Readers’ Wildlife Photos: fledgling harriers

July 29, 2015 • 9:30 am

WEIT regular Bruce Lyon sent Jerry fantastic photographs of some young harriers that we have visited before here and here in June when the parents were nesting.

As always, click through on a photograph twice to see it in its original size.

Bruce writes:

Jerry kindly posted two previous batches of photos of nesting harriers I have been following north of Santa Cruz, California. This batch focuses on the fledgling harriers—with the the theme of ‘prey’ and “play’. The fledglings were fed by both the adult male and female harriers and they got the food in aerial prey transfers from the parents. Here is a photo of the female arriving with what I think is a small rosy boa (Lichanura trivirgata)—someone can correct me if this is wrong. The chick successful got the snake from its mom but the klutz then dropped it into the vegetation.

A couple of times when a parent brought in food it was chased by both fledglings. In one case, the prey transfer did not end the commotion and a dogfight ensued between the fledglings over who got to keep the mouse:

The winner:

One evening I was confused because I looked up and saw three birds chasing each other and I knew that none of these birds were the adults. It turned out that the third bird was a fledgling peregrine falcon from a nearby nest. It seemed to me as if the peregrine was having fun chasing the harriers—perhaps a form of play that helps it learn to chase birds, the main type of prey consumed by peregrines. Below a couple of photos of the peregrine and harriers interacting:

Same encounter:

Here the peregrine threads the needle and flies between the two harrier chicks. This whole encounter was really fun to watch:

Later that same week I watched a peregrine fledgling from the same family chasing gulls and cormorants the same way it had been interacting with the harriers. I suspect it was probably the same chick that had the raptor playdate with the harrier fledglings. The falcon chick seemed really feisty and over the course of a couple days it chased a lot of birds. None of these chases seemed like serious hunts—they seemed to me more like play My best guess (‘hypothesis’) is that this play behavior helps the young raptor learn how to effectively chase things. Eventually these chases will be associated with dinner. Below, a couple of photos of the young falcon terrorizing western gulls. What sport!

Finally, just a couple of photos of the gorgeous young harriers:

Thank you Bruce!

The secrets of life – two videos

July 29, 2015 • 8:16 am

by Matthew Cobb

In June, the Royal Institution in London hosted two talks about the origins of life, one by myself, the other by Nick Lane of UCL. The talks were partly a way of publicising our books (my Life’s Greatest Secret: The Race to Crack the Genetic Code, and Nick’s The Vital Question: Why Is Life the Way It Is?), but they were also an opportunity for us to speak at one of the world’s most prestigious venues for science communication – this is the place where Faraday and Davy spoke in the 19th century, and which still hosts the Annual Christmas Lectures, given by a leading scientist and aimed at younger viewers.

The RI is a resolutely modern institution, so they filmed the two talks and they’ve now been posted on YouTube. Here they are, for your delectation – you can get an idea of what our books are about, and some glimpse into the possible explanations for why life is the way that it is. Each video lasts about 30 minutes. Our books are published on both sides of the Atlantic.

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

July 29, 2015 • 5:44 am

It’s Hump Day, and fortunately several readers have contributed items for posting today, as I’m still unable to write much. Matthew Cobb has also come through with two pieces that will go up later.

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is being a duplicitous cat, which is probably a redundancy.

A: What are you doing?
Hili: I’m waiting for the postman.
A: Your lies are transparent.
Hili: But they have wings.

In Polish:

Ja: Co tam robisz?
Hili: Czekam na listonosza.
Ja: Twoje kłamstwa mają krótkie nogi.
Hili: Ale są skrzydlate.

How do you want to die?

July 28, 2015 • 2:01 pm

I’m surprised nobody has thought of this before: collecting doctors’ wishes about how they would like to die. That collection was done by Tom Chivers, announced on Twi**er, as below, and published on BuzzFeed. Click on the screenshot below to go to the article, which is a lot better than usual pieces on that aggregator site:

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the doctors’ opinions are fairly well in line with each other, and probably differ on average from those of “regular people”. Physicians wouldn’t usually opt for CPR or extension-of-life procedures in the case of terminal illnesses. The doctors have simply seen too many people have sad, painful deaths, or have their lives prolonged for no clear reason.

