Speaker 1: Welcome to Creature future production of I Heart Radio. I'm
Speaker 1: your host of Many Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology
Speaker 1: and evolutionary biology, and today on the show, we have
Speaker 1: a buffet of birds. Not literally, let's not eat the birds,
Speaker 1: but we are talking about all sorts of birds. And
Speaker 1: this is a really exciting episode because I am not alone.
Speaker 1: I am being joined by travel and wildlife writer Mike Unwin.
Speaker 1: His book Around the World in eighty Birds documents birds
Speaker 1: that Mike has encountered all over the world, the stories
Speaker 1: of these birds, and it gives you a taste of
Speaker 1: the wonderful diversity of our feathery dino friends. So we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about some of these birds, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk to Mike about his adventures. Welcome Mike, alright,
Speaker 1: kid's good to be here. I am so excited. Your
Speaker 1: book is really wonderful. It's beautifully illustrated. Uh, and the
Speaker 1: descriptions of these birds are It's really fun because it
Speaker 1: gives you this rundown of this whole essence of the bird.
Speaker 1: You know, not just the biological description of what it is,
Speaker 1: but what it's like and it's impact on human culture
Speaker 1: and the interactions between birds and humans, for better or
Speaker 1: for worse. And as people already listening to this show,
Speaker 1: probably no, I love birds. I have a particular fondness
Speaker 1: for them because they're so they're adorable, and their behaviors
Speaker 1: are identifiable. But they're also little aliens. They are so
Speaker 1: different from from us, from other mammals, but they have
Speaker 1: so much personality. Just for the record, and you don't
Speaker 1: have to convince me to love birds. But for you,
Speaker 1: why birds? Why are you interested in birds? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: it's it's good to know I'm preaching to the convertity.
Speaker 1: I think I should. I should start with the confession,
Speaker 1: which is you said these are eighty birds that I've
Speaker 1: followed around the world. In fact, I topped it up
Speaker 1: from the book the other day. I've not seen eighty
Speaker 1: of them. I've seen fifty three. Oh my god, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, I know. It's like a charlatan. Well, i'd
Speaker 1: like to have say, maybe I could have started by
Speaker 1: choosing eighty birds I've seen and called it, you know,
Speaker 1: around around my gun Wins world. And I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what the publisher would have gone for that, but yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly exactly eighty of the same one. Now there's that,
Speaker 1: And there's also another confession while I'm while I'm laying
Speaker 1: my my soul bear, I'm not a biologist. I'm not
Speaker 1: a zoologist at all. So I think I'm an example
Speaker 1: of one of the many people who've who have come
Speaker 1: to birds and natural history from a non science background,
Speaker 1: which says, in itself, partly answer to your question why
Speaker 1: birds they reach out They have a broader appeal, and
Speaker 1: that's where they're cemented in so many people's cultures and
Speaker 1: iconography and literature and you name it. And I mean
Speaker 1: why I'm I think they're They're everywhere. Birds are everywhere.
Speaker 1: They're so conspicuous, they're so noisy. There are no other
Speaker 1: parts of the natural world that makes so much sound
Speaker 1: and such a variety of it um And you can
Speaker 1: see them. You don't have to be in some remote wilderness.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be in a tropical rainforest or
Speaker 1: on the top of the andes or something. You you
Speaker 1: see birds in your back garden. You see them when
Speaker 1: you can meet to work. You you don't even have
Speaker 1: to have a garden. You see them from your window.
Speaker 1: There are birds, and there are different birds in every place.
Speaker 1: You know, in your school, when you're growing up, in
Speaker 1: your your your local park and your trip to the seaside,
Speaker 1: they're everywhere and and they forced themselves on your attention,
Speaker 1: you know, um by the sound and they're fluttering about.
Speaker 1: And for me, I mean, I grew up in in
Speaker 1: the suburban UK and I was a natural history obsessive
Speaker 1: and I read all the books about you know, I
Speaker 1: wanted to be tracking lions through the Sararengetti and diving
Speaker 1: with great white sharks and doing all these exciting things.
Speaker 1: And you don't get any of that in suburbia where
Speaker 1: I lived, but you do get birds. And you look
Speaker 1: out your window and there are blue tits and there
Speaker 1: are great it's, and there are sparrows and chappages and
Speaker 1: robins and what whatever. So they're they're they're they're there.
Speaker 1: They satisfy that look, that that need to see the
Speaker 1: natural world happening. And the more you look, the more
Speaker 1: you see, and the more you see, the more you
Speaker 1: want to know, and the more different ones you want
Speaker 1: to see. So you have this kind of this fantastic
Speaker 1: invitation to explore and discover more. And I think, I
Speaker 1: mean that's a personal thing for a universal thing people.
Speaker 1: I think the fact they fly is a pretty big deal.
Speaker 1: I think if when when you when I was going
Speaker 1: researching this book and looking at the number of different
Speaker 1: cultures through history to which one bird or other has
Speaker 1: been pivotal, I was, I was. I was just struck
Speaker 1: by that, that the sort of the wonder that people
Speaker 1: have in flight, because and when when when you hear
Speaker 1: some some celebrity being interviewed and you know, what would
Speaker 1: your superpower be, it's it's always I want to fly,
Speaker 1: and whether it's it's freedom or escape or some kind
Speaker 1: of magical transcendence of the you know, the dull terrestrial
Speaker 1: world was stuck in. So I think, you know, birds
Speaker 1: symbolize that for us, and they look good. So it's
Speaker 1: a long answer to a simple question. But you know,
Speaker 1: you could we could talk all they up white birds,
Speaker 1: and there are a starting point, you know, starting with
Speaker 1: birds for me, then it went in all sorts of
Speaker 1: other directions too. You know, I have a very similar
Speaker 1: story because when I was a kid, like a little,
Speaker 1: very little kid before I can even remember, but my
Speaker 1: mom remembers, I was obsessed with birds and I'd be
Speaker 1: barely barely two years old running around outside chasing birds around,
Speaker 1: And when my mom asked me what I was doing,
Speaker 1: I would say something like I want to catch a bird,
Speaker 1: and she'd ask me why, and I said, well, I
Speaker 1: think we could be friends. So I think we'd like
Speaker 1: to I don't know. We we we transfer our own
Speaker 1: values to them as well. That that's why they loomed
Speaker 1: so large in culture. We they've they've become emblematic of
Speaker 1: all these things that they didn't actually ask for. So
Speaker 1: whether it's eagles which are kind of mighty and powerful
Speaker 1: and military, or whether it's either the owls such a
Speaker 1: wise or sinister or saving magpies or whatever it might be.
Speaker 1: We we we kind of, yeah, we saddle them with
Speaker 1: up with our own values because they're there there. There's wonderful,
Speaker 1: kind of exciting palettes on which we can paint our
Speaker 1: own ideas. Yeah. I wonder sometimes because you know, as
Speaker 1: a bird watcher, bird document or it seems like this
Speaker 1: kind of one sided thing where you are they're kind
Speaker 1: of spying on these birds, peering into their world as
Speaker 1: the bird goes about. Yeah, but have you had any
Speaker 1: experiences with birds where you felt like the bird was
Speaker 1: curious about you? Or is that kind of antithetical to
Speaker 1: the bird observer where you want to be unseen, but
Speaker 1: are does that line ever get cross where the bird
Speaker 1: is actually watching you and interested in what you're doing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good question. I'd like to think I had
Speaker 1: some kind of empirical scientific objectivity, but I don't. I'm
Speaker 1: as I'm as pray to those and supremorphic ideas and
Speaker 1: speculations as anyone else. And I mean there are times
Speaker 1: I think I think, for instance, being I've been at
Speaker 1: sea on long voyages in the Southern Ocean. I've been
Speaker 1: watching albatrosses, for example, and you see this bird, it's
Speaker 1: a speck in the wake of the ship. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm the only person on deck and the weather is
Speaker 1: not great, and I see this bird low above the waves,
Speaker 1: and somehow it's miraculously gaining on us, catching up in
Speaker 1: the wake of the ship until it pulls alongside. And
Speaker 1: I've had these moments where I've got this wandering albatross right,
Speaker 1: which is a massive but it's three ms across the wings.
