Quarantine entry #105 - July 4

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Yesterday, we had an argument/fight again. I hate those, but, sadly, it seems to me that the main way that anything changes in our family is through conflict, which brings us to arguments slash fights. I hate those, but they are unavoidable and necessary. Pity that COVID-19 made everything worse. What next?

As we are starting to finish our bird of prey talk, let us turn to owls instead. There are two types of owls – the ‘true’ owls and the barn owls. The latter differ from the true owls by coloration, and their ‘facial disk’, (if you ever saw an owl, any owl, on a photo, you would know what we are talking about), is proportionally larger and whiter than that of a ‘true’ owl. In addition, the barn owls and their relatives are generally paler than their cousins are, and finally, they have no ‘horns’.

…The horns, of course, as tufts of feathers that grow on heads of such different owl species as the screech owl, the long-horned owl, and the great horned owl, among others. Sometimes they are barely noticeable, as they are in case of the short-horned owl, or even more so – in case of the snowy owl, but they can be there. Most scientists, (ornithologists and otherwise) agree, that these tufts serve no practical purpose, but are more of a decorative feature on those owls. Maybe it helps them in courting each other?.. The point is that no member of the barn owl family has those tufts, but some ‘true’ owls do. What next?

Owls swallow their smaller prey whole, and spit up what they cannot digest as pellets. Some other birds do that as well, from hawks to the nightjars, (also known as nighthawks, but they are completely separate birds from the birds of prey), but it still isn’t entirely certain as to just who are the owls’ relatives? In addition, the modern classification revision does not make it any better, either.

…Yes, there was a revision of avian taxonomy sometime in the past, (unlike the mammal, which appears to be a more modern development). I missed it, and so I’m not going to dwell upon it; basically, the point is that the owls’ similarity to hawks, falcons, eagles, vultures and so on is only superficial and practically skin-deep – the two groups of birds are able to co-exist, but only because the owls are nocturnal. Yes, they can see during the day, but they are not doing as well during that time, as the other birds’ mob them, and in some case – as in cases of the corvids – those birds themselves can be quite big. Anything else?

Here is a piece of original fiction to round up today’s entry instead. I hope that you will enjoy it:

Once upon a time, when a red fox and a hare were busy with an eagle owl, a different bird, a great grey owl, was sitting on a different tree at a different spot where the forest met the open field, and it too was busy hunting.

Any owl is Meta - they got soft feathers, silent wings that make no noise whatsoever; their talons are twisted and sharp- no one can escape from them, not a mouse, not a squirrel, not a sleeping bird. This particular great grey owl was hunting mice.

...It is still late winter and mice are hidden from sight by a thick layer of snow, but an owl’s hearing is sharp enough to penetrate it, and the great grey owl has specifically long legs to reach through the snow. There! There a mouse is scurrying. The owl spread its’ wings and launched a spectacular aerial attack right through the snow.

The snow exploded. This particular mouse made its’ winter home in a bear’s den, and the owl, unwittingly, scored a perfect hit on the bear’s nose. (It was hard to reach, but those long legs and sharp talons are good for something).

The still mostly asleep bear was not amused. With one shake of its’ massive head it was free, with one snap of its’ huge jaws it snapped the owl up and sank back beneath the snow to wait for the proper end of winter. The end.

PS: Oh, and the mouse was in another corner of the den, sleeping its’ own nap in its’ own home, lined with the bear’s fur because it was small enough to get away with this - but that is another story.

End

This is it for now. See you all soon! Comments? Criticisms?

Quarantine entry #101 - June 30

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, though many people are still talking about the Thylacosmilus’ and its’ new ‘redesign’ instead. Fair enough, but today we will be talking about eagles instead.

However, the eagles are a very varied bunch, so let us choose for our sample bird… the white-tailed eagle. It is a very impressive bird, and an Eurasian version of the bald eagle of North America; out of all the sea eagles, these two are mostly closely related to each other, but some people, (cough, the Russians, cough), aren’t very fond of this theory and don’t talk about it very much. Next?

While the white-tailed eagle is a sea eagle, it is not as specialized for fish eating as the bald eagle is, and actually prefers to hunt waterfowl instead. For us, however, it is the ‘sea eagle’ moniker that is important for the moment – it is a label that designated a group of about a dozen or so of eagles as, well, aquatic, (or semi-aquatic) specialists. What next?

