Field Guide to the Birds opened a whole new world. A quick look told them what kind of bird they were looking at. His guides, now published in multiple editions, are some of the best selling books of all time; although at the time of the first publication of the guide, the publisher printed only 2000 copies. It was an expensive book because of its four-color plates and the publisher was so worried that it wouldn’t sell that Peterson was not paid a royalty on the first 1000 copies.

Besides producing his field guides and other books, Peterson was a vital environmental force, alerting the public about wildlife disasters caused by DDT and other chemicals. He was an active conservationist his entire life.

In a new biography Elizabeth J Rosenthal interviews friends, family and disciples of Peterson and the book is full of quotes and anecdotes. Too many, in fact; they interrupt the narrative. One day Peterson will be treated to a biography by a better writer. In the meantime, this is a pretty good book about a great birder, a mediocre husband and father, and lousy driver. We celebrate him for the birding.

Progress

We have this idea that if we are spending money and doing things, we must be making progress. I wonder.

Our neighborhood is being treated to a sewer. We never needed one before but we do now. Never mind that sewers are water wasters and we live in a desert, never mind that the heavy equipment used to dig mammoth holes in our streets spews forth tons of extra carbon dioxide into our air, never mind that the noise and dust makes us all crazy; we’re spending money and doing things, so it must be good. Right?

Wrong. It is noisy, noisome and offensive. It is bad for the environment — dual flush toilets (or composting toilets) and modern septic tanks are as efficient removers of waste as sewage lines and treatment plants and use far less water and energy — and it is bad for the neighborhood. One of the machines literally rattles and shakes the houses. The birds must hate it, those that are still around. Many have left. Besides, it is making us cranky. [1]

Normally, I am a mild mannered sort but even I had an altercation recently with a neighbor and I blame it on the sewer project. The neighbor is probably a reasonable person and I blame his irrational behavior on the sewer too. Humans are not evolutionarily adapted to unrelenting noise, even those who live in Manhattan or San Francisco. We need silence. Our souls need silence. And we certainly don’t need our local paper “thanking us for our patience” while they do this stupid sewer project, which includes ripping out all the existing pavement then replacing it. We haven’t been patient nor should we have been. George Washington, in his farewell address, warned us about being led like sheep to the slaughter.

That altercation was only the second time in my entire life when I failed to get along with a neighbor. I was only a little boy the first time, when the neighbor shot my dog. You read that right; she shot my dog. The dog didn’t die but my parents decided to give it away, which is one of the few things they did wrong and the one for which I’ve never forgiven them. Anyway, we nick-named that neighbor, “Pistol Pete of Maple Street” and I hope she died with a bad taste in her mouth because she shot that dog. I’m assuming she’s dead; I certainly hope she is.

But back to the sewer which, as I said before, is a bad idea and the result of Americans’ belief in progress. It is costing 10 million dollars. That doesn’t include the $3000 or so that each house will have to pay for hooking up. Imagine: $3000 and nothing will be visible. When you pay that kind of money for something, you ought to at least be able to see it. The $3000 includes crushing the septic tank and filling the resulting hole with dirt. They’ll come inspect it to make sure we did it because they don’t trust us.

A government that does not trust its citizens is in deep trouble. The local mayor has won his last election.

Nor do we have any choice. Suppose an environmentally conscious citizen, perhaps a bird watcher for instance, has installed a gray water system, composting toilets and a sanitary wetland for birds. No matter. Here is what the local ordinance says:

No person shall install or modify a private liquid waste system or use a private liquid waste system that was installed or modified after public sanitary sewer service has become available.

If we don’t hook on, we’ll be fined $100 a month until we do. As far as I can tell no one even considered the possibility of a well designed decentralized waste water system. One that the citizenry could be proud of and invested in. For instance, our little street is a dead end where we could have built a small wetland system every bit as “sanitary” as a city-wide sewer system. The birds would have loved it.

