The Nature of the Beast (according to Susan McCarthy)

Fine man, fine bird

Rich Stallcup died December 15, 2012. He was a kind, wonderful guy and a brilliant naturalist. Once he told me a story about a bristle-thighed curlew, and the people who admired it. Before the story I want to say what a freakily great bird the bristle-thighed curlew is.

 

First, the bristle thighed curlew (Numenius tahitiensis) spends the summer in Alaska and the winter in Hawaii. Or Tahiti or other tropical Pacific islands. Nice work if you can get it. Maybe not that easy to get, since there are only about 7,000 bristle-thighed curlews in the world.

 

That might be tundra with dwarf willow, so I'm guessing this bird is in Alaska

 

 

They're hard to see. The Hawaiian birds aren't hanging around Oahu, they're out on uninhabited islands. And the Alaskan birds are off in low-lying, mosquito-infested tundra. If you do see one, you might mistake it for the very similar whimbrel. Hearing its distinctive call might be your best bet for identifying it. Birdwatchers, especially birders who are trying to see every breeding bird species in the US, or in North America, long for sightings of these rare curlews, but most have never seen one.

 

Bristle-thighed Curlews on a Pacific island beach. Not Waikiki, Midway.

 

This curlew is a large brown moth-patterned shorebird with a long sickle bill. From a distance they just look brown. You can't see the complicated plumage patterns or the bristled thighs. I don't know why they have bristled thighs. I haven't run across any speculations. If you held a gun to my head and made me guess (part of a really sick scenario), I'd say it might have something to do with courtship, and showing another bristle-thighed curlew of the appealing sex that you too are a bristle-thighed curlew and you'd like to get to know them better. (Please put the gun down now.)

 

They eat almost anything. Flowers, bugs, berries, land crabs, invertebrates, and the eggs of other birds. Here's a startling thing: they use tools to break open large eggs. The long sickle bills aren't the best tool for smashing things, so they grab rocks or pieces of coral and slam them down on the egg.

 

They're the only shorebirds known to use tools, a habit that has been beautifully documented in a paper by Jeffrey S. Marks and C. Scott Hall, published in the 1992 Condor.

 

Marks and Hall observed bristle-thigheds on Tern Island and Laysan Island, in the far northwestern part of the Hawaiian Archipelago. When the curlews get a food item too big to swallow, like a largish ghost crab, they slam it against the ground or a rock until it breaks into delightful bite-sized morsels. Adults haven't been seen doing this in Alaska, but baby curlews there will slam bits of moss, lichen, or plastic flagging (presumably put up by curlew biologists trying to get their bearings).

 

When the young curlews arrive in the islands for the first time, having traveled 2,500 miles from their birthplace, they are in a slammin' mood, and will slam feathers, shells, or bits of seaweed. I presume they soon learn to focus on more edible things to slam.

 

From "Tool Use by Bristle-Thighed Curlews Feeding on Albatross Eggs," Marks, Jeffrey S. & Hall, C. Scott. Condor 94: 1032-1034. 1992. Used with kind permission of the Cooper Ornithological Society. Is this not the greatest bird? Note bristled thighs.

But sometimes a curlew comes across an abandoned albatross egg. It's too big to pick up and slam, and the shell is too thick for a curlew to puncture with its bill. That's when the tool use happens. Marks and Hall say it's probably an extension of slamming behavior, and I agree. But I still think it's clever. 

 

So: smart rare mysterious long-distance travelers. A bird I'd love to see.

* 

At one time Rich Stallcup led 30-day Alaskan birding tours for the company Wings, tours for the fanatical and obsessed. On his fifth tour his group – 20 devoted birders – was exhausted from days of camping. They flew to St. Paul Island in the Pribilofs, arriving at 9 p.m. There were three hours of daylight left in the long Alaskan summer day, but word on the birder grapevine was that no notable rare birds were about. No vagrant Siberian birds had been spotted. The seabird nesting colonies – the two species of kittiwakes, three auklets, two murres, two puffins – would still be there in the morning.

Rich assembled the weary group in the lobby of the King Eider Hotel, the island's only hostelry, run by Aleuts. He went over the next day's plan. Since there were no rarities around, he said they could all go to bed early, and sleep in.