I know how I want to go: I want to die in my sleep at a ripe old age or, barring that, have a sudden heart attack that drops me instantly—the F. Scott Fitzgerald death. I don’t want to know it’s coming, although others may disagree.

Readers are invited to describe their preferred method of demise below.

Addendum: the first reader below suggests his/her preferred death celebration or memorial. I’ve added mine as a comment, and you can add yours, too.

Three owlets and a fly

July 28, 2015 • 12:15 pm

My old friend Hempenstein sent this video, and at first I couldn’t figure out what was going on: I thought the owlet nestlings were listening for their mother. But then I realized that they were following a fly that was loose in the nest box. As Hempenstein commented on the video:

Jesus they’re strange-looking, but 2+ min of them is somehow fascinating to watch.

They are of course barn owls (Tyto alba).

h/t: Hempenstein

Austin part deux: buying custom boots

July 28, 2015 • 10:30 am

As I’ve mentioned several times, one of the reasons I went through Austin was to get measured for a pair of custom cowboy boots by Lee Miller, in my view the finest bootmaker in the U.S. His shop is called “Texas Traditions,” and Matt Dillahunty accompanied me there a few days ago for my Big Measurement.

I’d waited five years to get to the top of the list (with a huge backlog, Lee doesn’t take new orders), and so I was quite excited. Matt is a boot lover himself, and wanted to tag along to see the process (he now has a jones for a specific kind of custom boot, but I won’t spill the beans).

I first visited the shop, just to see the operation, in March 2010, and now, five years and four months later, I got to finally order the boots (I was snuck onto the closed waiting list because I sent Lee a copy of WEIT, which he liked). Go here to see my post written after my first visit.

It took Lee about forty minutes to measure my feet. He is obsessive about getting a good fit, and does everything he can to ensure that. I sat on a thronelike chair for the measurements (pictures are by Matt):

After taking a few simple measurements with those metal slidey-scales you’ll remember from shoe stores if you’re of a certain age. Lee then gets down to business. Tape measures are applied all over the foot and calf, and then he makes you wear a sock of normal thickness, puts a piece of masking tape on each foot, and then measures around the foot at about six marks made along the tape, which he then puts in a file folder.

He then applies a metal comb with moveable teeth to the top of the foot so you get the contour of each foot (essential for a good fit):

Here’s the upper contour of my left foot:

I was then asked to stand on a big inkpad in my socks and then make an impression on a piece of paper. That gives the bootmaker an idea of how your weight is distributed.

After the long period of measurement, Lee gets a bunch of data (below) that he needs to make the last: a wooden or fiberglass three-dimensional model of the foot that is used as the substrate to build the boot around.

Matt asked if making a last couldn’t somehow be done by 3-D computer printing, and Lee responded that we’re not quite there yet, for he has to adjust the dimensions of the last based on subtle aspects of his boot-making experience. Here are my foot data, including the tracings from the “comb”:

Here are some lasts of some of Lee’s customers(note the names). Once you have a last made, you don’t need to be measured further, but can order boots at long distance—unless your foot has somehow changed.

Picking the design, leathers, toe shape, stitching, and everything else consumed nearly two more hours with the help of Carrlyn, Lee’s wife, who runs the shop and does a lot of the designing. We decided on kangaroo hide, which is very tough and (unlike calf) doesn’t crack. I chose a cognac color for the footpiece (the vamp) and a dark, forest-green color for the shaft:

I won’t reveal my design until I get the boots in four or five months, but one hint: they incorporate a feature of Charlie Dunn’s personal boots, shown in this earlier post.

While choosing the leather, I once again saw Lauren Bacall’s personal boots (she was taken to the shop by Lyle Lovett, a steady customer who was starring in a Robert Altman movie with Bacall). These boots were returned because they didn’t fit well: she was said to have hard-to-measure feet. Lee simply kept the returned boots and made her a pair that fit, for no additional charge. He’d do that for any customer whose boots didn’t fit. Note her initials on the inside of the pulls. They have the classic Texas bluebell design in inlays.

