Tragedy at the Zoo

Throughout my formative years, I was enamored with animals of every kind and visited zoos on a regular basis; in my mind, despite their use of restrictive cages, zoos played an important role in public education and wildlife conservation.  The increasing use of "naturalized enclosures" allayed some of my concerns and I planned to pursue veterinary medicine long before I opted for medical school.

The zoo of my youth was the Cincinnati Zoo, where yesterday's tragedy unfolded; a four-year old boy somehow gained access to the gorilla exhibit and fell into the moat.  This caught the attention of a 17 year-old male gorilla who grabbed the child (perhaps with protective rather than hostile intent), forcing staff members to kill him.  While the cause of this tragedy is under investigation, inadequate fencing and inattentive parenting both surely played a role.

In a larger sense, this tragic event highlights both the potential risks and ethical dilemmas of caging intelligent creatures (primates, elephants, cetaceans, etc.) for our own entertainment, even if a certain degree of education and research is achieved.  The concept of rescuing endangered species for captive breeding and reintroduction to the wild has been unsuccessful in most cases (California condors and black-footed ferrets are two exceptions) and "naturalized exhibits" can never match the freedom and benefits of native habitat.  Though tragedies such as occurred yesterday are rare, the greater tragedy of human-imposed captivity has long been a cherished practice in our culture.  Perhaps, as human enlightenment progresses, we will come to reject the imprisonment of intelligent animals.

The Homewreckers Arrive

As color explodes and birdsong intensifies across central Missouri, the first pair of brown-headed cowbirds arrived on our property.  Moving about the yard, the male engaged in his courtship display, anxious to mate with his bride; unfortunately, neither is willing to accept parental responsibilities.

Throughout the warmer months, the female will lay eggs in the nests of other songbirds; once they hatch, the young cowbirds, often larger and more aggressive than their nest mates, are raised by the adoptive parents, who may lose some of their own offspring in the process.  By turning over parental duties to other birds, cowbirds augment their breeding efficiency and boost the population of their own species.

Birders thus tend to despise these homewreckers, empathizing with the exploited parents.  But nature is neither fair nor sentimental and her web of life is festooned with unpleasant and seemingly cruel forms of animal behavior.  In the case of cowbirds, their instinctual disruption of other families has proved to be a very effective survival technique.

Bushtit Thievery

Bushtits are common residents and visitors on our Littleton, Colorado, farm but their numbers vary widely throughout the year.  This week, a single pair has been twittering about the property and, on this warm, sunny morning, I noticed that they were constructing a nest.

Using a wide variety of soft natural materials (including spider webs), nesting bushtit pairs construct a hanging, sock-like nest; this project may take several weeks or more and is usually placed in a conifer.  Other bushtits may assist with the construction and, once the job is completed, are permitted to sleep in the nest with the parents and their offspring (until the eggs hatch and the young fledge); a second brood and social sleep-in may follow, using the same nest.

Known to use human materials for their nests as well, our current pair has located a source of insulation material, retrieved from a crack in the garage wall.  As I sat reading (sort of) beneath the adjacent crabapple tree, the bushtits made dozens of sorties to and from the nest site in one of our pinyon pines.  Their cleverness was certainly admired and their thievery is forgiven.

A Roof-top Heron

Working on our Littleton, Colorado, farm this afternoon, I was accompanied by the usual mix of birds.  House finches, blue jays and black-capped chickadees invaded the feeders, northern flickers delivered their hysterical calls, common bushtits flitted about the shrubbery, robins stalked the pastures, downy woodpeckers tapped on dead snags and a variety of juncos foraged along the driveway.

Then, as I was dragging snow-broken limbs back to our brush pile, a great blue heron flew low overhead before landing on the peak of a neighbor's roof.  While I have encountered these common waders in a wide variety of habitats throughout all seasons (most do not migrate to southern climes) and though they often perch on docks, channel markers and wood duck boxes, I had yet, in my forty years of birding, seen one land on the roof of a house.  Tall and slender, the great blue certainly looked out of place on the roof-top, reminding me of European storks that nest on village roofs; after taking in the sights for almost twenty minutes, the heron flew off, presumably headed for a chain of ponds in the neighborhood.

Such an experience illustrates one of the many joys of birding.  While novices focus on identifying the many species, veterans take note when birds congregate in unusual numbers, appear during unusual seasons, turn up at unusual locations or, as in this case, demonstrate unusual behavior.  Throughout the course of our birding careers, first sightings and these unusual encounters are what we remember most.

