Welcome to Life List, a birding podcast. Hello, hello, welcome, welcome everyone. This is Life List, a Birding Podcast. I am George Armistead here with my co-host, Alvaro Haramio Al What's Cooking.
SPEAKER_00Hey, I'm like listening to actually watching your face because I wasn't listening for a second until you started talking. And uh I seeing a turkey vulture outside being attacked by a blackbird.
SPEAKER_03Red winged blackbirds, man. This time of year.
SPEAKER_00Vicious. Yeah. Vicious. But you know, there's supposed to be there's that whole deal, right? Like that they they can tell a vulture from a a a hawk and they they kind of leave the vultures alone. But I've seen this kind of thing a few times this year. Oh, yeah. And and I just wonder if it's like hormones? I don't know. You yeah, you you just get so razzed up that you're like, oh, that thing's got broad wings. Oh, I'm gonna attack it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We all get cranky sometimes, you know? I know. And and it it implies that the cost of doing this to the blackbird is pretty low.
SPEAKER_03Because it's fun. Could be fun.
SPEAKER_00It could be fun. Yeah. Uh it's uh but yeah, I I love those things, you know, where people have like these hard and fast rules, you know, like of, you know, vulture will never kill something. And I'm sure Turkey Vultures killed something at some point, you know. Maybe not something very big, but yeah.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, they probably stepped on a mosquito or something by accident at some point. Right. On the whole, they haven't, you know, they don't kill stuff.
SPEAKER_00But the old lesser yellow headed vulture though, it that does kill stuff. Really? It's interesting. Yeah, it it's um I think it tends to be mostly snakes and lizards, but I've seen them do it and you know, like actually go off with a snake, and then you're like you read up some of the old you know, literature, tropical bird literature, and it's like, yeah, they they will actually kill Snag stuff. Snag stuff every so often, you know?
SPEAKER_03They to me, where I see them, lesser yellow-headed vultures in, you know, like I remember the Llanos of Venezuela, Colombia, you know, the lowlands of uh like uh in northern Colombia and elsewhere, they like if you see a vulture that looks like a t turkey vulture that's flying really low, yeah, it's almost it's almost always a lesser yellow headed.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. They fly like a harrier, really low. Yeah. Like like they're looking for something rather than spying, you know, from great distances to find some dead. It's like they're yeah, yeah, I get, yeah, I'm with you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, and folks have never been to those places that have these vultures. They look a lot like a turkey vulture, but their head color is different. They have slightly different wing pattern, you know?
SPEAKER_03Yes. And and wing shape. It's a like it's real similar, but the hand always looks a little more broadly rounded to me than turkey vultures. And then, yeah, the the white kind of panel on the dorsal side of the primaries is not white, but pale. Yeah. It's like a pale panel compared to turkey vultures, which look less so that way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Jr.: And and there it actually is a greater yellow-headed vulture, too, as the name implies. And it's much more of a forest-based bird, and the lesser is more of a savannah or grassland bird. And turkey, of course, is all over the place. Although I think there's multiple turkey vultures. I was gonna ask.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, like bec I was gonna say one of the I think it's very cool the concept of a forest New World vulture, like like greater yellow-headed vulture. But there are, you know, there within turkey vulture, there's a couple taxa. Um you know, e already an e-bird, you can e-bird tropical turkey vulture. Um tropical turkey vulture. Yeah. I don't quite know, I don't quite have memorized the parameters of that bird's range and taxonomy. Um, but I wonder I wonder how many species turkey vulture is in reality.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and that uh tropical, I guess, rufinuca, is like it actually gets really pretty far south into Argentina. Like it's it's down into Patagonia, northern Patagonia, which is kind of weird. Um, they actually banded some with transmitters in Argentina and they cross the Andes and winter in Chile. And in some of those areas where they winter, they there are these tropical turkey vultures in the breeding season, which is a new thing. Like e-bird photos show these birds to be there, and we see them on tour, and then you go to the coast and you get the temperate or south temperate, I don't know what they call it, turkey vulture, and it's way more coastal. And I've I'm thinking, like, wow, they're they're like basically side by side now, and they so far nobody's kind of seen a mixed pair. So this may be the key to like splitting the turkey vultures history.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I'm heading to the Pantanal soon, and I'll I think pretty much all the vultures we see there will be the tropical turkey vultures. Yeah. And I but uh I'm trying to remember, I guess in northern Columbia recently, we were wondering if we had both um, you know, res residents and and migrant. I don't know if it would be Rufanuca there, but um I think it is.