 After five hours sleep, Rich found himself wide awake. He wandered down to the beach. “I'm just admiring the Kittlitz's Murrelets,” he told me, when he heard a bird call he'd never heard before. (He whistled this for me – Sibley gives the flight call as “teeoip.”) “I go, 'Ho, shit. What's that?'” Teeoip! 

“Straight in from Hawaii, here comes the Bristle-thighed Curlew, one of the most wanted and rare birds in America. It flies right in front of me – teeoip! – real low. I'm just quivering because it's so great.” The curlew flies away, low and to the west, whistling teeoip “as if it wanted to land,” leaving Rich on the beach, in awe and dread, wondering “What am I gonna say at breakfast?” 

The trip leader is not supposed to sneak off and see the good birds himself after telling everyone to sleep in. And the Bristle-thighed Curlew is an unspeakably good bird. 

Rich spent the day trying to atone. If only they could find the curlew again! He dragged the group all over the island, even when they whimpered about missing lunch. (They must have despaired of seeing the curlew by then, to complain about such a petty thing. And maybe they had been too agitated to eat their breakfasts. Still.) 

Late in the afternoon, at Stony Point Lake, the curlew sprang up. It landed where everyone could see it and drink in its exotic beauty, marvel at its thighs. They returned to the King Eider in triumph, rejoicing mightily. 

“That evening we went over in a bus. We brought most of the Aleuts, the seal-killers and the mechanics. Everybody wanted to see this wonderful thing.” That's not something that usually happens on birding trips. That Rich's excitement was so infectious, and that he was so intent on sharing the experience, tells you a lot about him.

This photo of Rich Stallcup appears in a lobby display at the headquarters of PRBO Conservation Science (www.prbo.org). The building is dedicated to Rich, who co-founded PRBO in the 1960s and served as Naturalist and Bird-A-Thon Committee chairperson until his death in December 2012. Photo by Janet Wessel.

At the lake the curlew was bathing in company with a Eurasian Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus phaeopus), a bird ordinarily notable in itself. Eventually the Whimbrel wanted to leave. “The Whimbrel jumps out of the water and starts screaming. Quiquiquiquiqui! The curlew gets out. Quiquiquiquiqui! The whimbrel's so anxious, it jumps up into flight, and finally the curlew jumps up too, and they tower up to a thousand feet – with oldsquaws chittering, and Black-legged Kittiwakes – kitti-weeik! Kitti-weeik! – and they fly off. People were on the ground weeping.”

 

Teeoip!

 

Teeoip, Rich.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We apologize to the birds

I volunteer at a wildlife rescue center, one which specializes in aquatic birds. Sometimes volunteers and staff apologize to the birds.

 

What's that you have in your hand? Oh, a camera? Are you sure? It can't take temperatures, can it?

 

 

A Red-throated Loon is brought in and has an intake exam, in which we try to figure out what is wrong with the bird. What made this wild creature so ill or hurt that it fell into human hands? What are its problems? Are they things we can fix?

 

We handle it, pull its legs out and study its feet, extend its wings and fold them up again, stare into its desperate face with our huge monster faces. We draw blood from one foot. We take its temperature, and it flinches as the thermometer goes into its cloaca. “I know. I'm sorry,” murmurs the person inserting the thermometer.

Adult Red-throated Loon, suspicious of photographer. Chicks in background show a fish what a loon can do when it's not being pestered.

 

 

We'll learn more about his condition when we get the results from centrifuging his blood. We can already tell the bird is skinny and cold. His temperature, which would be a fever for a human, is low for a bird. We keep an eye on his temperature, and end up moving him into a warm intensive care room.

 

These are wild birds, and our practice is not to talk to them, and to minimize talking around them. We work quietly. But occasionally apologies slip out.

 

You don't put any tubes down my throat and I won't put any beaks in your eye. Deal?

A lot of Western Grebes have been brought in lately. An indignant grebe has just been examined, and is being returned to a big pool where he can swim around with other grebes. He's wrapped in a towel. Right before we put him back in the pool, we'll give him some medicine, and a feeding through a tube, because he's still too thin, and doesn't really have the hang of eating dead fish out of the basket on the side of the pool. He doesn't want the tube down his throat, and we don't blame him. He struggles. “Calm down,” the other volunteer tells him. As he jerks his head, she says quietly, “I don't like it either. I apologize.”