Speaker 1: It's it's extraordinary bird, and it's hanging there sort of magically,
Speaker 1: just a few meters away from me at eye level,
Speaker 1: off the side of the ship and I and I
Speaker 1: look at it and it just kind of looks sideways
Speaker 1: at me and we make eye contact. And here it is,
Speaker 1: this thing where in the middle of nowhere. And I'd
Speaker 1: like to say there's some if it's not a moment
Speaker 1: of communication, there's curiosity, it's you know, what, what are
Speaker 1: you and what are you doing there? And there's and
Speaker 1: here's this creature. I mean that albatross can live for
Speaker 1: seventy years, right, They don't mature to breed until the
Speaker 1: wandering albatross is still their twelve thirteen fourteen. There. They
Speaker 1: are extraordinary creatures with complex lives that we got a
Speaker 1: lot of which we can only guess at. And I
Speaker 1: think we'd be foolish to underestimate what's going on. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, I mean, of course, as a
Speaker 1: bird watching your things are running away from you, most
Speaker 1: flying from you know where, this great looming potential predator
Speaker 1: that kind of blunders around in their world and off
Speaker 1: they go. They tolerate you as long as they can
Speaker 1: unless they're signing in it for them, you know, That's
Speaker 1: what the scientists would tell you, of course, And again
Speaker 1: we love to transfer these sort of values in the
Speaker 1: UK are the robin with the European robin, I should
Speaker 1: hasten to add is very different from your American rob
Speaker 1: It is robin at all. It's a thrush. So let's yes, no,
Speaker 1: I know the the European robin is like that for me.
Speaker 1: The differences the European robin sphere American robin bird shape.
Speaker 1: Your European robin is like a little poofball with legs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does, definitely. It puffs itself up. And there's a
Speaker 1: very very popular bird in the UK and especially with
Speaker 1: gardeners because it's very confiding and people will be digging
Speaker 1: in their back garden, turning over the soil and a
Speaker 1: robin will turn up and it will sit close to
Speaker 1: the more will perch on the fork handles, as we've
Speaker 1: illustrated in the book, and people develop a relationship with it,
Speaker 1: and then then people start talking about my robin. Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: my robin was out here so and he popped in
Speaker 1: to say hello, and yeah, you know, we had a
Speaker 1: little chat and I gave him some worms. And often
Speaker 1: may not be him, it's probably a her, and they
Speaker 1: may not even be the same robin. But people love
Speaker 1: to develop this idea that they somehow forwards this this
Speaker 1: bond of the bed, and the truth is perhaps a
Speaker 1: little less less kind of appealing, which is that Robbin's evolved.
Speaker 1: They they feed on small insects, feed in the understory
Speaker 1: of forests and woodland, and they probably evolved, it's thought,
Speaker 1: in tandem with wild boars. And wild boars they root
Speaker 1: through the leaflets and they dig up grubs, they turn
Speaker 1: over the soil, and the robin will hang around and
Speaker 1: drop down and pick up a worm or or a beetle, larva,
Speaker 1: or an insect and an essentially, gardeners are just being
Speaker 1: kind of upright wild boars and Robbin's. No, there's no
Speaker 1: there's no harm for them. They you know, why not
Speaker 1: take what they can. We're just tall, upright wild boars.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, yeah exactly. I wish you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel a bit more self respect maybe. But there's
Speaker 1: one story that occurred to me. Actually when you say
Speaker 1: this about interacting with birds, I mean, whether they're curious
Speaker 1: about me or not, I don't know. But there's a
Speaker 1: bird in my book called the Greater honey Guide, which
Speaker 1: you may know about. It's an African bird and it's
Speaker 1: it's found all over Subsuda in Africa. But I've I've
Speaker 1: actually in my book each bird is connected to a
Speaker 1: particular country, and in this case, I made it Zambia
Speaker 1: because it was in Zambia. I had an amazing experience.
Speaker 1: I was. I was out on foot in a in
Speaker 1: a in a national park. Kafuoi National Park is a
Speaker 1: huge wilderness and I was walking with an armed guide
Speaker 1: and we were in big game country and there were
Speaker 1: elephants around, and we were following this trail through the
Speaker 1: bush and I heard a honey guide calling. And I
Speaker 1: know the honey guid, and it's an unobtrusive brown little bird,
Speaker 1: nothing very spectacular to look at, and it's got a
Speaker 1: fairly recognizable call. But it was doing this this frantic call.
Speaker 1: It was like it was like a frenzy honey guide.
Speaker 1: It was a twittering, twittering. And my guide said, yeah,
Speaker 1: it once it wants, it wants us. It wants to
Speaker 1: lead us to honey And I know about it. I've
Speaker 1: read about it, but I was a little skeptical that
Speaker 1: this bird. Suppose if it feeds on bees, wax and
Speaker 1: and and grubs, larger bees, and supposedly it co ops
Speaker 1: the assistance of a large mammal i humans, but supposedly
Speaker 1: also honey batches to get at the business, to plunder it,
Speaker 1: to pull it out, you know, to take what they
Speaker 1: want and then leave something for the honeyguide. And you
Speaker 1: read about this as a kid, and that it also
Speaker 1: felt a little apocryphal. So we were walking along and
Speaker 1: here the honey guide was flying ahead, treat to treat,
Speaker 1: and the path forked and we had to head right.
Speaker 1: So we went off right, leaving the honey guides below us,
Speaker 1: and it came back. It came along the path and
Speaker 1: now it was in It had wound itself up into
Speaker 1: a complete par of twitter. Why aren't you exactly come
Speaker 1: on for good? Honestly? And it was ahead, It was
Speaker 1: flitted ahead of us, and I said, look, can me,
Speaker 1: you know, just indulge me. Can we just see what
Speaker 1: happens here? Can we? So we retraced our steps to
Speaker 1: where the paths forked, and the honey guy then flew
Speaker 1: ahead down the lower path. We followed it. And what
Speaker 1: it does is it flies from tree to tree, stops, calls,
Speaker 1: flies on the next tree, we catch up, and moves on.
Speaker 1: It leads you. I love that. I love the scientific
Speaker 1: name by the way, which is indicator. Indicator tells you what.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's just on the nose exactly, it's actually there.
Speaker 1: You go. Um. And finally we get to a bay
Speaker 1: about huge grape African tree and it flies up into
Speaker 1: the upper branches and it just falls silent, and in
Speaker 1: the silence, I could just hear this hum and it
Speaker 1: was the buzzing of bees. And then we've been oculars
Speaker 1: half up the trunk. That's what appears to be smoke
Speaker 1: coming out, and there was a bees nest in a
Speaker 1: hole in the trunk of this bare back and that
Speaker 1: the honey guide had just it had just flown up
Speaker 1: and they perched on the branch and it just was
Speaker 1: completely silent. And it was like, okay, come on, guys,
Speaker 1: doing stuff now. I'm ready. I'm ready. And this was
Speaker 1: about this was about four or five meters up the
Speaker 1: tree trunk. We were not going to climb and stick
Speaker 1: our face in and letting the bees nest. And the
Speaker 1: whole thing was amazing, and I was, it was extraordinary,
Speaker 1: and we left it. We left the honey guide. There's
Speaker 1: that old bird saying you can lead a human to
Speaker 1: a bunch of bees, but you can't make the human
Speaker 1: get the bees down. I think, yeah, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: It's in all their bird folklore. Yeah yeah, and that
Speaker 1: it's quite because in African folklore actually that I mean
Speaker 1: people have people. This is something that probably evolved with
Speaker 1: hunter gather people's you know, centrals going. But to this day,
Speaker 1: subsistence farmers in Central Africa still use sunny guys in
Speaker 1: this way to to toct honey. And the story goes
Speaker 1: that you must always once you hauld them because they
Speaker 1: used smoke. They smoke out the bees to dull them.
