Birds

Not all people are this smart!!!

Youre Probably right on that, but that can defeat the very guideline of analyses of fossil specimens.

Vast changes and adaptations often occur when members of a clade are separated in time. And , the guys digging em up have the responsibility to note evrything. Weve given up the ED Cope days when we "made stories up" and then that became a tag on the specimens.
I remember when the "Brontosaurs" were interpreted based upon silly field evidence, to have been these slow, tail dragging dwellers of swamps whose weight ws so great that they needed to live half submerged in water . That crap remained for decades .

Those are the Dromaeosaurs"running lizards" which contains all the species of the raptors and ws the clade that (we still believe) gave rise to the birdies.

Its pretty obvious from the various body plans of these, where things could have been going if the big extinction event didnt occur at the end of the Cretaceous

Thats entertainment. I remember how my pet crow would only wak around among the family and the dog. He would be our "hoover" who loved stuff like Meoow Mix (I think we used that brand for the cat)> BUT, he especially liked the way my dad would mix the dog food. Hed mix a can of wet food with a bowl of dry and it would make a mass of meaty smelling moist kibbles. The crow would start hopping toward the dog kennels at feeding time and anything that psilled off the dog dish was his, and the dogs didnt **** with him . He could give you a nsty bite when he was bitchy. BUT, he was never bitchy at feeing time. He was like a cat, all lovey dovey and your best friend. He was a real confidence-crow

I had a parakeet named Billie. Scary smart. And alpha! Those few ounces of bird not only bossed our dog around (and dived-bombed the dog), but she bossed the humans in the house as well. Billie found ways to communicate what she wanted, and she always got what she wanted.

Great story, glitter.

Somebody gave me some parakeets about twenty five years ago. The mean little bas- things - bit my fingers every chance they got. So I gave them away after we failed to bond.

From Snopes.com

Claim: Photographs show thieving birds stealing quarters from a car wash.

Status: True.

Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2002]
______________________________________________
Bill owns a company that manufactures and installs car wash systems. Magic Wand Car Wash Systems just in case you want to buy one. Bill's company installed a car wash system in Frederick, Md. for a gentleman.

Now understand that these are a complete system including the money changer and money taking machines.

The problem started when the new owner complained to Bill that he was losing significant amounts of money form his coin machines each week. He went as far as to accuse Bill's employees of having a key to the boxes and ripping him off. Bill just couldn't believe that his people would do that. So they setup a trap for the thief.

Well they caught the thief in the act!


The bird had to go down in the machine and back up to get to the money!


That's three quarters he has in his mouth!


Another amazing thing Bill told us is that it was not one bird there were several working together.



Once they identified the thief, they found over $4000 in quarters on the roof of the car wash and more under a nearby tree.
______________________________________________
Origins: Many readers spotted this item about avian coin thieves on the Utah Birds web site. The Utah birds folks were e-mailed the story and found it interesting enough to put it up on their site, but they initially didn't know anything more about it. All the information that could be gleaned from this message — that a car wash in Frederick, Maryland, installed by someone named Bill had supposedly been losing thousands of quarters to coin-stealing birds — wasn't much to go on.

A newsperson from 98 Rock FM radio in Baltimore was kind enough to supply us with the missing details. The car wash pictured above is actually in Fredericksburg, Virginia, not Frederick, Maryland. Bill Dougherty at Magic Wand Inc., the car wash outfit that installs and maintains these machines, confirmed that birds had indeed been making off with hundreds of quarters per day.

As described above, after Mr. Dougherty discovered the Fredericksburg car wash machine was coming up several hundred dollars short per week, he initially suspected his employees of using pass keys to loot the machine. When he set undertook a surveillance mission with a camera in hand to catch the thieves in action he did indeed manage to snap pictures of the perpetrators in the act, but they weren't quite what he expected. Not only were the "thieves" who were stealing the quarters of the avian variety; they were working in tandem to do so: one bird would go up inside the machine to jimmy coins loose, and the other birds would grab them and fly off with them.

Starlings, the birds pictured here, are often attracted to bright, shiny objects and will collect them for nesting or mate-attraction purposes whenever the opportunity presents itself. Most likely one or more starlings was attracted by the glint of overlooked quarters in the change cup and made off with them; other starlings saw where the quarters were coming from and imitated the behavior, learning in the process how to work as teams to retrieve coins from inside the machine itself.

The claim that an accumulated $4,000 in change was retrieved from the roof of the car wash is an embellishment. The car wash operator did not report finding any such rooftop stash, although his discovering a few hundred quarters on the ground around the machine some mornings was not uncommon.

dayum. I need to get me some grackles and train em. Ill be a quarter billionaire (before Im caught).
At my trial I will plead "Innocent by virtue of being a victim of evil blackbird colonies)

Cassowary, sometimes called the dinosaur bird:

I read about crows doing this ages ago....great to SEE it

I like to enjoy morning coffee with the curtains pulled back, enjoying the lovely green outside. I have a low hanging tree branch that extends along a bank of windows of my den, so I hung a hummingbird feeder and enjoy watching the antics over there...

I felt sorry for the other little birds, so I got a regular bird feeder and now it's dazzling with vivid red cardinals, their less vivid wives, finches, sparrows...

But my poor mourning doves and larger mockingbirds seem to be having trouble. The feeder seems designed for small birds - the feeding holes being an inch or two directly above the perches.

Doubtful I can figure out how to properly affix pics here, but you get the picture. Does anyone have a bird design that you think has worked well for the anatomies of larger birds?

Should I even introduce a feeder that will attract larger birds to my happy little eco-system?

I am guessing you don't have squirrels living nearby.

doves are ground feeders.





Doves are mostly ground feeders , sorta like chickens










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Well, this enormous mourning dove flitted up and tried to perch on top of the hummingbird feeder. Couldn't get a grip, so he perched on the branch above it and kept fidget-y looking at it for about ten minutes and then flew down to the ground and pecked at fallen seeds under the other bird feeder.

Edgar. the squirrels haven't figured out how to capitalize on the situation other than roam underneath the birdfeeder eating fallen seeds. One squirrel did stretch out on the branch above the feeder, but seemed too afraid to try to shimmy down the metal thingie that hangs the feeder to the branch.

He's thinking about it.

Squirrels are resourceful and tenacious. In my experience, they never give up.

I shall share reports of their progress here.

Meanwhile, do people ever have squirrel feeders? Is that a thing?

I'm not even sure what they eat. Will google this.

Well, I have sadly uncovered a great injustice in the animal kingdom. Squirrels are famously hated. I googled "squirrel feeders" and was promptly treated to a wide array of bird feeders that are squirrel proof.

No one wants to feed the squirrels?

I believe I shall right this injustice. Plus, it's a great way to "recycle" the parts of veggies I don't use when I cook. Win Win!!

Btw edgar, I found a picture of my bird feeder among the designs considered squirrel proof. We'll see what happens.

I made the mistake of feeding the squirrels in my yard. They became so comfortable with me that they decided to live in my house. They were tearing up the underside and getting inside walls. They chewed a hole at the top of one wall that afforded them access to the roof without climbing any trees. I set have a heart traps and got them out. Then I put improved skirting to keep them out.

Holy crap. Thanks for that. No squirrel feeders ever.

listen to edgar.Squirrels are eviler than chupcabra. They like to drill into your walls and severl house fires near us were attributed to squirrels chewing the coatings on electrical wires in house walls