SPEAKER_00Uh at least Yeah, if you have a migrant, it'd be a northern, like a northern kind of turkey vulture, right?
SPEAKER_03Right. That much I and like there were birds that we were being like, that's that's what we think we're seeing here. Um and I I remember I think we might have even chatted about it here before, how vultures not having much in the way of vocalizations that head pattern and neck pattern um might be pretty key for them in terms of um pair formation and and and showing maybe something about species limits.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Well, it's it's not interesting as much as say weird. Apparently leg colors differ in different vultures, yet they they crop on them. Right. So you can't tell what the leg color is. So it's like they all look kind of whitish chalk. Maybe they can see through the poop, you know? Yeah, yeah. It's like uh what's the point? You know, it's like Right.
SPEAKER_03You got distinctive leg color and then you poop all over them, so they all look kind of chalky white. I know. Jeez.
SPEAKER_00Well, that just shows you there is no Darwinism. That would not exist. What a waste. It's a joke, folks. Come on. They're gonna start thinking I'm a flat earther or something.
SPEAKER_03I was gonna say that'd be a good t-shirt, lifeless podcast, and then it says there is no Darwinism, Alvaro Ato Mio. Yeah. Who's that guy?
SPEAKER_00Why are we listening to somebody who never never heard of his name before? Yeah. Um hey, um, speaking of uh uh okay, I got a couple of things to talk about. One of them I just posted about this the other day. Bobulink. Yeah. Robert of Lincoln is calling his name. Robert of Lincoln. Yeah. R2D2. R2D2. Is that what's R2D2? Oh, is that what they sound like to you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Well, a lot of people say that that the song sounds like R2D2, and I think it's pretty good, frankly. I think it's a pretty good approximation. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. You know. I like that R2D2's name in Spanish is Arturito. Arturito Arthur. Yeah. Arturito. Arturito.
SPEAKER_03I think I saw an interview with like Diego Luna recently, and he like didn't he it was about him realizing that R2D2 was not Arturito.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03The first time he realized that, he was like, oh wow. Okay. Yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03But yeah, bottling stuff, I think that R2D2 is pretty good mnemonic, or not mnemonic, but you know, parallel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and some some folks might have to like go back to see some old movies to know what R2D2 is. But I at this point, maybe everybody knows them. I don't know. Yeah. Even the kids. Um so yeah, um I'm out there looking. I was doing a little project on Eastern Metal Arcs, which I can talk about. But bobble links caught my attention because they're one of my favorite birds that I haven't been able to see very much over the last 30 years of living in birdless California. Okay.
SPEAKER_03And as a as an Ictorid uh New World Blackbird guru. Yeah, like Yeah. I mean, bobble Inks are have to be one of the best Ictorids.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. And there's some pretty cool stuff about them, right? Like they they do these song flights, um, they have massive long migrations. Uh they're the longest distance uh migrant songbird in the Americas that isn't a swallow, right? I want to say. Uh yeah, they beat that's right. Yeah. Yeah, they beat the um dix assault. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. You know, they so there's all that. They molt their entire plumage twice in a year, which is unique to all North American songbirds, right? Right.
SPEAKER_03There's not even many other birds that do it. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, you start, you know, racking up all these points for these birds, and you know, that's that's why I'm interested in them. But I was photographing them and I I look at my photos and I see that the wingtips are pale on these males, like like a pale wingtip. And I go, huh. I guess all that wear and tear on those feathers is causing this pale-looking tip of the primaries. Then the another bird goes up, oh, he's got the whale pale wingtips too. And then another bird goes, Oh, he's got the pale wingtips too. And I was like, oh, this is really kind of there, and I'm thinking, yeah, they're out in the sun, you know, the long wings, so the exposed primaries are getting sun exposure and they're getting worn down and all that. Then I get home, I look at the photos, and I'm, and the pattern is totally not what you would expect for it to be sun, sun bleaching, or, you know, because it it was too extensive on the inner on the outermost primaries. Like, so in a sense, you know, if if these bird feathers, if anybody's kind of ever seen a wing close, they kind of stack up on each other. And sure, like if you have a really long outer feather, it'll stick out and that'll get bleached. But these little tips will be, in a sense, like they'll just be little pale tips. And this was like a third of the feather was pale. And then I thought, like, do bobblinks just have pale primaries? Like, and I thought, well, let's look. There's a book I know about blackbirds, which I co-wrote with Peter Burke back uh way back.