I took a photo of Lee and Carrlyn (pronounced “Car-Lin”) in the workshop. They’re delightful people; a pure pleasure to work with. Lee is wearing pigskin boots (very tough) that he made for himself. Carrlyn owns one pair of boots: a black alligator pair with a design similar to the one I chose (she’s not wearing them in this photo). Note the lasts hanging everywhere.

When my boots arrive in four or five months, I’ll give them a premiere on this site.

The world’s largest aggregation of snakes

July 28, 2015 • 9:15 am

Since Greg is posting twice about snakes this week, I declare it Official Website Snake Week.™

My colleague Steve Arnold used to work at my university, and since his research was partly on garter snakes, I knew about the amazing mating aggregations of that species that occur in some locations. But by far the largest aggregation is in Winnipeg, Manitoba, as reported in National Geographic and called to my attention by reader Taskin, who lives near the snake mosh pit:

The pit contains 75,000 garter snakes writhing about in a space the size in your living room! To see the 3.5-minute video, click on the screenshot below (TRIGGER WARNING: LOTS OF SNAKES!), which also takes you to the article.

Christine dell’Amore’s piece gives all the information you want to know, and if you’re a woman, you’ll feel a special pang. A few snippets:

Each spring, masses of red-sided garter snakes congregate inside limestone caves to form mating balls, in which up to a hundred male snakes vie for a single female. She, in turn, “is desperately trying to get out of the pit,” said Colangelo, an environmental documentary photographer.

These slithery swarms appear to be a “frenzy, but a closer look reveals a much finer dance,” Colangelo said in his field notes. “The small males court the larger female by rubbing her head with their chins and maintaining as much contact between their long bodies as possible.”

. . . Why is this the largest gathering of snakes? What attracts them?

This grouping of red-sided garter snakes has the most northern range of any reptile in the Western Hemisphere. It’s due to a lucky coincidence of two geological features: limestone crevices and marshes. It’s a fantastic place for snakes to be in the summer because there are huge marshes loaded with frogs, but in the winter it drops down to -40. The only reason all these snakes can survive these winters is because of the large limestone crevices that reach deep into the ground, below the frostline. They spend about eight months of the year in these large underground chambers. They come out in the spring, mate in these dens and [then travel] up to 20 kilometers [12 miles] to their summer grounds, load up with amphibians and worms, and head back to the cave. (See National Geographic’s pictures of snakes.)

. . . What’s interested you the most about the snake pits?

Mating balls are the most intriguing part. All of the males come out first and hang out at the base of the pit, and females are instantly mobbed. The females then give birth out in the summer grounds, in the marshes. The curious thing is that those newborns are immediately abandoned. None of those newborns return to the dens. They find spots in the summer grounds to overwinter. Not much is known about why they don’t migrate to the dens or how they survive the winter. (See more of National Geographic’s snake videos.)

Yep, it’s a tough life for female garter snakes. . . . and female ducks, dragonflies, H. sapiens, and a gazillion other species. Evolution is a cruel process, and this demonstrates that if it’s the product of God, God doesn’t like females. But we already knew that. . .

Readers’ wildlife photos

July 28, 2015 • 7:15 am

Stephen Barnard sends us some photos from Idaho: stills of the aerial dogfights (or ballets) he sees daily between two species of hummingbirds battling around the feeder on his porch. You should know by now that these little guys, while adorable, are fiercely territorial. I’m not sure what damage they can do to each other while defending a feeder: perhaps those sharp bills can poke out an eye! His notes:

The Rufous (Selasphorus rufus) and Black-chinned (Archilochus alexandri) have been fighting over the feeder. So far it’s a standoff. The Rufous are pugnacious but the Black-chinned are persistent and by no means shrinking violets. They go at this all day long, with at least hundreds
of other aggressive encounters.

(Don’t forget, you can see the photo at its original size if you click through on it twice.)

In an email, Stephen asked me if I knew of any other vertebrate that had antagonistic encounters with members of other vertebrate species on such a constant basis. I responded that hummingbirds probably didn’t attack each other like this except around a huge, defensible resource like a nectar feeder—something that doesn’t occur in nature (though big masses of flowers do); and if that’s the case, then perhaps lions defending the remains of their kill from hyenas or wild d*gs would compare. But, as Stephen pointed out, the d*gs and hyenas never win.

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