Speaker 1: They hauld out the business and you must always leave
Speaker 1: some wax some of the honeycomb for the honey guys
Speaker 1: because if you don't, if you don't do that next time,
Speaker 1: it's going to take you to a black member or something. No,
Speaker 1: I don't know if they would be so so petty,
Speaker 1: but you know, it is interesting because in these some
Speaker 1: beotic relationships, there are there are cases where they will
Speaker 1: learn to distrust individuals if you don't basically pay play
Speaker 1: by their rules. This is the case in many like
Speaker 1: you know, we know that with yes corvids very good memory,
Speaker 1: they will teach the younger generations not to trust you
Speaker 1: the human if you have wronged them, which many university
Speaker 1: researching students interns have learned the hard way being part
Speaker 1: of these studies, and it it is. It is fascinating
Speaker 1: to me because I think it is true birds we
Speaker 1: can't really anthropomorphize them in the sense that, you know,
Speaker 1: this bird is not necessarily thinking great, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: helping this human get honey. This bird is thinking when
Speaker 1: this happened? When I do this, do this a series
Speaker 1: of events, I get bees wax, and I get larva,
Speaker 1: and you know. But I think that we also can't
Speaker 1: shy away too much from attributing emotion to them because
Speaker 1: the bird being frustrated. I could believe that bird is
Speaker 1: frustrated that you're not following it and not paying attention
Speaker 1: to it. I think it was legitimately peeved that you
Speaker 1: were not picking up what it was putting down, which
Speaker 1: I think is there's something so charming about that that
Speaker 1: this thing, this like living dinosaur that's turned small and
Speaker 1: flits around and has is cute and has feathers, still
Speaker 1: has these like such a personality. Yeah, I think so,
Speaker 1: and I think we underestimate that with our peril. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And as for emotion, I mean you get it into
Speaker 1: tricky philosophical areas here, don't you, Because all this research
Speaker 1: done on corvids and ravens and it's discott and magpie
Speaker 1: is discovering capacity for things that were once held to
Speaker 1: be exclusively human and grieving and envy and all sorts
Speaker 1: of things like that, and um. But I think you
Speaker 1: also have to flip it around and say, well, you
Speaker 1: know we we we forever we've separated ourselves from the
Speaker 1: rest of the animal world by claiming that we have
Speaker 1: the sophisticated suite of emotions that make us. But I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, we we have to break the done and
Speaker 1: us what are they for? Half of them are about
Speaker 1: getting one up on somebody else, so obtaining you know,
Speaker 1: rewards or manipulation, you know, manipulating social circumstances to our
Speaker 1: own ends. And just as social birds do different expressions
Speaker 1: of the same instincts, we just do with clothes on anything. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I I think that is exactly on. You know, when
Speaker 1: you look at emotions, it's a reward system. And you
Speaker 1: know birds and other animals also need a reward system,
Speaker 1: so we are not so special. Well, I'll uh leave
Speaker 1: you guys with your not so special over the ad break.
Speaker 1: But when we return, we're going to talk more about
Speaker 1: these wonderful birds described in this book and just give
Speaker 1: you a little little taste of these spectacular birds you
Speaker 1: can find all over the world. Will be right back
Speaker 1: and we are back, and I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: some of the birds from your book that I really
Speaker 1: loved reading about and that I think. It's just there's
Speaker 1: such a wide diversity of birds. It is amazing. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, the evolution towards flight seems to
Speaker 1: just do something that you know, it forces these animals
Speaker 1: to evolve into such interesting niches and it gets I mean,
Speaker 1: it doesn't force them, it's more it gives them so
Speaker 1: many more opportunities that they can evolve into a different niche.
Speaker 1: And even flightless birds we see this where you know,
Speaker 1: with penguins, yes they're flightless, Uh, they lost their ability
Speaker 1: to flight, but now they have this incredibly complex system
Speaker 1: of swimming and this awkward life on land but far
Speaker 1: more graceful life under the water for a bird, which
Speaker 1: is incredible. And so I think that that flight and
Speaker 1: birds and this initial evolution towards flight just opened up
Speaker 1: so many different paths for them. No wonder they have
Speaker 1: taken such a diverse path. And one really interesting bird
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk about from your book is the
Speaker 1: palm nut vulture, because this I love vultures. I think
Speaker 1: they get a bad rap because they, you know, they
Speaker 1: eat carcasses. They're spooky maybe, but they're they're wonderful, wonderful animals.
Speaker 1: They provide a very important service. And these ones are
Speaker 1: interesting because these are kind of like the Pandas of
Speaker 1: the bird world, because they the palm nut vulture. It
Speaker 1: has descended from a line of carnivores scavengers who feed
Speaker 1: on carcasses, but this one is different. What is going
Speaker 1: on with this guy? Yeah? Great, it's it's what's the phrase,
Speaker 1: the exception that proves the rule, but which never really
Speaker 1: never really, I don't understand me. But it's an African vulture.
Speaker 1: It's the smallest of the Old World vultures. It's the
Speaker 1: smallest black and white vulture found around the coast, and
Speaker 1: it feeds mostly on the nuts, the the palm nuts
Speaker 1: of raffia palms and oil palms. So it is a
Speaker 1: a vegetarian carnival and so I don't know whether it's why.
Speaker 1: The next question is why, of course, And I think
Speaker 1: it has to be because it has seen documentaries about
Speaker 1: the huge damage that meat eating is doing to our
Speaker 1: planet and it's decided to take the responsible path and
Speaker 1: you know, do its bit for planet Earth. And it's
Speaker 1: either that or is the fact that long before we
Speaker 1: started pumping up fossil fuels it and cutting down rainforests
Speaker 1: it as you say, it's about diversification, it's about finding
Speaker 1: a niche. I mean, I mean the world of birds
Speaker 1: of prey, there's a lot of competition, especially in Africa.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of different raptors vying for the best
Speaker 1: parts of the carcass or of the living animals, along
Speaker 1: with other terrestrial predators, small mammals, small kind of wals, snakes, whatever,
Speaker 1: and wherever there's wherever the nature offers a niche, a
Speaker 1: vacancy to be filled. If you like um, you know
Speaker 1: the laws of adaptation, A natural selection will find something
Speaker 1: to fill it. And in this case, the partner vulture
Speaker 1: has has Um has has risen to the challenge and
Speaker 1: it's able to obtain most nutrition it needs and has
Speaker 1: developed a technique for which it has no no competition
Speaker 1: from other birds and feeds mostly on on oil pants
Speaker 1: that the fruit of them, which are pretty hard to
Speaker 1: break into. Um. But it's not has to be said,
Speaker 1: it's not an entirely strict vegetarian. It does days, it does. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like those um you know. You hear about the
Speaker 1: bacon sandwich being the demise of a vegetarian occasionally and
Speaker 1: all principles crumble though. They will say what would be
Speaker 1: the what would be the bacon sandwich for the palm
Speaker 1: nt vulture, Well, the bacon sandwich would be crabs, crabs
Speaker 1: on the beach, crabs with ketchup, maybe the crabs and
Speaker 1: dead fish scavenging that people have put out as an experiment,
Speaker 1: put out dead fish on the beach in Parmimer vulture
Speaker 1: territory and they've had no problem coming down and and
Speaker 1: filling their their face or they're building their fish. But
Speaker 1: they're not really adapted. They don't have the predatory prowess
Speaker 1: of other birds of prey. They also can't compete with
Speaker 1: the larger vultures at a carcass. I've actually seen them.
Speaker 1: I've seen them around a carcass where larger vultures are
Speaker 1: gorging themselves, and they wait till the big ones have
Speaker 1: flown off and scraps left behind. Um. But and they've
Speaker 1: they've adapted as well. They're they're they're more solitary than
Speaker 1: most old world vultures. And you and see them around
Speaker 1: human habitation a lot if you go to the west
Speaker 1: coast of Africa, places like Senegal and Gambier and areas
Speaker 1: and that they're often around fishing villages and on the beach. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: there they are. That's uk the oxymoron of nature of
Speaker 1: vegetarian carnival. Yes, I mean we've had that happened in
Speaker 1: in multiple species of carnivores, and and sometimes very interesting
Speaker 1: like for um. Dogs of course evolved from an extinct
Speaker 1: wolf ancestor a common ancestor between the dogs and the
Speaker 1: current gray wolf. And dogs originally were strict carnivores, but
Speaker 1: because they had this relationship with humans, they actually started
Speaker 1: to uh evolve so that they could digest things like
Speaker 1: grains and wheat and so like. Now, of course you
Speaker 1: cannot feed a dog only bread. That will not be
Speaker 1: healthy for the dog, but it can actually just more
Speaker 1: more a greater variety of things than a wolf can
Speaker 1: digest because it had this relationship with humans, and it's
Speaker 1: fascinating that evolution can work on that scale. We think
Speaker 1: of it as something over you know, millions of years,
Speaker 1: not something over sort of our short human kind of
Speaker 1: existence here, but it does. And you know, of course,
Speaker 1: I brought up pandas earlier because pandas were are a
Speaker 1: vegetarian carnivore. They are extremely inefficient. They are not. They
Speaker 1: are not. We're not originally evolved to be able to
Speaker 1: digest that much fiber and that much vegetation, and so
Speaker 1: they compensate that by just eating a huge amount of
Speaker 1: it and sleeping a lot, and it works for them.