SPEAKER_03You had to consult with the author on that one? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I had to consult because it's been so way back that I mean, this was all new to me, so I'm like, well, I wrote this. I'll bet you knew this once.
SPEAKER_03I'll bet you knew this and have since forgotten that you knew this. But no.
SPEAKER_00You really you think it's brand new? It's brand new. See, I look in the book and I'm like, it's there's nothing written. We didn't write anything yet. Peter Burke, excellent artist, he is illustrated it. He actually illustrated this paleness to the wingtips. So I asked him, like, is this a thing you knew about? And he and he said, Well, no, I've noticed it, but I just figure it's uh sun bleaching, you know? And I'm like, Yeah, it's not. It's it's uh and then to to like everybody's thinking, like, okay, so he's so sure, but just from the uh the the length of these things, I went to try to find the earliest photographs in eBird in the spring that I could get of flying bobblings, and I think they were April, so they weren't super, super early, but these were birds that will had just bolted, they still had all their speckling on. They all the males had the pale tips to the primaries, and they had super fresh outer edges. I'm like, they have pale primaries, and like and I'm like, how can it be that I never noticed this until like you know, nearly on my deathbed here? You know what I'm saying? It's like it's and and it kind of got me all excited about how you you can't like there's always something new to be seen, even in in in birds that are I mean the bobbling's not a rare bird. I mean, yeah. But then I thought too, like back in the day, nobody had really good flight shots of boblinks. I mean, they were kind of poor. You would still see them in the I'm sure in those in those photos. But then it it made me think, okay, if you got a pale feather, if that thing is bleaching and wearing, by the time fall comes around, it's probably pretty tattered. And it may be one of the reasons they actually mulch all their primaries twice.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, white, you know, as you're saying this, I'm thinking about um how you know so many birds that are white have black wingtips. And the the thinking, my understanding is the thinking is that you they've evolved to have melanin in those spots because the wingtips take so much wear and tear, and the melanin holds up better. It helps the the um the feathers keep their integrity and hold up stronger and longer. So um, yeah, anything that's got white wingtips might be really vulnerable to wear. Right. And um the you know what it makes me think of, which you know is interesting but very, very different, is gray hypocoleus, uh or uh hypocholeus, which is a monotypic, and that is another very yeah, it breeds pretty much only in Iran and Iraq. Uh most people see it in Western India uh or sometimes in the UAE uh or Oman. Um, but there it's a very nomadic bird, really, really nomadic. Uh and I don't know much about their molt, but uh and it's funny too when you're when you're talking about the bobble links. I remember when I first noticed this, uh, and it was about four years ago on a trip. Let's see, it I took photos. It was in North Dakota in June 2022, and I got my best photos ever of Bobble Lynx uh at uh I don't know how to pronounce it, Delac National Wildlife Refuge. In North Dakota, it's D-E-S Space L A C S. I'm sure that is French, and I'm butchering the pronunciation, although I think in North Dakota they just say Delac. Um, but at any rate, I got very good pictures of Bobble Inks singing, and it's got its primary stretched out, and you can see that the tips, extensive tips, are pale. And and I remember being like, huh. You know, I'd never noticed that before. And I kind of hadn't really thought about it again until I saw your post just the other day. Um but yeah, it's it's a cool looking feature of that bird.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and when you get good photographs of these birds flying, when they're flying at you, the the white on the sort of shoulder scapulars actually wraps around and looks like headlights. So if you're coming, it if the bird is coming at you with these white headlights on its wings, um, and it's got they fluff up the rump that's pale, and then they've got these flashy winged. I mean, it must be like, oh man, you know, look at that guy.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I mean, it is amazing how some of our most common birds uh can can just transform uh before our eyes. And and I was listening to the most recent Naturally Adventurous um where Ken was interviewing Wayne Klockner from the ABA, and Wayne was talking about how this the he he got to have this experience with a common nighthawk, a bird he's seen hundreds, thousands of times, and all of a sudden it's in full display, and not way up in the sky, but right next to him. And, you know, basically it's like he's seeing a whole new bird, even though it's a bird he's deeply familiar with, and it's sort of like you and your and your bobblink here. Um is like a bird you, you know, know really well, but you s you still find out new stuff about it.
