Friday, January 13, 2006
Nevermore quote the Raven!
Today no one would ever suspect a bird of any kind of foul deed unless one had seen Hitchcock’s The Birds. Shakespeare and others have cultivated a kind and gentle image for our flying friends. Sylvester is always stalking Tweety Bird and not vice versa. That image is definitely deceptive. My first inkling that something was amiss came about thirty years ago when we had a Siamese housecat by the name of Zita who was named after the last Hapsburg Empress. We had moved to a new house with a screenporch, which was quickly adopted by her royal highness as her favorite haunt. A bluejay spotted her while she was basking in the sunlight and began to tease her. The teasing continued unmercifully for several weeks. One day on the spur of the moment, I made a rash decision to let Zita out into the backyard. Big mistake! The cat had led a sheltered life and had never been outside before. She saw that bluejay who was momentarily distracted and immediately her animal instincts took over as she crouched down and began to stalk her nemesis. She slinked forward in slow motion. Suddenly our feathered friend spotted her and let out a loud raucous noise that sounded like “Cat!” He shrieked “Cat” over and over and over again. Soon hundreds and hundred of birds of all descriptions flocked to a nearby oak tree which was bereft of all its leaves. The neighborhood bully continued to shout “Cat!” It was an eerie moment. The jay meant ill will toward the cat and had summoned every bird within a range of at least a mile for the spectacle that was about to commence. Zita by now had become quite alarmed, and with good cause. She turned and made a mad dash back inside the screenporch. It was a learning moment for me and the Siamese. A wild bird just can’t be trusted, especially one with a shrieking war cry!
Additional evidence piled up over the ensuing years. One graduate student studying eagles in Yellowstone watched in horror as four ravens killed 141 grebes in a matter of minutes. Not being selfish they shared their meal with nearby eagles. A University of Vermont graduate student observed a group of ravens dropping rocks and catching them in mid-air. Catching rocks was apparently too boring for a flock of ravens in Russia. They began to drop rocks on a daily basis on a glass roofed structured in Moscow. They apparently took great delight in watching the residents frantically trying to avoid broken glass and their missiles. I don’t think the ravens were reveling over the fall of communism. There are also historical accounts of ravens dropping rocks on ostrich eggs in ancient Egypt. Then just a couple of years ago an Eagle dropped a huge limb on a pickup truck in Haines, Alaska. The ravens in Yellowstone have become so mischievous that park rangers have had to post warning signs near Old Faithful about the thieving critters. They can pillage backpacks in the flash of an eye making off with the real goodies and are notorious for leaving behind unwanted items such as Kleenex. Knots are not a deterrent as they can easily untie them. They have pilfered such items as maps, sunglasses, keys and cameras. Say “Cheese!”
In the last few years scientists have come up with a startling conclusion about our “feathered friends.”
Dinosaurs and birds share 100 skeletal features. Scientists may disagree about whether birds are descended from dinosaurs or dinosaurs are descended from birds. But they agree it is one or the other. If you have every gasped in awe at one of those models of a long necked Brachiosaurus, you might take a moment and think of an ostrich or an emu. Similar necks might also help explain the nasty disposition of those two flightless birds. They both lay eggs. Another shared feature is the wishbone. Every T-Rex had one. Imagine coming up with the short end of one of those. Speaking of T-Rex, in the Arabian Nights there is an account of huge eagle-like bird called a Roc that was able to carry off and eat elephants. The Roc might not have been totally fictious. Until 500 years ago an Elephant Bird lived in Madagascar that was about 10 feet tall and weighed a 1000 pounds. That is a lot of T-Rex!
Ok? So birds can be vicious and ill tempered and don’t really like humans or cats. What can they do about it? Germ warfare comes to mind! West Nile and Bird flu to be more precise. . Think of thousands of infected kamikaze birds winging their way toward you without any Kleenex to stifle their germs. If someone ever tells you that you eat like a bird, just remember that there is probably a little snippet of a T-Rex in there.