Speaker 1: And a lot of bears eats primarily vegetable method. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and they they they've evolved, They've got they
Speaker 1: they come from a carnivore body plan. They've evolved from
Speaker 1: the same roots as cats and dogs and hyenas and
Speaker 1: otters and janets and all those things. But I think
Speaker 1: a lot of like an ultimate that their sustenance comes
Speaker 1: largely from berries and roots. And and yet you know,
Speaker 1: they've got they've got the the dentition of a of
Speaker 1: a carnivore, they've got the forward facing eyes of a hunter.
Speaker 1: They've civets as well. They eat a lot of fruit
Speaker 1: massive a lot of berries kind of shows you that
Speaker 1: as environments change, you either need to kind of keep
Speaker 1: with it, like get with the times and be able
Speaker 1: to diversify, or you fail. So they are probably carnivores.
Speaker 1: I mean, we know there are plenty of carnivores that
Speaker 1: went extinct because they couldn't compete and they could not
Speaker 1: get enough prey. It's actually, I mean people think of
Speaker 1: carnivores as sort of leading this easy, fearless life, like
Speaker 1: the lions are the kings and queens of the savannah
Speaker 1: because they don't have a predator. From it they are
Speaker 1: they live life on the edge because if they miss
Speaker 1: a few meals, they're goners. So speaking of prey doitors now,
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about an actual predator. It
Speaker 1: is a bird who's not a vulture. It is a falcon,
Speaker 1: but it does have a naked face like a vulture.
Speaker 1: It's the northern crusted care carrot. So why does it
Speaker 1: have that naked face. It's an adaptation like the vulture,
Speaker 1: I believe, which is to stop its face being soiled,
Speaker 1: its feathers from being soiled with blood and gore and
Speaker 1: other unpleasant matter when it sticks, it's it's head inside
Speaker 1: a carcass and pulls out what it can. So it's
Speaker 1: an adaptation that quite a few scavenging birds have developed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you see that with with condors or vultures. The
Speaker 1: very naked bare faces makes them look maybe not so pretty,
Speaker 1: but it keeps them much more hygienic than they would
Speaker 1: be if they are getting this mass of blood and
Speaker 1: gets matted in their feathers. So they're actually they want
Speaker 1: to be clean that pretty to each other as well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, yeah, I think I think they're beautiful. I
Speaker 1: love them. I'm I'm I'm a vulture fan. Two. And
Speaker 1: but then there's an interesting thing about about adaptation, isn't it,
Speaker 1: Because the New World vultures are not related to the
Speaker 1: Old World vultures at all. So the New World vultures
Speaker 1: are in fact not birds of brain. So the condors
Speaker 1: and the Turkey vulture and so on, they actually come
Speaker 1: they're much they come from an order of birds and
Speaker 1: more closer road to the storks, and so they're not
Speaker 1: parts of the acid picture forms the the the the
Speaker 1: Old World birds of prose and the Old World ultures
Speaker 1: are grouped taxonomically with the eagles and hawks and buzzards
Speaker 1: and kites and harriers and so on, the New World
Speaker 1: ones completing separate more closely related to storks. They have
Speaker 1: they've they have converged. It's convergent evolution. They've converged on
Speaker 1: the same lifestyle. They've fulfilled the same niche in the
Speaker 1: New World as the vultures having the Old world. So
Speaker 1: they've developed the same attributes, the naked face, the guard
Speaker 1: against soil plumage, the fantastic soaring wings in order to
Speaker 1: too eyes on thermals and scan for pay over a
Speaker 1: great distance. That the same social behavior gathering at pecarcas.
Speaker 1: So things can come from different basis and converge and
Speaker 1: and reach a very similar form. And I think it's
Speaker 1: only really once we've got into molecular taxonomy and DNA
Speaker 1: and some one that we realized that these things were
Speaker 1: actually not as closely related as we thought. And that's
Speaker 1: the same with falcons. In fact, now falcons have been
Speaker 1: split from the birds of prey fulkon it forms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they're so they're more closely related to parrots. That's amazing.
Speaker 1: So this is one that yeah, I know it's traditionalists
Speaker 1: like me. We grew up with the bird book, and
Speaker 1: you you flipped through the bird book and okay, okay,
Speaker 1: here the birds to pray, the big ones with the
Speaker 1: sharp bills and the wicked talents, and it goes vultures, eagles, hawks, whatever,
Speaker 1: and then you've got the falcons at the end. Shouldn't
Speaker 1: be that falcons should be off nearer the parrots. That's incredible. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: they've converged also to use that convergent evolution term, they've
Speaker 1: they've developed the same attributes, the same techniques, and same
Speaker 1: ability to say, capture birds in flight and to tear
Speaker 1: them up. So, so where's that leave us with the
Speaker 1: Carra carrat. It's the Carra carrat is is one of
Speaker 1: the full coniform so it's related to the to the falcons,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't chase birds around in flight. U it is. Well,
Speaker 1: we we've just been talking about the Pardner vulture, which
Speaker 1: is highly specialized. It's a serious specialist. It's got a
Speaker 1: very narrow little niche that it has adapted to exploit.
Speaker 1: The Carra carrat is a generalist. It's the opposite. It's
Speaker 1: it's a kind of the crow of the birds of prey. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it can. It can chase things and kill them,
Speaker 1: but it can also steal food from other birds. It
Speaker 1: can also avail itself of a bit of road kill
Speaker 1: if it drops down to a highway it can. Unlike
Speaker 1: other falcons, it doesn't hunt a learning. It moves around
Speaker 1: in groups. Um sometimes you know, you can corporate with
Speaker 1: each other in finding food, and you can overwhelm a
Speaker 1: larger prey item if there are several of you. It
Speaker 1: hops around on the ground behaving more like a big
Speaker 1: chicken than sort of you know, noble, dashing, elegant Peregon falcon.
Speaker 1: And yeah, so it's a it's kind of it's got
Speaker 1: a solution to every feeding opportunity and it is incredibly
Speaker 1: successful as a result. So you get the I have
Speaker 1: in my book the the northern crested Cara Carra. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's it's found all the way from Mexico, but it's
Speaker 1: the bird from Mexico in my book. It's found all
Speaker 1: the way down to the south of patagony of the
Speaker 1: whole way through the same fact, from about probably Texas
Speaker 1: in the north down to Argentina in the south. And
Speaker 1: it's pretty ubiquitous and it does very very well and
Speaker 1: it's not a necessarily a solitary bird, right, it can
Speaker 1: work in groups in its hunting. That's so interesting to
Speaker 1: me because falcons, I mean, it makes some more in
Speaker 1: terms of like it being more closely related to parrots,
Speaker 1: which are highly highly social, but that it's it's a
Speaker 1: relatively I mean, corvettes are also very social, but it's
Speaker 1: it seems like somewhat unusual for a bird of prey
Speaker 1: to work in a group because we often think of
Speaker 1: it as like an owl, you know, the solitary hunter,
Speaker 1: or an eagle or a hawk, which maybe they may
Speaker 1: kind of form a pair, but they don't usually form
Speaker 1: like a group that actually hunts together socially. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: but they're not always in groups. I think they will.
Speaker 1: They will adapt as the occasion demands. So I think
Speaker 1: they can play the solitary loaner and hang out and
Speaker 1: kind of be cool, or they can join the gag
Speaker 1: with them and when there's a large carcass and and
Speaker 1: share the spoils, you know, when it when it makes
Speaker 1: sense to do so, and um, and it's it's in
Speaker 1: these social words that you get the most interesting communication
Speaker 1: as well, because they have to sort out the pottics,
Speaker 1: you know, the hierarchies and the dominance of certain individuals
Speaker 1: and so on. That is really interesting. Oh and I
Speaker 1: also wanted you to talk about a little bit about
Speaker 1: the Caacres notion of romance because I thought that was
Speaker 1: very interesting. The charac cars a notion of romance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it would probably be a candle at dinner for two
Speaker 1: over a roadkime on the dinner romance. I. Yeah. They
Speaker 1: they have a very loud call, and they duet, so
Speaker 1: a pair will get together, um, and they form bonds
Speaker 1: at last throughout the breeding season for for several years
Speaker 1: as well, and they will perform these duet calls to
Speaker 1: strengthen their pair bonds like a lot of birds suit,
Speaker 1: like a lot of seabirds too, and some other birds
Speaker 1: of prey. And they throw their heads right back so
Speaker 1: that the bill actually almost such as the name of
Speaker 1: the neck shoulders to utter these these calls that they
Speaker 1: do in town in duet, which is a very harsh,
Speaker 1: grating kind of cattling call, which is where they get
Speaker 1: the name from. I think Katah, Yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's I think it's kind of on a mata peak yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, and they I think when they when they're
Speaker 1: paired up, they reinforce their bonds with with preening, hallow preening,
Speaker 1: and so what and so, and it's a it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful bird as well, it is. It's a beautiful bird,
Speaker 1: and it's a character. It's a bird that's got something.