…While the sea eagles are semi-aquatic specialists, other eagle groups are not. For example, the harpy eagle of South America hunts in jungles, while the golden eagle of Eurasia and North America prefers more open spaces, period. That, and its’ preference for the West Coast over the East, are some of the reasons why as to how come it’s the bald eagle that is the U.S.’ national bird, and not the golden eagle instead.

…Yes, since Thomas Jefferson, people have argued against the bald eagle being the U.S.’ national symbol, but nothing has come out of it, so that is that. What next?

Well, if the falcons are built for speed, (just like the cheetah), and the hawks are more versatile, then the eagles are built for power, (just as the lion is). While a falcon’s whammy can be formidable if this bird picks up speed, an eagle’s version is even more so, and it needs less distance and speed to achieve it. All birds are light-weight as a rule, (there are exceptions, but not among the birds of prey, no), but the eagles are less so, which is why their flying style is more of a passive gliding – they prefer to soar on warm aerial updrafts for hours, (or sit on some inconspicuous perch instead, cough), using their superior eyesight to keep an eye on what is going on down below, while remaining less noticeable for their potential prey. Once they choose a potential candidate, they swoop down and strike.

A falcon smites its’ prey in mid-air, often slicing it apart at least partially. An eagle, rather seizes prey with its’ talons, which can be big and sharp enough to pierce skin and flesh to the bone, inflicting massive damage and killing it. A golden eagle can kill an animal the size of a red fox or a grey wolf, which is why native people of Asia have trained it. A falcon catches other birds; an eagle, (just like a hawk), is more geared to attack mammals instead.

The downside for this is greater physical exhaustion when flying actively, hence why the eagles glide and rest more often than the smaller birds of prey, including hawks and falcons; they also are not beyond scavenging – whereas the falcons usually aren’t found on corpses of dead mammals, the eagles are, and on such occasions they don’t look very regal at all. Of course, neither do lions, but anthropomorphic associations aside, it can also be remembered that while lions have resolved their endurance issues by becoming social, the eagles have not; in fact, the only modern ‘raptors’ that have embraced the social hunting of their Mesozoic forebears are the so-called Harris’ hawks, which are more closely related to the buteos, than to the ‘true’ hawks…

Well, this is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #100 - June 29

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but at least Disney/Disney+ will be releasing both ‘Mulan-2020’, and ‘The Falcon and the Winter Soldier’, into public access by august 2020, so some bright news are ahead after all. What next?

Well, today I wanted to talk about the peregrine falcon, which is the bird when it comes to falconry, but first – DC had released the trailer for ‘Superman: The Man of Tomorrow’ that is coming later this year, (or next year, whichever date will be better), so let’s mention it first.

What is S: TMT? It is DC’s reboot of its animated videos’ franchise, especially of the titular Superman. So far, he looks very much like his initial model, (from the 1990s’ animated series’ onwards), whereas Luis Lane looks less pin-upy as she did before.

…Judging by the trailer, Superman will be dealing with Lobo and the Parasite; there is also a scene of him interacting with Lex Luthor, but it is quite brief, and so there is no certainty as to how specifically the interactions between those two will go. True, it probably will not be good – there is no incarnation in which Clark and Lex ever remained friends, even if they were friends to begin with – but the details are not available yet.

Lex aside, it was also revealed that Superman would be facing off with Lobo and the Parasite. Lobo appears to be largely like his 1990s cartoon version as well, though he seems to have trouble standing up to Superman now – in the 1990s version onwards he actually could, through sheer physical badassery. In this trailer, however, he seems to have a green kryptonite ring…either that or a Green Lantern ring, but the latter version seems to be too far out – Lobo just is not a real Green Corps’ material, you know? …In any case, we see the Martian Manhunter come to help the Man of Steel out, the two aliens bond, and the rest of the trailer is dedicated to the Parasite, who is a Superman villain who had fallen out of fashion since the 1990s, and who got a feral new look, rather reminiscent of the White Martians from the ‘Supergirl’ TV show at their worst. Since unlike Lobo and the Man of Steel himself, the Parasite used to be an ordinary human who acquired his powers by accident, it will be interesting to see if Lex Luthor is behind it, say – but for now, this is it. Now about the peregrine falcon?

…Here is the punchline – while the Man of Steel is faster than a speeding bullet is, the peregrine falcon is the fastest of modern birds, and probably the fastest of modern animals, period. All falcons are built for speed, but the peregrine – especially so; its’ primary trick is to get high above its’ prey and then swoop down upon it; each of its’ feet has a specialized, extra-large talon, so if the peregrine scores a direct hit, a bird the size of a hooded, or an American, crow, can be sliced almost in two.