Today no one would ever suspect a bird of any kind of foul deed unless one had seen Hitchcock’s The Birds. Shakespeare and others have cultivated a kind and gentle image for our flying friends. Sylvester is always stalking Tweety Bird and not vice versa. That image is definitely deceptive. My first inkling that something was amiss came about thirty years ago when we had a Siamese housecat by the name of Zita who was named after the last Hapsburg Empress. We had moved to a new house with a screenporch, which was quickly adopted by her royal highness as her favorite haunt. A bluejay spotted her while she was basking in the sunlight and began to tease her. The teasing continued unmercifully for several weeks. One day on the spur of the moment, I made a rash decision to let Zita out into the backyard. Big mistake! The cat had led a sheltered life and had never been outside before. She saw that bluejay who was momentarily distracted and immediately her animal instincts took over as she crouched down and began to stalk her nemesis. She slinked forward in slow motion. Suddenly our feathered friend spotted her and let out a loud raucous noise that sounded like “Cat!” He shrieked “Cat” over and over and over again. Soon hundreds and hundred of birds of all descriptions flocked to a nearby oak tree which was bereft of all its leaves. The neighborhood bully continued to shout “Cat!” It was an eerie moment. The jay meant ill will toward the cat and had summoned every bird within a range of at least a mile for the spectacle that was about to commence. Zita by now had become quite alarmed, and with good cause. She turned and made a mad dash back inside the screenporch. It was a learning moment for me and the Siamese. A wild bird just can’t be trusted, especially one with a shrieking war cry!
Additional evidence piled up over the ensuing years. One graduate student studying eagles in Yellowstone watched in horror as four ravens killed 141 grebes in a matter of minutes. Not being selfish they shared their meal with nearby eagles. A University of Vermont graduate student observed a group of ravens dropping rocks and catching them in mid-air. Catching rocks was apparently too boring for a flock of ravens in Russia. They began to drop rocks on a daily basis on a glass roofed structured in Moscow. They apparently took great delight in watching the residents frantically trying to avoid broken glass and their missiles. I don’t think the ravens were reveling over the fall of communism. There are also historical accounts of ravens dropping rocks on ostrich eggs in ancient Egypt. Then just a couple of years ago an Eagle dropped a huge limb on a pickup truck in Haines, Alaska. The ravens in Yellowstone have become so mischievous that park rangers have had to post warning signs near Old Faithful about the thieving critters. They can pillage backpacks in the flash of an eye making off with the real goodies and are notorious for leaving behind unwanted items such as Kleenex. Knots are not a deterrent as they can easily untie them. They have pilfered such items as maps, sunglasses, keys and cameras. Say “Cheese!”
In the last few years scientists have come up with a startling conclusion about our “feathered friends.”
Dinosaurs and birds share 100 skeletal features. Scientists may disagree about whether birds are descended from dinosaurs or dinosaurs are descended from birds. But they agree it is one or the other. If you have every gasped in awe at one of those models of a long necked Brachiosaurus, you might take a moment and think of an ostrich or an emu. Similar necks might also help explain the nasty disposition of those two flightless birds. They both lay eggs. Another shared feature is the wishbone. Every T-Rex had one. Imagine coming up with the short end of one of those. Speaking of T-Rex, in the Arabian Nights there is an account of huge eagle-like bird called a Roc that was able to carry off and eat elephants. The Roc might not have been totally fictious. Until 500 years ago an Elephant Bird lived in Madagascar that was about 10 feet tall and weighed a 1000 pounds. That is a lot of T-Rex!
Ok? So birds can be vicious and ill tempered and don’t really like humans or cats. What can they do about it? Germ warfare comes to mind! West Nile and Bird flu to be more precise. . Think of thousands of infected kamikaze birds winging their way toward you without any Kleenex to stifle their germs. If someone ever tells you that you eat like a bird, just remember that there is probably a little snippet of a T-Rex in there.