SPEAKER_00New stuff, yeah. So that that's pretty cool. I mean, it just you know, keep everybody should just keep on paying attention to stuff and look at look at a bird holistically and then look at a bird like as individual feathers. And I it just gives you a different, you know, thing. And I'm I mean, I I I don't probably don't realize now how I, you know, how much I look at birds as individual feathers, but it's it's like a whole thing. Like you sometimes can see something you don't otherwise notice. And artists do that, right? Because they're painting painting the birds as indiv individual feathers, sticking them on the whole thing, kind of thing. And they notice patterns, you know.
SPEAKER_03This this reminds me of a quick aside here. I I once had to go to my homeowner's insurance office for uh some reason, I forget why, to sign something. And so I went to the office I'd never been before. I walk in, it's a small office in South Philadelphia in Rohhome, and they have like a yellow-headed Amazon in the like standing on like a stand behind the guy at the desk. There's like two people in there. And um and so the guy gets up from the desk, he's kind of rummaging around trying to help me sort out some stuff. And I kind of go over and I just am looking at the uh at the parrot. Uh, and I'm just kind of like checking him out, you know, and probably doing what you're describing, which is kind of looking at every feather. And like he's in pretty good shape, you know, a lot of these c caged birds look pretty rough around the edges. And I thought, huh, that's cool. And then I kind of walked over to a bookshelf and I'm looking at the bookshelf and I turn around, and just as I turn around, the parrot flies off of his perch and flies and lands on my head. And and I turned around, and I was very surprised by this, and I turned to the guys in the office, and I'm like, um, and I was speechless. And they and the guy looks at me. Yeah. The guy looks at me and he goes, he's never done that before to anyone. And I really think it's because I walked in there and looked at that parrot in a way that nobody else probably had before. Like I think I think that parrot was like, wait a minute, this guy is like seeing me. He's like really seeing me.
SPEAKER_01You know, he sees me.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. And then and he was like, and I walked away. He came back. He was like, wait a minute, I want to I want to check this out.
SPEAKER_00That's probably playing a George Michaels song in his head, you know, as you're you know the slower. Careless whispers. That's yeah, exactly. He was probably like even like a little winking or something, which you might have not noticed as you considered his feathers.
SPEAKER_03But I always thought it was so I was like, wow, that bird, you know, they're super smart, right? Parrots are like Corvette. They're really, really intelligent. And I s I think I think he sized it up that this guy n like looks at birds differently than most people.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. I thought you were gonna say the parrot was gonna say something nasty to you, you know.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I love those videos of parrots that are just you know laced with profanity. Those are like some of my those are really deeply satisfying to watch.
SPEAKER_00It's all AI. It's all AI. So yeah, the uh um you know the reason I was looking at these boblings too is like I was looking for spots out of Eastern metal arcs, and uh reason is I was like, now that I live out this way and have access to these Eastern metal arcs, I was really curious to play back voices of Cuban Eastern metal arcs to them. And interesting, as you might expect. Um they're they're well, maybe you don't expect. I I don't know what you expect, but Cuban Eastern metal arcs are are pretty different. They're isolated, they're actually genetically quite different, they sound different. You play their song and the Eastern metal arcs do nothing, like they absolutely don't care. Don't recognize it as don't recognize it. I mean, I've only done a few, but it's definitely worth kind of continuing with this with this stuff. And I have done it on Cuban metal arcs. When I've been in Cuba, I played them Eastern metal arcs. So suddenly like a picture is emerging of these two birds don't actually react to each other's songs. And uh yeah, I'm I'm just bummed that I didn't get going on this till now, because it's sort of like everything's shutting down until the song.
SPEAKER_03You're running out of time. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We're running out of time, but you know, next year.
SPEAKER_03It'd be fun to play for them some of the other populations too. I realize the Cuban ones are really isolated, but um, you know, like the northern South American ones.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But you know, you uh anytime you do a kind of experiment question like this, you gotta keep it to one question. Otherwise you can't sort anything out. Yeah. Right. So the experiment has to be like one thing. Right. Answer move on to the next thing, right? Right, right. So I chose the most isolated genetically first. So you're right. You could you could, you know. Um and that is uh after you separate the chi Chihihuahuan metal arc. I mean, so it it it in the genetic stuff, it was sort of the uh the most unique, second most unique is Cuban. So I thought let's go to that. Mm-hmm. Nice. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Well, I had kind of a similar experience. Not similar experience, but I had the experience of just kind of something new with a very, very familiar bird, um, which was red-eyed vireo.
