Hi Tweets,

Dennis Paulson writes:

>What was so amazing was the adult's complete equanimity in the face of
>this constant disturbance. Can you imagine having a baby that--if you
>didn't feed it immediately--would knock you out of your chair? There
>would be a shriek, perhaps a string of four-letter words, quick
>discipline, and general malaise (especially on the second occurrence!).

Interesting to note that juvenile gulls have to use certain postures to
forestall attack by adult gulls, even from their own parents. It's a good
thing human babies are born with a similar set of pre-programmed
aggression-inhibiting behaviors: humans are a fairly irritable type of ape
and a human baby importuning for food and comfort is one of the most
un-ignorable things there is in life. An animal or an adult human attaining
the same level of aggro around humans without working the same suite of
inhibitory behaviors is usually asking for it.

>To the bird it seemed to be inconsequential, all in a day's work.
>Although it's always tempting to personify them, birds aren't little
>people with feathers.

What are you trying to tell us about Big Bird, Dennis? That he's *not* a
person? And how about Tweetybird? Or Woody Woodpecker? Just *look* at them,
Dennis; just watch them with an eye unprejudiced by human bias. That'll tell
you everything you need to know about them. Not *people*!!???!! Honestly,
Dennis, I just don't know where you get these crazy ideas.

>Birds
>are optimizers; they go about their intended business as long as they're
>able.

Or they're one-track-minded and are unaware of the existence of such a thing
as an alternative to what they're doing; perhaps corvids are sufficiently
advanced to choose what they want to do.

>On another note, look closely at the juvenile starlings appearing like a
>plague. They vary amazingly in color, most of them light to medium brown
>but a small percentage very dark gray, not much lighter than the adults.
>We have one of these in the museum, and it's quite striking; just this
>week I saw several like it on the UPS campus in Tacoma. Is this a
>mutation that's increasing?

Is it possible that individuals of other starling species may have been
released there, and you're seeing the juveniles of that species or hybrids
in the local population? I'm thinking specifically of Spotless Starling
Sturnus unicolor, whose juveniles are darker than those of European Starling
S. vulgaris. Also thinking of the periodic eruptions of controversy about
starlings seen by Brit twitchers at their migrant traps which some think are
unicolor (highly desirable on a Brit checklist) and others are equally
convinced are mis-ID'ed vulgaris (hochtooey!). From what I remember of one
recent uproar, separation of the two is usually complex, requiring
exhaustive plumage description and analysis of non-definitively-plumaged
birds---in some molt-states *very* difficult---and can be controversial even
when photodocumentation exists.

>On a note of higher biodiversity, there has been an Olive-sided
>Flycatcher and a Western Wood-Pewee around the yard for a week or more
>now, acting as if they'd like to breed here,
(snip)
>I guess the last migrant is gone, a female Wilson's Warbler that I last
>saw two days ago.

Unless these two are northbound migrants cued to delay there by the cold
weather; I'd imagine birds which are solely insectivorous would have to be
more sensitive to such cues than species with more generalised appetites,
which might rely on light duration alone to activate their migrational coding.

Michael Price
Vancouver BC Canada
mprice at mindlink.net