The Octopus Family

Members of the Class Cephalopoda within the Phyla Mollusca, about 300 species of octopus are found in Temperate and Tropical seas across the globe.  Having first evolved during the Carboniferous Period (some 300 million years ago), they now inhabit a wide range of ocean habitats, favoring coral reefs and rocky areas near islands, shelfs or seamounts.

While some grow to 5 feet in length and weigh up to 25 pounds, most species are much smaller; on the other hand, the Giant Pacific octopus may reach 30 feet in length and weigh up to 600 pounds.  All feed primarily on a host of marine crustaceans and mollusks and evade predation themselves by the use of camouflage, by swiftly retreating to a protective crevice within rock or coral and by releasing a cloud of ink that temporarily blinds and confuses the predator; should one of its eight arms be snared by an enemy, the octopus is able to regrow another.  Venomous saliva, employed to stun prey, is seldom used for self-protection; however, the bite of the blue-ringed octopus, a small Australian species, can be fatal to humans.

Though most species of octopus live for less than two years (males die after spawning and females after protecting her eggs until they hatch), they are known to be relatively intelligent creatures, capable of using crude tools and demonstrating the ability to learn and memorize behaviors that enhance their survival.

An Aerial Attack

On this cool, breezy day on Longboat Key, we took our usual walk along the beach.  Unfortunately, there was little to observe during our two mile walk; small flocks of sanderlings and ruddy turnstones scoured the beach, a few ring-billed gulls and royal terns lounged on the sand and a squadron of brown pelicans braved the choppy Gulf.

Once we returned to our condo, however, the activity increased abruptly.  My attention was suddenly drawn toward Sarasota Bay as the cries of an osprey rose to a frenzy, a large fish clutched in his talons. The cause for his alarm was soon apparent as an adult bald eagle swooped in from the shore, chasing the osprey across the bay.  Near collisions followed and the smaller raptor eventually dropped his dinner, some fifty feet off our seawall.  The eagle made one last pass, snaring the fish and heading off to enjoy his meal.

While we like to think of our National Bird as a regal hunter, he is more often a scavenger or a thief, feasting on injured waterfowl, picking at the carcass of a deer or elk, finishing off salmon or seals killed by bears and, as we observed today, stealing fish from ospreys.  Then again, he is at the top of his food chain.

Mouse vs. Man

As 2015 came to an end and a New Year began, a mouse took control of our Columbia home.  He did not scamper across the kitchen floor or invade the pantry; neither did he attack our Holiday treats or incite panic in our guests.  Rather, he simply died in one of our heating ducts, filling the house with the odor of decay.

Unable to locate his carcass by peering through vents or peeling back insulation, we tried in vain to locate a duct cleaning service that might come to the rescue; unfortunately, all were booked up for a week or more.  Following the advice of one expert, we ran the heat continuously (to dry out the corpse), opened windows for ventilation and festooned the home with candles and air fresheners; 24 hours later, those efforts have been fairly successful though a whiff of the mouse is still evident near registers.

As we all know, mice have been invading human homes since the dawn of our species, raiding our food supplies and escaping inclement weather.  Prolific breeders, these nocturnal "pests" have the upper hand, only partially impacted by our wide assortment of mouse traps.  Indeed, there is every reason to believe that this lowly mammal will survive well beyond the reign of humans.  Happy New Year to all!

Driving through the Storm

As I left for Colorado this morning, the latest Pacific storm was spinning over the Great Plains; in Columbia, warm air and rain showers were flowing up from the south.  As I approached Kansas City, the rain intensified and numerous cars had skidded off the highway; bands of torrential rain continued until I reached Topeka, Kansas, where the temperature had dropped into the forties (F), almost twenty degrees cooler than it was in Columbia.

Light rain fell from Topeka to Salina but evidence of recent heavy rains lined the Interstate; broad shallow lakes and meandering waterways covered the valley floors while miniature badlands had been sculpted from some of the hillsides.  West of Salina, the rain ceased and the cloud deck lifted; in concert, a strong north wind buffeted my pickup and spun the turbines of the Smokey Hills Wind Farm.  The winds died down near Russell but picked up again at Hays, sweeping "backside" snow (including "thunder snow") in from the north.

While the storm conditions garnered most of my attention, I did encounter some interesting wildlife behavior on my journey.  Large flocks of wild turkeys gathered on the soggy fields of western Missouri and eastern Kansas, presumably attracted by seeds and invertebrates that were flushed from the waterlogged soil.  Farther west, across the flooded fields of central Kansas, a large number of hawks appeared (primarily red-tails and rough-legs), likely hunting small mammals as they escaped their flooded burrows.