Speaker 1: When you see them, they watch you. And and also
Speaker 1: some you know that the naked place we tend. It's
Speaker 1: it's bizarre. We don't like things that are naked, but
Speaker 1: we are, which is strange, you know, I know it's
Speaker 1: very very odd. But if you if you ask people
Speaker 1: to name ugly animals, what do you get? You get
Speaker 1: water hog, naked, mole rat, you get things like and
Speaker 1: if it's birds, it's mariboo, stalks and vultures, anything that's
Speaker 1: without feathers naked. I know what what's our problem? This
Speaker 1: is some deep seated human issue. I think we don't
Speaker 1: like it if it's naked. And and I think some
Speaker 1: people find a cara cara less attractive than other other
Speaker 1: birds of prey. So for anything that's a scavenger and
Speaker 1: gets reviled for that reason, I think it needs it
Speaker 1: needs a bit more. I think it's stunning. I mean
Speaker 1: it's got this beautiful orange face, beautiful white feathers on
Speaker 1: its neck, and then the jet black feathers on the
Speaker 1: top of its head and on the rest of its body.
Speaker 1: It's gorgeous. Stunning. Now on two birds that I think
Speaker 1: universally people find stunning, but I think are quite absurd
Speaker 1: in their own way. Hummingbirds. So these are such strange creatures.
Speaker 1: Their lives are really fast and intense. Uh. They often
Speaker 1: have these beautiful jewel like bodies, have these absurdly long beaks,
Speaker 1: very sharp and needle like, and their method of flight
Speaker 1: is more like a bee than another bird. And they
Speaker 1: have these incredibly rapid metabolisms that means a missed meal
Speaker 1: could be a death sentence. And so uh, the sword
Speaker 1: build hummingbird that you discuss in your book is, from
Speaker 1: an evolutionary perspective, just ridiculous. It's very it's bold and
Speaker 1: daring in a way that almost seems stupid, because this
Speaker 1: is a tiny bird that, again, like every every ounce
Speaker 1: of its body weight and every you know, moment it
Speaker 1: spends flying is potentially gambling its life because it needs
Speaker 1: to be able to get enough food, uh, to keep
Speaker 1: up with this extremely rapid metabolism. So to invest so
Speaker 1: much in this ridiculously long beak seems absurd, It seems foolish.
Speaker 1: So uh, why is it worth it for them to, uh,
Speaker 1: to have this ridiculously long beak? Because I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about like you know, normally hummingbirds, they do have that
Speaker 1: long needle like beak for sipping nectar, but this one,
Speaker 1: it is ridiculous that the sword build hummingbirds build. It's
Speaker 1: the only bird whose bill is longer than its own
Speaker 1: body length. So this is a bird that when it
Speaker 1: when it roosts, when it perches, it actually has to
Speaker 1: hold its head up to tilt its bill upwards because
Speaker 1: if it held its bill outside ways, it would tilt
Speaker 1: off the ridiculous What was it thinking? I know, I know,
Speaker 1: But then the weird thing is, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: as as as evolutionary scientists will will tell you, there
Speaker 1: is no such thing as ridiculous is it? Because if
Speaker 1: it didn't work, it wouldn't exist by its very nature,
Speaker 1: it can only have evolved this, this ludicrous, bizarre observes,
Speaker 1: whatever you want to call it, appendage, it can only
Speaker 1: have evolved because through that long drawn out process of
Speaker 1: trial and error of natural selection, you know, through genetic mutation,
Speaker 1: through environmental change and so on, it has produced something
Speaker 1: that has a place and that functions, and that gives
Speaker 1: it a role that removes it from the competition, that
Speaker 1: allows it to succeed. Otherwise it wouldn't be out there
Speaker 1: like anything else. And in this case, I think there's
Speaker 1: something like three hundred species of hummingbird in the world,
Speaker 1: and each they feed on nectar, and they feed by
Speaker 1: hovering in mid air, and there's a interesting they're the
Speaker 1: only bird that can truly hover. So we may think
Speaker 1: of things like kestrals as hovering because they can remain stationary.
Speaker 1: But what things like what kestrals are doing are they're
Speaker 1: flying into a breeze and they're counteracting it. And hummingbirds
Speaker 1: are the only birds that can hover in a in
Speaker 1: a vacuum because their wings. I'm sure I'm sure you
Speaker 1: know this some amazing slowed up film footage that shows
Speaker 1: you that the wings beaten this kind of figure of
Speaker 1: eight pan which means that they they generate thrust on
Speaker 1: the forward stroke as well as the background backward strokes.
Speaker 1: So in a vacuum they can still absolutely stationary, which
Speaker 1: means they position themselves in front of a flower and
Speaker 1: with their with their bill, they suck out its nectar.
Speaker 1: But each species of hummingbird is adapted to different flowers
Speaker 1: um and the bill length or the bill shape fits
Speaker 1: the corolla of the flower, so the inside of the
Speaker 1: petals from which it derives a nectar. And in the
Speaker 1: case of the sawbill hummingbird, you guessed it. It feeds
Speaker 1: on flowers with a very long, deep corolla. So there
Speaker 1: are no other hummingbirds that can reach deep into the
Speaker 1: I think it's a passive flora mixer. It's a kind
Speaker 1: of a climbing vine like flower with these very deep blooms,
Speaker 1: and it's found in my book the this bird is
Speaker 1: represents Ecuador, so this is a bird of the of
Speaker 1: the mid level Andy's tropical cloud forests on the edge
Speaker 1: of the Andes where this flower grows um. But it's
Speaker 1: not a one way thing because the flower, like with bees,
Speaker 1: like with a lot of pollinators with insects, the flower
Speaker 1: relies upon the hummingbird two for pollination, and the hummingbirds
Speaker 1: follow a regular course around a sort of outside of flowers,
Speaker 1: regularly transferring pollen from flower to flower as they sit
Speaker 1: the nectar and so that's what they do. That's what
Speaker 1: the flower lies upon, that's what the bird relies upon.
Speaker 1: There are no other huneybirds that can reach into that
Speaker 1: particular flower, So it's got its own it's got its
Speaker 1: own exclusive many. Yeah, it's so interesting to me because
Speaker 1: it's as if the bird and this flower have this
Speaker 1: exclusive contract with each other that's developed, you know, over
Speaker 1: an evolutionary timescale of you know, the nectar is costly
Speaker 1: for a flower to produce. It doesn't want to give
Speaker 1: it out to anyone unless, uh, you're going to perform
Speaker 1: a service for this flower, which is enabling pollination, and
Speaker 1: so it will often specialize for a specific pollinator because
Speaker 1: you know, it knows that that pollinator is going to
Speaker 1: take its pollen and then distribute it in a way
Speaker 1: that benefits this flower. Whereas like if it allowed any
Speaker 1: kind of like maybe a little arboreal animal to a
Speaker 1: small arboreal mammal to get in their reach in there
Speaker 1: and drink the nectar, maybe that is not going to
Speaker 1: have the same kind of range, the same kind of
Speaker 1: efficient pollination as this hummingbird. And so by essentially they're
Speaker 1: co evolving the system of they have this exclusive relationship
Speaker 1: the hummingbird and this flower, and it's to each other's
Speaker 1: benefit as long as nothing happens to one of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I in my house, in my kitchen, there
Speaker 1: is a very high cupboard and I tend I tend
Speaker 1: to put a bag of cash you nuts right at
Speaker 1: the back of that cupboard on the top shelf, which
Speaker 1: is out of the reach of my wife and daughter.