A rude gesture? I don't know why you would assume that.

 

 

Some of the people who work here have pet birds at home. Those birds understand human tones of voice. Not these wild ones. Soothing voices don't soothe these guys. In their natural lives, they're never around terrestrial mammals. They don't have much intuition about our noises.

 

So why do we apologize to them? It's not to help them. They don't understand the words, or the tone.

 

We say we're sorry, and we go right on doing it. We're sorry in the sense that we don't want to hurt and frighten them. We regret the necessity, but we do think it's necessary. Taking the loon's temperature gives us information that's likely to save its life. Tube-feeding the grebe will keep it alive until it's well enough to eat on its own. They'll both go free when they're healthy enough to survive.

 

The little sorries just slip out. Maybe we're apologizing for our own sakes, to stay aware of where we are on the long slick slope of our concern for them. On one end of the slope we would take over their lives, make them into pets or livestock or exhibits. Unwild. On the other end we'd treat wild animals as wholly other, wholly responsible for their own welfare – we'd let them die, or at best, “put them out of their misery.”

 

One reason we don't is that wild creatures no longer live in a world that humans haven't affected drastically. We've changed their habitats: we've shrunk, depleted, invaded, and tainted those places. Humans have taken away some of the resources wild animals use to support themselves. This wildlife rescue center came to be, and specializes in aquatic birds, because of oil spills.

 

So we've placed ourselves somewhere in the middle, neither disclaiming responsibility nor trying to manage them like unruly pets. We work at not going too far toward either extreme. Maybe saying sorry helps us keep that balance.

 

The loon told me about you. Sicko.

Here's a Red-necked Grebe, with wounds on its feet. For these birds, foot injuries are dangerous. Like bedsores, they can rapidly turn ugly, grow, spread infection through the body's system, and kill. The birds need to have decent feet before we let them go.

 

 

At night, in winter storms, some birds try to land on rain-slick surfaces that look like water to them – roads, roofs, or pavement. They may break bones or tear up their feet. Maybe that happened to this grebe. Its feet are starting to heal, and to help the process along we have to debride the wounds. That means someone has to take (sterilized) retractors and pick dead tissue out of the site. Sometimes it hurts the bird.

 

The small grebe twitches, tries to jerk its foot away. Softly, the caregiver says, “I know. Sorry, buddy.”

 

They love their Halloween costumes so much I didn't have the heart to make them change. They're warrior ninja grebes and I have to warn you: I have NO CONTROL over them.

 

 

 

Note: This post is the first ever to be cross-posted on SorryWatch and The Nature of the Beast.

 

Fishing with my dad

On the whale-watching trip in Monterey Bay we were lucky enough to see not only humpback whales but also blue whales – the largest animal that has ever lived. The humpbacks and the blues both had calves with them. We had the happiness of seeing that these species were reproducing, and of glimpsing (barely) their maternal behavior.

 

A less glamorous species – small, dowdy, unremarked – was also displaying parental behavior. Here and there on the waves (oog, waves, where is that dramamine?) were twosomes of the Common Murre. (They're Uria aalge, and murre rhymes with purr. No y-sound.)

 

Murres live by catching fish. They dive beneath the surface and use their wings to fly underwater. Maybe it's something you have to practice doing to be good enough to make a living.

 

They're superbly formed for the life aquatic, but they must resort to land to raise a family. Murres nest in crowded colonies on rocky islets or coastal cliffs. A pair of murres raises a single chick a year, if they are lucky and things go well. Father and mother go to sea and bring fish back to the crowded screaming rookery.

 

Each chick shrieks at the top of its lungs, a piercing cry I translate as BABY'S HERE!!! BABY'S HERE!!! with maybe a touch of BABY'S HUNGRY!!! The adults recognize their child's scream, and bring fish to their own darling, and nobody else's.

 

When the chick is old enough it jumps off the rock. It can't fly yet, so it falls into the sea. And screams BABY'S HERE!!! The chick's father finds it there, attracted by his child's voice. The chick's mother does not appear. She's done her bit. She laid the damned egg, remember?