SPEAKER_00Um red-eyed vireo.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, red-eyed vireo. Yeah. Not not the fire-eyed Ducon, but the red-eyed red-eyed vireo. Yeah. I I was I went down to the family place and Eastern Shore, Maryland. And I'm kind of pulling in, get into the woods, and big loblollies, big loblolly pines, and and some oaks, but um some tulip poplars. And I hear a red-eyed vireo, which is not uncommon. Then I was like, huh, I think I just heard a wood thrush, and wood thrushes moved through in migration and probably used to nest there, but um I don't think they nest there anymore. And, you know, here we are, almost July, and and then I popped out and I'm listening, and I realized that it was the red-eyed vireo that was doing uh the wood thrush. And it was it basically it incorporated the EOLA call of Wood Thrush into its song, and it also incorporated Eastern Woodpee into its song. And while I have run into other vireos, white-eyed in particular, um, doing some mimicry before, I've had them do like Summer Tanager and and and uh Eastern Toey a little bit, white-eyed vireos. Um, I I don't recall having run into that with red-eyed vireo before. Um so I made a recording of it, which was fun to listen to, and uh, and then I started asking around a little bit, and I asked Michael O'Brien, uh, you know, who is in Cape May and about as good a field birder as there is around here in the United States or beyond. And uh, and and he was like, yeah, he's like, I have he mentioned that he's heard red-eyed virios doing a little bit of mimicry and specifically with Eastern Wood peewee. And he told me that one of his uh mentors, one of my dad's mentors, uh, the late great Chandler Robbins, you know, who's if folks don't know who he is, he is worth a Google, um, a real pioneer in ornithology in North America. And uh, but Chan spent a lot of time on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, was based in Maryland for the bulk of his career, and mentioned to Michael that he was birding at some point during the breeding season on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and was hearing a red-eyed vireo, but was also hearing a black rail calling from the treetops of the loblolly pines, and couldn't figure out, you know, it took him a minute and all of a sudden after a while realized that this red-eyed vireo had incorporated black rail into its song repertoire. Um and as probably most folks know, um red-eyed vireos sing a lot, and they're one of the most prolific singers of any bird, you know, and they sing their songs are quite variable. Um I I read one stat that I think it said red-eyed virios can sing up to 12,000 different songs in a day, uh, variations of a song, and and they may sing 23,000 times in a day, which seems like an awful lot. Uh both of those numbers are difficult to fathom, um, but they are extremely persistent singers, and uh it was just interesting to have this experience uh with this bird. And and I did find some other notes about red-eyed vireo mimicry, and uh there's a note, I think it was from Colby College, mentioning how they have been documented mimicking um olive-sided flycatchers. Uh one was doing an eastern toe, um, some other species as well. Um but I thought it was pretty cool. Uh I was it was a it was a fun thing. The woods were like otherwise almost completely silent. Uh there was like almost nothing else singing middle of the day, you know, late June. Um, but it was a fun, fun thing to experience.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, most bird mo most songbirds sing like a song and then like there's silence and they sing another song, and you know, we can kind of class them as song types and so forth. But I think that I mean, I want to say that um red-eyed virewers are what they call continuous singers. Like they actually have a phrase that and then they a different phrase and they go, so that's why they sort of run on like their songs. They don't have a beginning and an end, very different from a warbling vireo. And then that makes me think that if they incorporate anything, they probably incorporate something that is a snippet about the length of the regular voice uh kind of, you know, what they're gonna do. Of a red-eyed video phrase. Yeah, yeah, the phrase. So that'd be interesting to see if if like they wouldn't mimic something that was too long.
SPEAKER_03Well, this is interesting, Al, because if actually if you listen to that recording, I think there is a piece of a cardinal song in there. I th like if there's a there's one phrase that I'm like, that sounds like it it took like, you know, it edited a beginning and an end of a cardinal song and just took out like a little, you know, m second-long, you know, piece of that. And uh a friend of mine, Todd Day, sent a recording of a red-eyed vireo that he thought was doing some weird things. And uh from several years ago, I think over a decade ago, he recorded it. And um to me it sounded like it was doing a piece of Eastern Toey song. Um so that's an interesting thought you raised there that they pr maybe they only have, but so long that they're they're you know, they're going to mimic something.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like it's they they need it to fit within that. The confines of their structure. Yeah. But uh Woodtrush, I gotta tell you, I got a wood thrush story. Yeah. The other day, I I often will uh kind of go out in the evening or at night just to see if I hear something different around here in the in the old yard. And as you know, George, as many of these listeners know, the only thing I care about in the world, really, I don't care about most things is my yard list. That's all I care about. This is true. This is true.