Speaker 1: And it's a it's a very similar thing, and except
Speaker 1: I don't think that cash you gets much out of
Speaker 1: it well as someone with a very tall husband. Um.
Speaker 1: I have one word for your wife and daughter, and
Speaker 1: it's tongs. Tongues or a stool, Yes, stool and the
Speaker 1: tongs and you're undefeatable. Yeah, yeah, exactly, the tongue bills, hummingbird,
Speaker 1: it will happen, exactly. Yeah. That's the thing I love
Speaker 1: about birds actually that if you look at one of
Speaker 1: the most remarkable aspects of birds I think are their bills.
Speaker 1: And birds bills evolved obviously they they as part of
Speaker 1: the need to jettison weight in order to fly, so
Speaker 1: birds don't have the heavy jawbones and of mammals. They
Speaker 1: have this this horny the keratin sheath billum and of course,
Speaker 1: you know, the disadvantage of that is they can't chew
Speaker 1: their food. They don't have teeth. Teeth are heavy. But
Speaker 1: that's why they have the gizzard down in the digestive
Speaker 1: tract in order to or flower down to crush food
Speaker 1: down there. But you look at the range of birds, bills,
Speaker 1: and pretty much every human tool you could put out
Speaker 1: of a toolbox and the garage is represented in the
Speaker 1: bird world. There are you know, woodpeckers have chisels, uh,
Speaker 1: spoonbills have saves, um crossbills have players. You know, eagles
Speaker 1: have meat hooks. Flamingoes have strainers, strainers exactly exactly that.
Speaker 1: It's incredible, the whole it was all, it was all there,
Speaker 1: the template for most of our our kitchen utensils there
Speaker 1: in the bird world. The flint stones wasn't too off.
Speaker 1: You could just replace all your kitchen utensils with birds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just if you could somehow tame this fantastic kind of
Speaker 1: avery birds from und the wall and just have them
Speaker 1: running a kitchen. Um, Yeah, and that would be good. Well,
Speaker 1: we are going to take a quick break while we
Speaker 1: try to train a flock of birds to run our kitchens.
Speaker 1: And when we return, we are going to talk more
Speaker 1: about the interactions between birds and humans. So I have
Speaker 1: a personal relationship with one of the birds that you
Speaker 1: describe in your book, the common swifts, because right now
Speaker 1: in northern Italy they are everywhere. They are zooming through
Speaker 1: the sky and screaming. They I mean, it doesn't bother me.
Speaker 1: I think it's um. Perhaps if they moved right next
Speaker 1: to my podcasting window and started screaming, that might get
Speaker 1: a little bit troublesome. But they love it here. All
Speaker 1: these buildings have these we have so many old buildings
Speaker 1: here that there are all these little nooks and crannies
Speaker 1: that they can squeeze into and nest in. And they
Speaker 1: are seasonal, um and they but yeah, they just fill
Speaker 1: the sky with piercingly loud calls. What are what are
Speaker 1: they doing? What are they trying to say with all
Speaker 1: of that screaming. Yeah, that's a tricky one. What are yours?
Speaker 1: Of course screaming in Italian? For me to to work
Speaker 1: that one out. I mean, they are like all birds,
Speaker 1: they are they're territorial. So this time of year, it's
Speaker 1: the breeding season. They've just arrived from from Africa. They're
Speaker 1: the latest of the um Afro European migrants Afro a
Speaker 1: Palearctic migrants who say to arrive and they stay the
Speaker 1: shortest time, So they arrive in May and they're gone
Speaker 1: by the end of July early August. So they are
Speaker 1: setting up territories and they're breeding. They are screaming as
Speaker 1: they come in towards their breeding to their their particular nest.
Speaker 1: I think the loudest noise, the most screaming you'll hear, though,
Speaker 1: is at the end of the season, when you get
Speaker 1: the fledglings, which forms what they call screaming parties. Really,
Speaker 1: that's what they call, yeah, screaming past wonderful. Yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a human equivalents. And then that's when
Speaker 1: they they've basically left, they've just pledged, they've left the nest,
Speaker 1: and you have these young birds the first thing on
Speaker 1: their agenda is migrate to Africa. The parents have gone,
Speaker 1: and so they will circle around above the towns where
Speaker 1: from which they fledged in these groups, just trying out
Speaker 1: their wings and screaming wonderful and it's an extraordinary sound
Speaker 1: for me. It is the sound of summer in Europe.
Speaker 1: Absolutely love it, and it's a sound sadly that's becoming
Speaker 1: less frequent. We where I live here in Brighton on
Speaker 1: the south coast of England, and we have them here,
Speaker 1: but like in many towns, there is a swift survey
Speaker 1: work going on because numbers are declining, so people are
Speaker 1: trying to monitor how many swifts are, how many are
Speaker 1: returning and so on. They are the most extraordinary birds
Speaker 1: of all for me, and there are an example I
Speaker 1: think of how easy it is to overlook the extraordinary
Speaker 1: because they're not spectacular in their plumage. They just they
Speaker 1: don't have a very varied voice, just this scream. I
Speaker 1: think that they all The old English name for them
Speaker 1: was devil bird Middle Ages, and I think that scream
Speaker 1: was something to do that. But they are they are
Speaker 1: the ultimate bird. They are completely aerial. There is nothing
Speaker 1: that can compete with the swift in terms of mastery
Speaker 1: of the sky. They look like a military drone. They
Speaker 1: look like they were designed by NASA. Yeah, well, I
Speaker 1: think it's probably that. I would have thought NASA is
Speaker 1: more likely to probably trus they. I mean, they are incredible.
Speaker 1: They they are so aerial. If it wasn't for the
Speaker 1: fact that eggs can't float in the air would never land,
Speaker 1: you know, the tiresome kind of demands of gravity mean
Speaker 1: that they have to find a place to lay their
Speaker 1: eggs and fledge their young really they're young. But then
Speaker 1: they're off and they drink on the wing. They will.
Speaker 1: They drink on the wing. They mate on the wing,
Speaker 1: they feed on the wing, they connect, collect nest material
Speaker 1: on the wing, They sleep on the wing. They go
Speaker 1: up to great heights, and they kind of go into
Speaker 1: an autopilot circling they It is now known that for me,
Speaker 1: this is as an incredible the factors any I've heard
Speaker 1: from the bird world individual swift may go for. They
Speaker 1: now think two years without landing, that's incredible, that's incredible.
Speaker 1: One not touching down, and we kind of think, well,
Speaker 1: how how can that be possible. They've got to take
Speaker 1: a rest. They were, but they don't. I mean, they
Speaker 1: no more need to touch down. It's like saying, why
Speaker 1: doesn't a fish come out of the sea and take
Speaker 1: a rest on the beach. They the land is not
Speaker 1: the medium for swift. Their feet have actual feed in
Speaker 1: the evolutionary terms, so much they can't they can't walk.
Speaker 1: They only have little tiny little claws with which they
Speaker 1: can cling to vertical surfts. They can't if one lands,
Speaker 1: you know, one has an accident crash lands, they can't
Speaker 1: take off. You have to launch them. So they and
Speaker 1: here's just as a side is you evolution? Do you
Speaker 1: know swift's closest relatives? No? I don't, what are they? Hummingbirds? Amazing?
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of swift swifts and hummingbirds are
Speaker 1: descended have died. So this is not conversionally involition, is
Speaker 1: divergent evolution. They've come from the same taxonomy group. They're both.
Speaker 1: They they formerly the apodiformers, which means without feet. Apod
Speaker 1: and humming words also have tiny feet, and swift do.
Speaker 1: And the structure of a hummingbird's wing is actually quite similar,
Speaker 1: a very longhand a similar shoulder joint, but hummingbirds have
Speaker 1: turned that into a hovering mechanism for the main stationary
Speaker 1: in midair and and feeding on nectar. Swifts use it
Speaker 1: to hurtle around at breakneck speed. And what they're doing
Speaker 1: up there is they feed on tiny invertebrates you could
Speaker 1: say insects, but actually they we now know from looking
Speaker 1: at their food that a lot of its spiders. So
Speaker 1: in summer in summer spiders dispersed by baby spiders. God,
Speaker 1: they've put up a little silk and thread off the
Speaker 1: the atmosphere exactly, and that the sky is full of them.
Speaker 1: And what swifts are feeding on is aerial plankton. It's
Speaker 1: like psych a it's like a blue whale sailing the
Speaker 1: surface waters with its bally and plates for for plankton.