But that is the peregrine. It is one of the bigger falcons, (the biggest modern falcon is the gyrfalcon, which lives in Arctic and is not as known, especially in the New World, as the peregrine is). Smaller falcons, like the merlin, have their own tricks – in particular, hovering, meaning that they channel their inner helicopter, (rather than airplane), and stay in one spot in midair, trying to zoom-in on their prey, usually something like a mouse or a large insect, (small falcons, remember?). But normally, falcons prefer to eat other birds.

More precisely, while hawks hunt among trees and eat primarily both birds and arboreal mammals such as tree squirrels, and eagles often prefer to hunt various mammals, period, (but we’ll talk about the eagles at a different date), the falcons are bird specialists…unless they’re like the crested caracara, of which we have talked yesterday. The ecology of modern birds is a complex bag, and we will be talking more about it later.

…For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #97 - June 26

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Sometimes, however, you get to see something new and exciting – for example, yesterday our family got to see a fawn, I am guessing that of a white-tailed deer, because we live on the East Coast rather than the West, where the black-tailed/mule deer is more common. (In addition, the elk is bigger than both of them are). It was spotted, adorable, and I am thinking that it is this youngster and its’ mother who are nibbling on our tree seedlings. Fair enough, but today I want to talk to you not about deer, but about hawks.

What are hawks? They are birds of prey that are not falcons or eagles. As a rule, eagles are larger and bulker than the hawks are, while falcons are faster and more streamlined. Put otherwise, the falcons have evolved to be speed demons, while hawks are masters of maneuverability instead; the falcons dominate in the open sky, (like the peregrine), over prairies, (like the Mexican falcon), and fields, (i.e. kestrel), while the hawks prefer to hunt in more closed spaces, such as woodlands. Pause.

Now, an ambush predator is often colored cryptically, with spots and stripes, as the big cats (and owls) are, and hawks are no exception – their plumage is barred, especially on the lower half of their bodies. Pause.

In the English language, there are two groups of hawks – those that belong to the genus Accipiter, and those to the genus Buteo; the former are the more formidable hunters, and in some other languages, such as Russian, the latter aren’t always acknowledged to be ‘hawks’, but are considered to be ‘buzzards’ instead.

How a ‘buzzard’ is different from a ‘hawk’ is another story, but for now, let us talk about the birds from the Accipiter group. They have barred plumage on the lower halves of their body, and the plumage on their upper halves is usually grey instead of brown, as it is in case of some of the American buteos, for example. And-?

And these are primarily forest birds, ambush hunters – they attack from cover, say tree foliage, or from behind a rooftop. Whereas falcons go high first and charge at their prey from the top, the hawks can attack from down below, charging quickly, but not for very long – usually.

Are ‘true’ hawks effective hunters? In my neighbourhood in Toronto, there is a steady population of smaller hawks – sharp-shinned, I guess. …Yes, I’m aware that quite a few scientists claim that the sharp-shinned hawk should be reclassified into several separate hawk species, but I’m no scientist, I really cannot say anything pro or contra to this statement, and so all I got to say is that the sharp-shinned hawk isn’t much bigger than a northern mockingbird is, (but it manages to overpower and kill them at least once in a while), and it takes effort to avoid both the American crows and the red-tailed hawks, both of which are bigger and more aggressive than the sharp-shinned hawk is.

…The songbirds and the squirrels, on the other hand, also tend to quiet down when a sharp-shinned hawk is in the neighborhood, but nothing else; the grey squirrels, in particular, seem to be about the same size as a sharp-shinned hawk is, and armed with sharp teeth, they are not too afraid of it.

On the other hand, the talk of squirrels brings us to the northern goshawk, one of the best squirrel hunters in the hawk world, and one of the biggest of the ‘true’ hawks – it can be the same size as a great horned owl, but looks much leaner and meaner than the latter. The two bird species manage to co-exist by the goshawk being a diurnal hunter, and the owl a nocturnal one; otherwise, the hawks and the owls do not always get along, and with the female goshawk being a very large bird of prey…well…

One more thing: the northern goshawk is called northern not just because it lives in the Northern Hemisphere, but also because the term ‘goshawk’ is used to name a lot of hawk species, over a dozen I would say. The same goes for the term ‘sparrowhawk’ – many of the hawk birds are called that.

…Finally, the ‘duck hawk’ is not a hawk at all, but actually a falcon – a peregrine falcon, the king of all falcons, and we will talk about it some other time. For now, though, this is the end – see you all soon!