 

Father and child swim away, and travel together for a few weeks. It seems likely that the chick is learning how to make a living in the exacting murre profession, although it is also possible that it's simply under its father's protection while it matures. The two are good at staying together, aided by the cry that can be heard over crashing seas: DON'T FORGET BABY!!!

 

Occasionally a juvenile bird comes into a wildlife rehab center and it's desirable to put it in an outdoor pool as soon as possible, so it can be in its favored medium, practice swimming and diving, and so its earsplitting cries of BABY'S HERE!!! will have a less painful deafening effect.

 

Whale children are tended by their mothers for all their childhoods. Murre children get time with both parents when they live on land, and with their fathers after they bravely leap into the ocean. 

 

Those saintly men. I am sure father murres love their chicks, take pleasure in their company, perhaps enjoy seeing them become more skilled. But there must be times, there must be, when they are tempted to scream back BABY SHUT UP!!!

 

Consider the ravens

Long ago, starter birdwatchers in an Arizona desert spotted a huge black bird. Perched commandingly, unimpressed by puny humans.

 Could it be – a raven? In the desert? Weren't they forest wilderness birds? A handy bird guide said the raven was “Common only in the Far North and in the West, especially near heavy timber.” No timber in the Chihuahuan Desert.

A more authoritative bird book said, “Resident of wild regions.” This desert was fairly wild.... A western bird guide said, “Habitat: Mts., deserts, canyons, coastal cliffs, boreal forests.” Okay! Deserts! Common Raven, Corvus corax! World's largest songbird! Yay!

The resident of wild regions has become increasingly common in urban regions. In the last 25 years, there's been a population explosion of ravens and crows in cities. If you can find a wild region, you can still find ravens residing there. But other ravens have decided to join us for dinner.

 My San Francisco neighborhood is full of them. They swoop over City College, bursting out of the pines. They holler from roofs. They strut in the gutter, disemboweling that helpless urban victim, the fast-food bag. Ravens evolved as carrion eaters. In a forest, ravens track wolves. If wolves kill a moose, ravens wade in, grabbing bites. In my neighborhood, ravens keep an eye on people, especially the ones walking away from Beep's Burgers.

What changed to make residents of wild regions feel so comfortable in the city? Lots of garbage around, but that's not new. Probably what changed is raven culture. Young ravens stay with their parents for months learning what's safe, what's dangerous, and where food is. 

There are several hundred ravens in San Francisco, and not nearly enough places for all those giant birds to nest. So most birds around town are non-breeders, hip young consumers with spare time and a burning curiosity about the world and which parts of it can be eaten. They know the best dumpsters, the most spacious dumps, and the most generous handouts.

 Many people feed ravens. People love the contact with wild animals, and ravens are cool. They are huge and hilarious as they high-step toward your offerings. Sometimes feeding them lets you observe their intelligence. I met a woman who feeds ravens at Fort Funston. When she arrives, ravens gather even before she parks – they recognize her car. She scatters peanuts across the iceplant, and dozens of ravens search for them.

 Another time I met a man sitting on a bench overlooking the sea. A raven stood on the seat next to him. Another perched on the back of the bench. He doled out snacks. He said these ravens knew him well, and described their family structure. (He said they were father and child.)

  I love ravens. Feeding animals is fun, and it feels like a win-win. Certainly the ravens would vote for it. But I don't feed them, and I think no one should.

 

The problem is that ravens are clever wild animals who find their food in many ways. One way is robbing nests of other birds and eating eggs and nestlings. The ravens of wild regions have always done this, and city ravens have kept up the skill. Stuffed with garbage and treats, urban ravens have plenty of leisure time to look for nests of little birds. It would be nice if well-fed ravens didn't feel like robbing nests, but no. They still enjoy the hunt.

 Nature's way, even if it's kind of depressing, right? Are we supposed to try to convert wild animals into kind vegetarians?

 No. It's nature's way for ravens to rob nests, but it's not nature's way for there to be so many ravens. We've created surplus predators, whose numbers aren't controlled by prey supply. Nature's way includes predators starving if they destroy prey populations. City ravens don't starve, because they have garbage and handouts. Many ravens means many sharp black eyes looking for nests. A project to bring California Quail back to Fort Funston failed, apparently because ravens got all the quail chicks. But they didn't starve, because there are still plenty of french fries scampering around the parking lots.

