A delight in Portland, Oregon, is watching the Vaux's Swifts flying about an old chimney in the area where they go as part of their migration. The worry in these birdwatchers is the declining number of chimneys since any built after the 40's are lined in such a way the swifts cannot use them. (Townhall: Migratory bird struggles for shelter as chimneys torn down)
I only have one tiny question for weepy Mister Greenjeans, tho: where the fuck did these Vaux's Swifts nest before industrial chimneys because there weren't any before the Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century.
This isn't exactly a situation of habitat encroachment since the birds must have adopted the chimneys in preference to whatever they were using previously. Otherwise we need some type of convergent Darwinian evolution to explain the relationship between Vaux's Swifts and factory chimneys.
There's a tone in the article as if to say man is responsible for imperiling the bird but there's almost nothing about where the birds roost naturally. They want to shame the hipster for building a loft apartment at the expense of chimney as if that's a case of habitat encroachment. wtf?
The original habitat encroachment may have been building the city in the first place. Unknown.
Birds in the city are mostly just self-delivered cat food and that's always fun to watch, isn't it. A cat is never so proud of itself until it whacks a bird.
(Ed: I thought you have a problem with feral cats?)
I do but it's life and they do what they do. Killing birds is one of their special proclivities. That's not a fault in the cat but rather the irresponsible people who fail to control them.
In case you thought they only grow them weird in California, it's the whole West coast. The entire belt is a hotbed of seismic activity so maybe the whole coast will go under the ocean at once. With any luck, the super volcano under Yellowstone would blow up at the same time and it would be magnificent. All that would be left of America would be Rhode Island and they would only have to say, "See, paw, I told you riding a horse to California for the Gold Rush was a bad idea."
Here's a bit more research:
Vaux's swift breeds in highlands from southern Alaska to central California and from southern Mexico, the northern Yucatán Peninsula, to eastern Panama and northern Venezuela. The United States' populations are migratory, wintering from central Mexico south through the Central American breeding range. The resident breeding birds in the southern part of the range are sometimes considered a separate species, dusky-backed swift, Chaetura richmondi. Preferred habitats include old growth coniferous or deciduous forests consisting of coniferous and deciduous vegetation; requires large, hollow trees for nesting. (WIKI: Vaux's Swift)
I only have one tiny question for weepy Mister Greenjeans, tho: where the fuck did these Vaux's Swifts nest before industrial chimneys because there weren't any before the Industrial Revolution in the 19th Century.
This isn't exactly a situation of habitat encroachment since the birds must have adopted the chimneys in preference to whatever they were using previously. Otherwise we need some type of convergent Darwinian evolution to explain the relationship between Vaux's Swifts and factory chimneys.
There's a tone in the article as if to say man is responsible for imperiling the bird but there's almost nothing about where the birds roost naturally. They want to shame the hipster for building a loft apartment at the expense of chimney as if that's a case of habitat encroachment. wtf?
The original habitat encroachment may have been building the city in the first place. Unknown.
Birds in the city are mostly just self-delivered cat food and that's always fun to watch, isn't it. A cat is never so proud of itself until it whacks a bird.
(Ed: I thought you have a problem with feral cats?)
I do but it's life and they do what they do. Killing birds is one of their special proclivities. That's not a fault in the cat but rather the irresponsible people who fail to control them.
In case you thought they only grow them weird in California, it's the whole West coast. The entire belt is a hotbed of seismic activity so maybe the whole coast will go under the ocean at once. With any luck, the super volcano under Yellowstone would blow up at the same time and it would be magnificent. All that would be left of America would be Rhode Island and they would only have to say, "See, paw, I told you riding a horse to California for the Gold Rush was a bad idea."
Here's a bit more research:
Vaux's swift breeds in highlands from southern Alaska to central California and from southern Mexico, the northern Yucatán Peninsula, to eastern Panama and northern Venezuela. The United States' populations are migratory, wintering from central Mexico south through the Central American breeding range. The resident breeding birds in the southern part of the range are sometimes considered a separate species, dusky-backed swift, Chaetura richmondi. Preferred habitats include old growth coniferous or deciduous forests consisting of coniferous and deciduous vegetation; requires large, hollow trees for nesting. (WIKI: Vaux's Swift)
So that's where they really live. It appears the problem isn't so much chimneys as old growth forests and that we can easily believe. Note the preference for hollow trees so the chimneys would be almost a natural for them.
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