Subject: lonely woodpeckers
Date: Apr 11 13:44:51 2001
From: Guttman, Burt - GuttmanB at evergreen.edu


I think that if birders and ornithologists and such were really serious
about conservation, they would set up a singles service for birds like this.
Every unmated bird is a drain on the gene pool, and you all know what
happens to a pool that gets drained too much. There ought to be a place for
birds to advertise. "Male PIWO [they'll have to have abbreviations just
like humans: SWM, and so on] with gaudy red crest seeks compliant female
for wild drumming on hollow trees and dramatic flights into the sunset.
Object: cavity full of fertilized eggs." Maybe we should set up singles
bars for them. "Bartender, gimme a glass full of bark beetles and send some
over to the little lady on the Big-leaf Maple, with my compliments." Yep,
that's what really serious conservationists would do.

Burt Guttman
The Evergreen State College 360-867-6755
Olympia, WA 98505 guttmanb at evergreen.edu

Reunite Gondwana


-----Original Message-----
From: Dennis Paulson [mailto:dpaulson at ups.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, April 11, 2001 8:51 AM
To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
Subject: lonely woodpeckers


There is a Pileated Woodpecker calling and calling from the isolated grove
of Douglas-firs next to the building I'm working in on the UPS campus. The
entire neighborhood is not very rich in trees, certainly not large trees.
This is the first I've ever seen or heard from my office window in 11 years
(species #46). I assume it's a wandering male (I don't know if the females
call like the males; perhaps they do). We've had a male in the ravine
behind our house in Seattle all winter, and it calls and calls and flies
back and forth through the trees, I assume advertising for a mate which
hasn't so far shown up. This gives you some perspective on the lives of
individual birds, which are varied just like our own.

Dennis Paulson, Director phone 253-879-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax 253-879-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416
http://www.ups.edu/biology/museum/museum.html

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