Rangers in state and national parks are trying to discourage visitors from feeding ravens. (I know, they discourage you from feeding everything, and why can't a chickadee have a damn crumb, but they're particularly worried about ravens.) In 1989, in Big Basin State Park, near Santa Cruz, biologists discovered only the second known Marbled Murrelet nest. Thrilled, they began observing the nest, which produced one silent thoughtful chick. Just as the chick was almost old enough to fly, ravens killed and ate it. They'd been observing too. The Big Basin ranger campaign to make sure no garbage gets left around for ravens to eat is called “crumb management.”

 To speak of surplus predators is also to speak of outdoor cats. Same deal – we support them in high numbers, which have nothing to do with prey supply. They behave naturally, but not in a natural context. Both cats and ravens are clever, fascinating creatures. Interacting with them puts us in touch with a fragment of wildness. We shouldn't do that in a way that lays waste other fragments of wildness.

 I dislike telling people they shouldn't do fun things (feeding animals) and I dislike depriving animals of fun things (free food). So here's a loophole for city dwellers. Next time you have a moose carcass, I think it's okay to leave it out for the ravens.

 

 

 

 

Killdeer escape?

 

I had been trusted with the task of feeding the killdeer  chicks at the wildlife center. I put trays of food in the shorebird pen. Elaborate trays of shorebird dainties: freshly-thawed tiny invertebrates, insects, duckweed. I was careful to make sure no killdeer got out. It didn't seem hard, since the appalling sight of a human made them run, crouch, and freeze.  

 

But as I was walking back toward the main building, I heard a killdeer overhead. Nowhere near the shorebird pen. Now I was the one who froze.

 

Did I let one out? Oh no, did I forget to latch the door? Did they all get out? Oh no no no.

 

...sounds more like an adult killdeer – it's loud. And close.

 

Oh. 

 

*#^&+$%.

 

A mockingbird was atop a high pole, running through his imitations. Starting with some killdeer calls.

Giving me a pang of guilty fear. As if I need any more of those.

 

If he'd noticed, I'm sure he would have thought it was funny. He would do it again. Which is why it's important to stay stone-faced around mockers. Which you probably know. Because you went to grade school too.

Stowaway bird

Red-tailed tropicbirds are aces of tropical Pacific skies. They're big white birds with striking black eye markings. Each has two ridiculously long red tail feathers in the midst of its normal white tail feathers (thus Phaethon rubricauda). They catch fish by plunging into the sea from a height and grabbing them. Also squid.

The tropicbird is one of those seabirds that usually doesn't bother with land. They fly or rest on the water. But that doesn't work when a bird is in that awkward egg stage, so they breed on islands. They like to nest colonially, let's say on a nice coral atoll, tucked under a bush, or in a niche between hunks of coral.

Sometimes, apparently, a bird looking for a nice flat atoll lands on the nice flat deck of a ship, and tucks itself into a niche between cargo containers, and sits there peaceably waiting for the rest of the gang to show up, unfussed that the island it has selected is moving, like Spidermonkey Island in The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.

Recently a tropicbird was found sitting zazen on a Korean cargo ship. When the ship arrived in southern California, the bird was brought to International Bird Rescue's San Pedro center, where she was found to be in good health. On a recent visit, I saw her there, resting on a mesh haul-out in a small private pool. She looked at us cheerfully. It seems that tropicbirds are among the island birds that have no fear of land animals such as humans.

Her pool was too small for plunge-feeding. IBR's blog has video of the tropicbird being fed fish. “Ah, they are grabbing my head. Yes, they are prying open my bill and inserting a fish. Ooh, there's a fish in my bill. Sweet.” The tropicbird swallows, sometimes with a little throat massage to urge the fish along, and sits placidly. It does not occur to her to reach a few inches forward and take another fish. That's not how she rolls.

Tropicbirds are aerialists but not distance fliers, so after tests came up negative for contagious diseases, and USFWS permission was received, the bird was put on a plane to Hawaii and then on another to Midway Island. There they put her in the water and off she flew.

Red-tailed tropicbirds breed on Midway, so with any luck she'll find a mate, and a nest site that doesn't shift coordinates, and will not depend on the kindness of Korean sailors, bird rescuers, and government agencies. Island tameness can be a disastrous feature for wild animals, but in this bird's case it worked out nicely.