Speaker 1: A swift is doing it in the sky. And they
Speaker 1: all of Charlotte's children. Yeah, exactly exactly. A brutal, isn't it.
Speaker 1: But they they what they do is they make a
Speaker 1: food ball in their in their crop or in their throats,
Speaker 1: so they will gather up to the scientists have broken
Speaker 1: down these these food balls and they'll find up to
Speaker 1: a hundred individual invertebrates. So the swift call shoes around,
Speaker 1: gathering them inform a ball, and it will take that
Speaker 1: back to feed to its yard at the nests. And
Speaker 1: and they they are so dependent on what's happening in
Speaker 1: the atmosphere. They can they can read the wind currents,
Speaker 1: the air currents, like like fishing the open ocean, read
Speaker 1: the ocean currents, so know where food is converging. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's quite interesting that study done on swift
Speaker 1: on the south coast of England recently revealed that many
Speaker 1: of those nesting here in Brighton, they would go and
Speaker 1: fee they collect food in northern France. Wow. So because
Speaker 1: there's no food around here, the aircraft they follow storm fronts,
Speaker 1: so we'll see where the storm fronts are blowing the
Speaker 1: aerial plankton, and so off they go, nip across the channel,
Speaker 1: feed around northern France, come back with the food ball,
Speaker 1: give it to their young at the nest. No worries
Speaker 1: are or anything where so yeah, so they they are
Speaker 1: just astonishing. And when the youngster leaves the nest and fledges,
Speaker 1: they fly to Africa and nobody quite knows where they
Speaker 1: go because they can't be ringed. They can now be
Speaker 1: followed the tiny satellite transmitters, but they've never been ringed
Speaker 1: because they don't come down in the same way, and
Speaker 1: so they zoom around the center of the continent. They
Speaker 1: may go as far as South Africa, but a lot
Speaker 1: of them are over the Congo basin and they're following
Speaker 1: storm fronts. They're basically going where the where the air
Speaker 1: carries the insects. And because swifts don't breathe until they
Speaker 1: after two years of maturity. They won't return on their
Speaker 1: first migration back to Europe until after their second year,
Speaker 1: so they may well not land at all, not once,
Speaker 1: not even to us. That makes me tired just thinking
Speaker 1: of it. But for them, yeah, but for them it's
Speaker 1: not you know. They we think of needing to sleep
Speaker 1: as you lie down on a bed or you sit down.
Speaker 1: But birds have the spectacular adaptation where they can sleep
Speaker 1: on the wing. They can shut they can shut down
Speaker 1: sort of one hemisphere of their brain, one one field
Speaker 1: of vision, and they will often readjust in terms of birds,
Speaker 1: that flying fox, they'll readjust their position so that I
Speaker 1: that is attached to the awake part of the brain
Speaker 1: is facing out. It's boggles our minds, I think, because
Speaker 1: we have a particular idea of what rest is and
Speaker 1: what it would take to feel rested. But there is
Speaker 1: no As long as the um laws of physics are
Speaker 1: being obeyed in terms of energy conversion, it's fine. So
Speaker 1: so yeah, a bird can you know, keep going as
Speaker 1: long as it's getting adequate energy in and you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't necessarily need the same kind of sleep and
Speaker 1: rest that a human needs. And swifts are supremely well
Speaker 1: adapted to an aerial life. The shape of their body,
Speaker 1: the aerodynamic torpedo shape of their body, and the long wings,
Speaker 1: everything about them is the maximum aerial efficiency. So you
Speaker 1: mentioned they were struggling a little bit though in in Brighton,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know what, what is they seem so
Speaker 1: amazingly well adept for their lifestyle. What is threatening them?
Speaker 1: It's interesting, And they're a bird that is very closely
Speaker 1: tied with humans, with our developments and our settlement over
Speaker 1: the centuries, and Swifts probably benefited from the development of
Speaker 1: towns and cities over over hundreds thousands of years, and
Speaker 1: they've they've nested alongside people in towers and castles and churches.
Speaker 1: But for eons um before that, they were almost certainly
Speaker 1: cliff nest as they've nest on ledgers of other vertical services, quarries,
Speaker 1: sea cliffs and so on. Um. But now, I mean
Speaker 1: you're lucky where you literally say, you've got lots of
Speaker 1: wonderful old buildings, which is fantastic, um. Not just to
Speaker 1: look at that that kind of architecture is is full
Speaker 1: of niches and crevices, because that's what Swift's need. They
Speaker 1: need us a little slot into which they can slide
Speaker 1: and they rear they're young inside there normally two chicks
Speaker 1: and then up they come. Modern housing developments, modern architecture,
Speaker 1: modern planning regulations are in this country, in Britain and
Speaker 1: are depriving swifts of those cavities. Um so that's one thing.
Speaker 1: They're just not finding the less spaces than they need.
Speaker 1: Another thing, of course, is that there are fewer insects around.
Speaker 1: You know, we are dousing our countryside with chemicals and
Speaker 1: pesticides and damaging habitats and so on. So swifts, like
Speaker 1: so many others, are not finding the kind of food
Speaker 1: supplies they once relied upon. It. It's almost certainly the case,
Speaker 1: but there are there's kind of conservations are on the
Speaker 1: case in Britain. People swifts have a presence and people
Speaker 1: feel their absence, you know, and they and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of groups now dedicated to trying to protect
Speaker 1: swift and there are things that can be done. You
Speaker 1: can now buy swift bricks so with when when houses
Speaker 1: are being designed, modern housing is being built, you can
Speaker 1: incorporate into the structure up near that the eve the
Speaker 1: roof swift brick, which is like a kind of breeze
Speaker 1: block with a hole in it, which is not going
Speaker 1: to leak into your house, but it gives a little
Speaker 1: space exactly exactly, So you know they are declining, but
Speaker 1: we're on the case. Yeah, now that's wonderful. I think
Speaker 1: it is so important to when we discover something like
Speaker 1: oh o, our building design is harming an animal or
Speaker 1: harming a bird, you know, to not despair, but think, Okay,
Speaker 1: we can figure this out. We have been able to
Speaker 1: coexist with swifts, and fact swifts have somewhat benefited from
Speaker 1: the a variety of different architectures, so we can figure
Speaker 1: out a way to bring back that positive relationship. And
Speaker 1: I think that in general as well. I think in
Speaker 1: terms of building design, there is a lot to think
Speaker 1: about in terms of birds. I know, I've read a
Speaker 1: few papers on how to design windows in buildings, so
Speaker 1: it's not a death trap for birds. There's there's a
Speaker 1: lot of just unconscious things that we do. Like if
Speaker 1: you have a big building with these big reflective windows,
Speaker 1: it's going to become a bird killer because birds, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't see a building like that and think, oh,
Speaker 1: a building. They will often use sort of different types
Speaker 1: of visual cues to figure out how to move through space.
Speaker 1: Because a bird can very skillfully move through the branches
Speaker 1: of a tree as they're flying, but if they see
Speaker 1: a big reflective surface, a big they're not it's not
Speaker 1: going to compute as this is a solid object. And
Speaker 1: so if we we have to be able to basically
Speaker 1: first understand things from the bird's perspective, understand how their
Speaker 1: vision and of object avoidance works, and then work from
Speaker 1: that to design buildings that are not not a not
Speaker 1: a hazard not so that they can actually see it,
Speaker 1: make these things that were invisible to them visible so
Speaker 1: they don't hit and hit it. And so I think
Speaker 1: that it's wonderful too with the designing buildings that have
Speaker 1: little areas for swift to have their homes. I mean,
Speaker 1: who what doesn't want to help foster some birds in
Speaker 1: your own backyard? Well yeah, I couldn't agree more. And
Speaker 1: it's important, especially since there are now normal ways the
Speaker 1: plants seem to be devising to exclude birds. Um there
Speaker 1: was a great scandal in this country a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago when the practice of covering hedgerows in um
Speaker 1: plastic sheeting in spring arose because it would prevent birds
Speaker 1: from nesting if there's if there are nesting birds in
Speaker 1: a hedgerow, you can't cut it down for development. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a protection order on it. But if you if
Speaker 1: you wrap it in plastics. But that's essentially there's a
Speaker 1: chance it's horrific. But those are the sort of practices
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with all the time. Um. So yeah,
Speaker 1: let's design. Let's design homes for birds too. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: So before we go, we need to play a game
Speaker 1: called Guess Who's Squawking? It's the Mystery Animal sound game.
