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Bird Poop Thread 1: About Bird Poop !

Yes. If there is something that me, Catamount, and Brasky can agree on, you know it is veritable fact.

Oh I hate grackles. They don't come around often but when they do, they'll empty my whole damn bird feeder in a day and fight off all the pretty little songbirds.

I really like cardinals.
 
Over the coming decades, species are predicted to go extinct at 1000 times the historical natural rate. In 100 years, the planet may lose up to 50 percent of all species alive today. Hear the song of the last Kauai O'o bird and learn more about what is causing mass extinction.
 
My second job after undergrad was to work, for 6 months on the Po'ouli project for the Maui Forest Bird Recovery project. At the time there were 3 know individuals left, 2 females and one male. We tried all sorts of ways to get the three birds to breed and raise babies, but in 2004, 3 years after I left the project, they decided to bring the two remaining birds into captivity. They caught the male and he died in captivity from avian malaria an exotic disease spread by mosquitos, before they ever caught the female. Really a sad story.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6630652/n...ience/t/rare-bird-may-have-just-gone-extinct/
Po-ouli.jpg


The experience of working there really changed my life. Went to Hawaii thinking 'Sweet, I get to live in Maui for 6 months! I am going to learn how to surf.' I didn't go surfing once and Left thinking 'I have to do something about all of these messes.'
 
Suspicious that we've got even RTQ's ruling on grackles but not even a peep from the bird docs. Is there a grackle conspiracy? Does birdman shill for BIG GRACKLE?
 
Suspicious that we've got even RTQ's ruling on grackles but not even a peep from the bird docs. Is there a grackle conspiracy? Does birdman shill for BIG GRACKLE?

I actually quite like Grackles. Boat-tailed Grackles at least. The males have really beautiful iridescence and the can be quite fun to watch. I used to do field work in Cape Lookout National Seashore on North Core Banks and at the end of the day I would sit on the back porch of my cabin drinking a beer as the sun set behind Cedar Island National Wildlife Refuge across Core sound. Most nights silhouetted against the twilight sky, male boat-tailed grackles would sit atop the highest perch in their little display terrirories and make their obnoxious calls/songs. They would stand as tall as they could, fan their tails, point their beaks at the sky and flap their wigs to make a fluttering sound; all in an effort to measure each other up and show off for the drab brown females. It is a lovely memory and actually sometimes in moments of stress I close my eyes and return those evenings; I don't have any pictures but the scene is etched in my brain. Give Grackles a chance, they can be quite awesome.

two-boat-tailed-grackles-quiscalus-major-males-wakodahatchee-wetlands-e8dam4.jpg
 
Will bird people and cat people ever come to a truce, cause all I see is a ton of hate and intolerance (with most of it coming from the bird people).
 
Will bird people and cat people ever come to a truce, cause all I see is a ton of hate and intolerance (with most of it coming from the bird people).

Cats kill an estimated 3 billion birds per year in North America (!!!), whereas birds (mostly great horned owls) kill maybe a couple hundred cats. Feral and outdoor domestic cats are an ecological disaster on the order of pythons in the everglades and are responsible for dozens of species extinctions around the world, including in Hawaii where you were posting about earlier.

I love cats, just keep them indoors...how is that for tolerance?
 
Cats kill an estimated 3 billion birds per year in North America (!!!), whereas birds (mostly great horned owls) kill maybe a couple hundred cats. Feral and outdoor domestic cats are an ecological disaster on the order of pythons in the everglades and are responsible for dozens of species extinctions around the world, including in Hawaii where you were posting about earlier.

I love cats, just keep them indoors...how is that for tolerance?

Unfair to cats. But they need to be fixed.
 
What is unfair to cats?

Forcing them to remain indoors. What poses a greater threat to all other species- loss of habitation and environmental degradation due to human overpopulation or cats? Maybe we need to start talking about the impact humans are having.
 
Forcing them to remain indoors. What poses a greater threat to all other species- loss of habitation and environmental degradation due to human overpopulation or cats? Maybe we need to start talking about the impact humans are having.

I can't argue with you in the impact of habitat loss but I'll repeat and add a citation on the astronomical numbers of cat caused bird deaths in North America. 1.3 to 4 billion birds per year! Out door cats operate as an exotic predator and disrupt ecological processes.

I am sorry that your cat gets bored staying indoors. But letting them outdoors is dangerous for wildlife and for the cats them selves. Lower life expectancy, greater disease prevalence and parasite loads, and higher rates of injury are all exhibited amongst cats that live outdoors. Outdoor cats are really just bird killers counting down the days till they get run over by a car or munched by a coyote. Keeping cats inside is better for the cats themselves and the wildlife that lives in your neighborhood. If the argument is that it is not fair to keep cats indoors, then people probably just shouldn't keep cats as pets in the first place.
 
Forcing them to remain indoors. What poses a greater threat to all other species- loss of habitation and environmental degradation due to human overpopulation or cats? Maybe we need to start talking about the impact humans are having.

Here is a website with cute cat pictures that crunches the numbers and concludes that indoor cats live 14-20 years while outdoor cats live for 5.6 years on average. What is fair about that? How do you define fair?
 
Bird people = intolerant cat haters. Never fails.
We continue to domesticate cats and as stewards of nature, it is our duty to do it in a responsible fashion. The outdoor cat ship sailed about 10,000 years ago. You can't have it both ways and by letting your cat outside you are doing it and the birds upon which it preys a disservice.
 
I actually quite like Grackles. Boat-tailed Grackles at least. The males have really beautiful iridescence and the can be quite fun to watch. I used to do field work in Cape Lookout National Seashore on North Core Banks and at the end of the day I would sit on the back porch of my cabin drinking a beer as the sun set behind Cedar Island National Wildlife Refuge across Core sound. Most nights silhouetted against the twilight sky, male boat-tailed grackles would sit atop the highest perch in their little display terrirories and make their obnoxious calls/songs. They would stand as tall as they could, fan their tails, point their beaks at the sky and flap their wigs to make a fluttering sound; all in an effort to measure each other up and show off for the drab brown females. It is a lovely memory and actually sometimes in moments of stress I close my eyes and return those evenings; I don't have any pictures but the scene is etched in my brain. Give Grackles a chance, they can be quite awesome.

two-boat-tailed-grackles-quiscalus-major-males-wakodahatchee-wetlands-e8dam4.jpg

While appeals to nostalgia are my very favorite of all appeals, the grackles you describe bear no behavioral resemblance to the malevolent subspecies which torment the human populous of my great city. Imagine the quite lovely cabin scene you narrate changed, your cabin porch infested with the iridescent yawps of a defacatory hell-spawn, shitting not just on your body and in your beer but on your very humanity. Your porch would be unusable, your home unlivable. Your life would be significantly diminished -- the very essence of your adolescent memory permeated by a darkness of savage malignancy.
 
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