We love our stinky kids

The story about the smelly babies isn't true. Birds don't reject their nestlings if people have handled them and gotten human scent all over them. Most birds can't smell much, anyway. (But don't say this around a vulture. Or a kiwi. Or a fulmar.)

 I don't know how this story got started, but I certainly heard it  when I was a kid. Somehow it had an appalling plausibility –  our very touch turns innocent babies to pariahs.

(Not the actual baby robins I'm talking about.)

Fortunately for three small birds I met recently, it's nonsense. These robin nestlings fell out of their nest on a windy morning. They hit the sidewalk uninjured, and a kind passer-by picked them up (intelligently noting the address) and took them to the nearest animal shelter. The shelter had the expertise, and the feeding formula, to take care of the young birds. But they knew the best upbringing for robins comes from robins. They had eight million things to do besides feeding screaming baby robins every 20 minutes. A wildlife rescue organization would try to get the robins back to their parents.

 I'd been told that the best thing to do for uninjured baby birds is to get them back up in their nest, or near their nest, or at least up in the branches of their tree out of cat-reach, and let their parents take care of them. I believed it. But I had never done it. (What if it were as false as the human-stink story?)

We inspected the site. With the address, we could identify the home tree, but it was leafy and no nest could be seen. Besides, that nest was clearly a slipshod dealio that baby robins fell out of in a high wind, a flimsy sieve, a deathtrap. We'd have to rig up a substitute. The worrying part was that there didn't seem to be any robins there. The parents were supposed to be hanging around calling for their children. But no. No one was around but blackbirds. By this time the babies had been away most of the day. Had the parents given up? 

 We thought we'd try anyway, so we went to get the chicks. They were past the naked blob stage, into the partially-feathered lump stage. They were starting to have robin faces. Maybe a week from fledging, they were correctly-behaved bird children. They alternated between gaping and screeching, twittering softly, and squatting silent and motionless like little lumps of ugly. The shelter gave them a feeding, which would last them in case their parents never returned and we had to bring them back.

Back at the tree, we scanned for robins. Nothing. Using a ladder, we wired a plastic tub into the branches, making sure it wouldn't tip in the wind like certain shoddy constructions. We'd made drainage holes so liquid couldn't collect in it. That was the nest. The shelter staff had made a nice lining with pine needles and bits of a feather duster. While the wiring took place, the nestlings hunkered low inside, pretending not to exist.  

 We took the ladder away and looked around. No robins. We peered around with binoculars. Nothing but blackbirds. We crossed the street and sat on a bench and looked. No robins. So we got in the car and drove away, but then came back, and parked across the street, taking advantage of robins' inability to read license plates or tell a Delorean from a Hupmobile. We stayed in the car. Blackbirds flew over the tree, perched on a wire above the tree, and squeaked at other blackbirds, but there were no robins.  

 Until suddenly there was a silent robin in the tree next to the nest tree. With something in its bill. It silently dived into the nest tree. It had been 16 minutes since we walked away from the tree.

To be sure it was true, we walked down the other side of the street, crossed, and casually walked under the tree, glancing up for just a second as we did. An adult robin was perched – silently – two feet from the nest tub.

 It makes sense that parent birds would approach the nest without making giveaway sounds, but I'm still amazed that they so quickly detected that their kids were back (in a nearby location, with a new pre-fab house) and resumed food deliveries.

 Mostly, I'm delighted that they overlooked the fact that the kids must have reeked of rescuer stink.

 

Follow-up:

I went by the nest tree about two weeks after we put it up. Since the young robins had been about a week from fledging, I wasn't worried about disturbing things. Everything was the same. The nest was still up there, if you looked, and no robins were in sight. I was relieved that the plastic nest hadn't been distubed.

Going back later to remove the nest, I saw that the tree had been heavily pruned since the last visit. It was no longer a thickly-leaved place where you could hide a nest. Whoever had pruned the tree had carefully left the plastic nest. It was a touching gesture, although the nest was now too exposed to be safe. I was very glad that the pruning had happened after the babies had fledged. I took the nest down and examined the lining. It appeared well used.