Speaker 1: Every week I play a mystery animal sound and you,
Speaker 1: the listener guests who is squawking? Now, I say squawking,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't have to be a bird, it can
Speaker 1: be any animal in the world. Uh. And so last
Speaker 1: week the hint I gave was is this an okay
Speaker 1: echo or maybe a blank blank? I love? I love
Speaker 1: this call. It's I just love this sort of it,
Speaker 1: almost seeming to run out of enthusiasm towards the end,
Speaker 1: going m So, Mike, do you have any guesses as
Speaker 1: to what this is? You know, what? Can I claim
Speaker 1: diplomatic immunity or something? Of course, I do not know
Speaker 1: what that bird is. I was hoping it would be. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not. It's not necessarily a bird. So this is
Speaker 1: This is where I'm it's not necessarily okay, Well, do
Speaker 1: you want me to tell you what I do? Want
Speaker 1: me to narrow it down. My thinking, which may be
Speaker 1: completely inaccurate, is a it is a bit, it be
Speaker 1: it's nothing. It's tropical. It's not. We hear those insects
Speaker 1: in the background. If it was African, I think I
Speaker 1: would know it. And it's not European, so I think
Speaker 1: it's some kind of South America Asia. It's a large bird.
Speaker 1: This is I've ruled it down to about five thousands.
Speaker 1: I'm getting I can't. I can't get any further than that.
Speaker 1: I mean, the thing is, you are correct in the
Speaker 1: terms of the location. It is in a tropical area.
Speaker 1: It is found in Asia. You aren't quite right on
Speaker 1: the type of animal that it is. So it is
Speaker 1: not it is not a bird. It sounds it sounds
Speaker 1: very birdlike. Though. This is a horrible trap i'veset. So
Speaker 1: congratulations to Joey P. Sarah in C and saggy E
Speaker 1: who guessed correctly. It is a tokay gecko. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: it's it's quite a deep I know, I've never heard them.
Speaker 1: It's quite a deep one. Yes, it's a big deep,
Speaker 1: fantastic And I had something bigger further away, but it
Speaker 1: was something smaller close, Yes, exactly, so a little a
Speaker 1: little bit tricky. Yeah, these are they're tokay. Geckos are
Speaker 1: quite large for a gecko. Uh yeah, yes, yes, they're
Speaker 1: They're beautiful. They're this kind of like bluish green with
Speaker 1: orange and brown modeled spots. They live in the trees
Speaker 1: of the rainforests of Asia and the Pacific Islands. Um.
Speaker 1: That is the male's mating call. Actually, during the Vietnam War,
Speaker 1: U S soldiers called it the f you lizard, thinking
Speaker 1: it's call sounded like the gecko was telling them to
Speaker 1: f f you like h And yeah, it's actually become
Speaker 1: somewhat popular in the pet trade. But my warning would
Speaker 1: be that it really is more of an f you
Speaker 1: gecko because it has a very powerful bite and it's
Speaker 1: very aggressive and very territorial, so it doesn't necessarily want
Speaker 1: to be a pet. It will buy you. Do you
Speaker 1: know the barking gecko from yes, Southern Africa. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: sure you do. Yeah, And that's something wonderful matches. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's wonderful. I I just I love Yes, Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: they're wonderful, wonderful little geckos. Maybe not the friendliest little
Speaker 1: little guys and and maybe somewhat deserving of that name,
Speaker 1: the fu geck instead of the Tokay gecko. Um, so
Speaker 1: I thought for this week's mystery animals. Sound Now, Mike,
Speaker 1: you did say that you may be able to produce
Speaker 1: a mystery call potentially. M hmm, yeah, I can do that. Um,
Speaker 1: what I'll tell you is that it's not a gecko.
Speaker 1: That everything else is still on the cards, all right,
Speaker 1: on the table. Let's see if I can do this.
Speaker 1: Probably not. I talk a big game, but okay, I'll
Speaker 1: give you this will be the sound of one of
Speaker 1: the eight birds in my book. That widlds it down
Speaker 1: to eight. Yeah, this is the call of one of
Speaker 1: the birds in my book. All right, let's see which.
Speaker 1: Of course, it's a suckle plugs again in the book. Right,
Speaker 1: you have to you have to read the book to
Speaker 1: find out to the yeah, or at least find the
Speaker 1: content pace. Yeah, let me try this. It's been a while.
Speaker 1: It goes like this, it goes oh oh, man, that's good.
Speaker 1: That's really good. Okay, can I again, Yeah, dude again, Okay,
Speaker 1: let me, let me, let me, Yes, that's getting because
Speaker 1: my voice is going. Now. Oh I want to I
Speaker 1: want to guess is it now? It might be cheating
Speaker 1: And I will cut this out if I get it right,
Speaker 1: because I don't want to spoil it for people because
Speaker 1: I have I have read the book. Is it the
Speaker 1: that's unbelievable. You've got big prize. Yes, oh my god, well,
Speaker 1: I because it's based but listen, it's based on your
Speaker 1: description in the book. So really, really it's because of you.
Speaker 1: Do you remember what the Because it's the national bird
Speaker 1: of Swartini in Swartini, so I know the bird very well. Um,
Speaker 1: it's the one where Swartina used to be called Swaziland.
Speaker 1: It's everybody royalty is denoted by wearing the crimson primary
Speaker 1: feathers of this in your hair and and you hear
Speaker 1: the bird in river and forest and oh what was
Speaker 1: I going to say? Yeah? It's also the fact I
Speaker 1: can't whistle, So it's real. It's a real, a real
Speaker 1: handicap being a birder who can't whistle. Because you're trying
Speaker 1: to demonstrate bird song to people and you can't swer,
Speaker 1: so you you compensated by developing all the kind of
Speaker 1: raucous guttural shouty ones which are the best ones. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And the the it's called in Switzerland or Swatini, it's
Speaker 1: called Liguala guala. That's the that's the local, the Swazi name,
Speaker 1: and the Zudo names Alguala guala. Wow. Yeah, that's you've
Speaker 1: you've you've astonished me that I'm going to have to
Speaker 1: go and learn the rest of them and try and
Speaker 1: catch you out with something next time. I'm sure I
Speaker 1: will probably fail at that, but it is It is
Speaker 1: a credit to your bird call, isn't it? Because I
Speaker 1: would not have guessed it if it was not a
Speaker 1: good bird. Well, thank you very much, thank you very much. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for joining me today. And where
Speaker 1: can people get around the world in eighty Birds? Where
Speaker 1: can they get it? They can get it from its
Speaker 1: published in June um so it's published next month and
Speaker 1: they can get it from any bookshop or they can
Speaker 1: get it online. It's from the publisher is Lawrence King,
Speaker 1: which is part of a Ryan Books that it's published
Speaker 1: by Lawrence King. I highly recommend it. It reminds me
Speaker 1: of the books that like inspired my interest in animal
Speaker 1: because it it has these um wonderful illustrations as well.
Speaker 1: Should have said that have fantastic And yes, he's brought
Speaker 1: he's brought the book to life, and he's also conveyed
Speaker 1: the way in which birds, I think decorate our world magnificence. Yes.
Speaker 1: In addition the amazing descriptions of these birds, it gives
Speaker 1: you just a real, a wonderful sense of each of them,
Speaker 1: like a little uh, like a snapshot of what these
Speaker 1: birds are. But it's so complete and also gives you
Speaker 1: the sense of their the greater context of these birds
Speaker 1: in terms of their environment and also in terms of
Speaker 1: human culture. So it's wonderful, highly recommended. It's a beautiful
Speaker 1: book both visually and in the writing. So yes, do
Speaker 1: you check that out? And you can find me online
Speaker 1: at Creature feature Pod on Instagram, at creature fak plot
Speaker 1: on Twitter. That's f a t uh not fp et.
Speaker 1: That is something very different and if you thank you
Speaker 1: know what the mystery sound that Mike produced that amazing
Speaker 1: bird call uh. You can write to me at Creature
Speaker 1: Feature Pod at gmail dot com as well as any
Speaker 1: questions you have about animals. Uh and yeah, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for listening, and thanks to the Space Classics
Speaker 1: for their super awesome song Exo Lumina Creature features of
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts like the
Speaker 1: one you just heard, visit the I heart Radio app
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or Hey, guess what for? Have you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows? See you next Wednesday.