I don’t often agree with George Will but I share his distrust of “vast collective undertakings” even when it is Americans undertaking them. We ought to encourage decentralized experiments with sewage, not punish them. We are learning, after all, that environmental problems have to be addressed by all of us and in diverse ways which include, but are not limited to, collective governmental action.

Worst of all, the roadrunner family has left us. Maybe they’ll come back after we quit making all this progress and it’s quiet again.

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[1] For a list of all the other ways in which we think we’ve made progress, please press 1; for another list, please press 2; if you’d like to talk to an operator, hang up now.

Eyes

Recent research indicates that people behave differently when they know they are being watched.  That is true of Ravens as well.  If they know or even think they are being watched when caching food, they either only pretend to cache it or cache it and come back and move it when they are certain they are not being watched.  That’s important since Ravens will steal from one another, sort of like humans.

But not only do we behave differently when we know — or think — we are being watched, we also behave differently if there is a picture of eyes watching.  Some workplaces have coffee machines along with requests that users make a small contribution to help pay for the coffee.  More people contribute if there is a photo of eyes on the wall.  In experiments allowing participants to share benefits with one another or keep them for themselves, more sharing takes place if a photo of eyes is posted in the room where the experiment takes place.  Olivia Judson recently wrote about these experiments and others.

Here is Chuck and he is watching you.

Summer News

We’ve had an avalanche of email, two probably, noting that our posts have been sporadic recently.  That’s because summer vacation is in progress.  Some part of it will be spent away from internet connections and the rest may be spent away from mind-finger connections.

Racoon emptied bird feeder

But there is news here and it is different than the news at home.   For instance, last night the bird feeder you see at the left was almost full of bird seed.  A racoon emptied the entire thing during the night.  It was a careful racoon and did no damage to the feeder.  A flock of Pine Siskins discovered our thistle feeder and decided to stay for a few days.  A Red-tailed Hawk had a look from on high yesterday, called for awhile and flew on.  For dessert last night we had a peach alpenglow which lasted the better part of an hour.  And the hummingbirds are eating syrup as fast as we can make it.  We count at least four male Rufous Hummingbirds so we spend a lot of time watching Hummingbird TV.  A little Calliope Hummingbird is at one of the feeders right now.  That wouldn’t have been possible earlier this morning when one of the Rufous hummingbirds was attempting to keep all three feeders to himself.  He eventually gave that up; it was costing too many calories.

Such news was once more important than human news but that may no longer be true.  Four centuries ago five hundred million humans lived on the planet.  Now almost 7 billion do and we’re headed for 9 or 10 billion.  The human population of the globe has quadrupled in the last 100 years!  Doubled twice!  Never before and probably never again will that happen.  So human news now matters to the wild world in ways that it didn’t used to.  There are so many of us now and, collectively, we have massive impact.

Hummingbird TV

So, stay tuned.  We’ll be back with exciting posts entitled, “What I did on my summer vacation.”  Or not.

Celebrating Birds and Birders

From Sam Keen’s little book named simply, Sightings.

What makes birders of the world unique is their propensity for celebration. In an age in which the major world religions are marked by serious internal struggles between fundamentalists and progressives, birders are devoted to a single-minded pursuit of joyful revelations of what is beautiful and sacred.  Their focus is aesthetic, rather that dogmatic or moral.  They belong to the uncomplicated, lighthearted, religious type that the American philosopher William James called, “the once-born.”  Life is a gift to be enjoyed is their guiding maxim.  The beauty of winged creatures leads them from sensual enjoyment to reverence for life.  In the wide spectrum of religious types, they are celebrants, practitioners of a theology of nature.

That is mine! It’s all mine! Don’t you dare touch it!”

And so the Rufous Hummingbird goes about its day, not calmly, not peacefully, but with great vigor and enthusiasm. Not for it the placid summer days. Not for it the quiet sunlit uplands. Always vigilant, belligerent, and bellicose, it protects its chosen feeder; giving no quarter and expecting none.