Babies are often brought into rescue centers when trees being pruned or felled turn out to have nests -- baby birds, squirrel pups, dragonets.* It's better to prune out of nesting season.

Early this morning, I went back to look for young robins, and saw this squirt in the little park across the street. The spots on the feathers show that this bird fledged this year and hasn't gone through the preformative molt yet -- that it's just a child.

It could be some other robins' child, but it's the right age and the right place to be one of the three rescued fledglings.

 

(*Okay, probably not dragonets.)

 

Tiny tar pits for the home

Glue traps are nasty. Animals caught in them die slow horrible deaths. Some people don't mind that for the mice and rats they intend to trap, but are upset when some other creature falls victim.

 At a wildlife rescue center, someone recently brought in a glue trap with a mockingbird hopelessly plastered to it. The bird had been bounding along on mockingbird business when it hopped onto the trap and got its feet stuck. It struggled to get free, striking down with its wings, getting its wings trapped, hitting the trap with its bill, getting its bill stuck, and so forth until it couldn't move at all. It was immobile, terrified.

The person who set the trap found it while the bird was still alive, and rushed it to the rescue centre, swearing they'd never put a glue trap out again.

 What you do in such a case may or may not start with cutting away with the base of the trap. You may sprinkle open areas of glue with sand or some kind of powder, so if you free part of the bird it won't instantly get stuck again, and so your hand or glove won't get stuck. Then you apply an oil like canola oil, to dilute and loosen the intensely sticky “glue.” (Some people use powder for this step too.)

 Now the bird isn't gluey, but it's seriously oily. Still terrified but maybe also starting to feel peeved. It wants to leave.

 Then you have to wash the oil off the angry bird. (Warm water with 1-2% dishwashing liquid.)

 Then you have to rinse the soapy water off the furious bird.

 Then you have to dry the enraged bird, probably with a heat lamp.

 The process is so traumatic that you don't do it all at once, since the bird probably wouldn't survive the shock and horror. It may also have torn feathers out when struggling in the glue.

After the mockingbird had been through all this, was unglued, clean and dry, it had a day or two in a warm dim quiet place (with food and water) so its condition could stabilize, and was transferred to another wildlife rescue center with better facilities for small perching birds.  

When the bird had recovered from its ordeal and had preened its plumage back into passable condition, it was set free.

 

I looked on YouTube for videos showing animals being freed from glue traps and cleaned. There weren't many, and the best one was too long to put here. (It's an eastern phoebe. Rather than saying the classic “phoe-be!” or even giving an alarm call, it's clacking its bill in a threatening way. 'I'm clean enough! Stand back! Okay, now I'm mad! Watch out!')

 The video search was depressing. It showed that many people think animals getting caught in glue traps is hilarious, and some people think that other people getting stuck in glue traps is incredibly sexy.

 On the other hand, I did find these excellent video clips suggesting that being stuck in glue is funny when it happens to a perpetually unsuccessful yet irrepressible coyote. Who was the one who put the glue there in the first place. (Think about that, setters of glue traps.)

 

 

 

What shall I do with this prehensile tail?

I had heard that the Audubon Zoo in New Orleans was a really great zoo. The people who told me this (not zoo aficionados) were never able to say what was great about it. They didn't mention rare species, successful breeding programs, or brilliant enrichment schemes.

It was just really great.

I recently got to go for the first time, and I think I know the reason for their enthusiasm.

Frozen daiquiris.

They sell these along with the usual fast food available at American zoos. I asked the server what was in them, thinking maybe it was some sort of lime soda. She found the question strange. “Rum?” she said.

I shouldn't have been surprised. New Orleans is the wettest town I know, one that could have a banner at the airport reading WELCOME SLOPPY DRUNKS. It just hadn't occurred to me that this spirit extended to the zoo.

Shocked, I purchased a daiquiri and set out to see some animals.

I am interested in zoos. I loved the giant anteaters, who were milling around madly, awaiting their chance to go back into their night quarters.
 

The humans were like zoo visitors everywhere, inclined to stand next to a large sign that explains that orangutans are not monkeys but apes and say “Look at the monkey, Jesse!” Yet they were less frenetic than usual, maybe because of the heat. In the languid humid air, people swanned dreamily along the paths. Some were clasping icy beverages. Perhaps the slow aimless pace of the visitors is less jangling to the animals.

While walking around the pond in the South American Pampas exhibit, I heard a splash. I turned to see a rhea hastily climbing out of the water. The other rheas seemed  fascinated and started following the damp one. (What was it like? Was it fun? Was it cool? Did you float? Are you gonna go in again? Go in again! You should go in  again!)



Was the rhea imitating the ducks in the pond? No. Later investigation revealed that rheas are known to swim. Darwin saw rheas swim across the Santa Cruz River in Argentina. So this zoo-born rhea was experimenting with a skill used by its wild relatives. That was interesting.

Finally I arrived at the spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi). 
The large exhibit, modeled on Central American ruins, was good to look at and, more importantly, full of things  a monkey can do with a prehensile tail.

If you had such a tail, you could hook it over something.  Or twine it along something.
   

You could use it for balance, like an outrigger,  or for artistic emphasis.


You could use it to carry things, even if all you have to tote is a bunch of grass.

  In a vision I now imagine the Audubon zoo extending its hospitality to its occupants. I behold anteaters even more avid to get into their evening quarters, where frosty beverages are served. I suppose that an individual with a prehensile tail is perfectly fitted to stroll a slack rope while holding a daiquiri. Dreamily, I even wonder if this policy hasn't already been implemented. Unscheduled swimming is the sort of thing alcohol often inspires in young creatures.

What a great zoo.

Beak outlook

In Fort Jackson, Louisiana, the little bird having the oil washed off was struggling passionately. I couldn't figure out what it was. Not a gull, not a tern – could it be a rail? No, surely not. I was told it was a black skimmer.

 
But I've seen skimmers (Rynchops niger). They don't look like that. I was told it was a young one. Skimmers don't hatch with those bizarre long bills with the lower mandible longer than the upper. (How would that fit in an egg?)

Then I remembered other bird species in which little snub bills of the chicks give hardly any clue to the crazy big bills they'll have as adults.

Chicks' bills have to fit in the egg, and they have to be used to get out of the egg. After they hatch, there's time for bills to elongate or bulk up, to curve down or up, or to acquire interesting attachments if necessary.

The clean little skimmer was moved to the rinse table, where it continued to resist. You rinse my wing, I'll stamp on your hand! Stop or I'll I bite you! There, I bit you! I might do it again! Finally they wrapped the defiant creature in a towel and hustled it off to the drying room. (Many birds never seem to think of stabbing people in the eye with their bills. Instead they bite. You don't want to be bitten by an eagle or a swan, but when an egret bites you, it's okay. They don't have the leverage.)

I went looking for video of birds in which the chicks have to go through some serious bill growth to catch up to their parents. I found these spoonbills (Platalea ajaja) at Animal Kingdom in Orlando.

Also this shoebill (Balaeniceps rex) family at the Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa. The chick doesn't have the big bill yet, but it has the slow serious demeanor you need to carry off a giant smiley proboscis.

There's an unsettling video from a camera inside a trumpeter hornbill (Bycanistes bucinator) nest. Trumpeter hornbills, like some other hornbills, have a system in which the married female seals herself into a nest cavity with an adobe of her own devising (mud, fruit pulp, and bird dung, if you want the recipe). She leaves just a small opening through which food can be passed.

Once immured, she lays eggs. In fact, as long as she's in there, and not flying around, she molts her feathers. Her devoted spouse may help her build the wall. The advantage is thought to be that this keeps their eggs, and then chicks, safe from predators, and perhaps from other hornbills.

Time passes, the eggs hatch into revolting little hornbills, and the male feeds them all. When it gets simply too crowded in the nest cavity, the mother breaks herself out.

In this video of captive breeding, the hornbill cam shows not-dressed-for-company mother and repulsive not-dressed-at-all child in the nest. At the far end is the opening, and there is much excitement and whining as the devoted father starts passing snacks in to his wife, who feeds them to their horrifying child. Who looks even more disgusting with banana oozing out of the corner of its bill – but notice what a normal-looking bill it is.

Some birds go with a cuter look.
Even if you think they're adorable, though, it's more polite not to stare and talk about whether chicks have their parent's nose. You might embarrass them. They might get all shy.

Oh, here's what a grown-up skimmer's bill is good for. For this to work out, the water should be clean.