SPEAKER_03I can attest to this. Yeah. He would throw any of us under the bus for the yard yard bird.
SPEAKER_00The life list, the year list, none of that matters. I don't even care, whatever. You know, I don't know the numbers, but the yard list is really the one. So I I go out and I hear a wood thrush singing, like in the evening, which was a new yard list, yard bird. And I was like, oh wow, you know, and this wood thrush was important because it got me to break the hundred barrier in Canada. So in Canada, I am now within the top hundred yards of of the country. Yet I remind you folks, I've only lived here for about a year and a couple of months. So it's it's uh I've been working hard at this yard list here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, and you've been home. You've been away a lot, too. So yeah. You got some hay to make still.
SPEAKER_00And we're, you know, we're planting stuff, trying to get, you know, I was just like replanting a little walnut seedling yesterday and all this stuff, um, trying to get more habitat. But um, yeah, it's uh it's amazing how uh uh how many species go through here. I think well then the number right now is 172. So we have I have not yet seen as many species as I had in 20 years in my old yard. But I might actually be able to do that this year or next year rather than 20 years. So it's uh it's actually much faster accrual rate. But um I know that, you know, people don't care, but I do.
SPEAKER_03Yard lists are I mean, we're passionate about this. I mine, I feel like I've kind of hit diminishing returns, and I've been very disappointed in the spring birding here, but fall is good, and I'm excited to be around for uh for August, September, October coming up here. I expect I'll probably get at least a couple new yard birds. I don't know if you saw Alvaro, I bet you did that our Michael O'Brien, who I mentioned before, just got a very nice yard bird a few short days ago. Uh he had a common swift. Uh oh. Yeah. I did not see that. Yeah. Uh in Cape May. Well, pretty good yard, right? Yes. Right in the name.
SPEAKER_00That's right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Yep. Pretty much.
SPEAKER_00They're pretty common in Europe, that is. They're not common in North America. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. There was one reported here about probably 25 years ago, like a mile from my house. It was Bob Ridgely, Louis Bevere there. It was an apus swift. Um so I dare to dream around here. We, you know, our uh I every every Swift I see, which so far has been a chimney, uh, is uh something, you know, to to scrutinize.
SPEAKER_00Every swift I see. That sounds like a police song, but that's different. It's like every breath I take. Every swift I see.
SPEAKER_03Swift is sometimes a starter word for me for wordle.
SPEAKER_00So um I know there's something nobody cares about, Wordle. I think my yard list was unpopular.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I got a bunch of people I play I play Wordle with uh, or we exchange our our regular scores with. Um but yeah.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00I guess a starter word is one that incorporates enough letters to give you an idea of the Peter Power.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I mean a lot of people I think the most popular one is like adieu uh or audio, because they both have uh like a lot of vowels. Um so people people like to flush them out um pretty quick. Um but I like to I like to have a little birding element to my starter word. So I kind of try to rotate it around. Like I remember Tom Johnson once got Wordle on the first try, which is very hard to do. I've only done it twice in like over a thousand attempts. And he Tom did it with the word robin. He got it on the first guess. That's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_00Is there wordle for the Hawaiian language?
SPEAKER_03I don't know. You'd uh you have to incorporate the Aquino, right?
SPEAKER_00Uh I I don't know, but it's not many letters.
SPEAKER_03That could be like, you know, easier Wordle than Trevor Burrus, it's like 13 letters or something, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_03I don't know if that would make it easier or harder.
SPEAKER_00I don't know. You're the Wordle guy. Yeah. Can't believe I'm talking about Wordle. This is awful. Yeah, things have deteriorated. Yeah. And um the uh yeah, you mentioned apus Swifts. Uh Apis is the genus of the old world swifts, and in fact it is gave the entire family the name. Uh it's the uh apodidae, right? And uh it means no foot. Yeah. Footless. Footless. Not foot loose, footless.
SPEAKER_03Those those swifts can really cut a rug, though.
SPEAKER_00Well, yeah. Speaking of swifts, how about Taylor? Is she uh getting married this weekend? What's going on?
SPEAKER_03Oh heavens. I don't I don't I'm ashamed to say as a as a proud Pennsylvanian, you know. Uh you know, count we count her. She says she's a Philadelphia Eagles fan prior to the whole Travis shenanigans.
SPEAKER_00But um shenanigans saying this is actually gonna be holy matrimony soon, so shenanigans, please. Don't don't insult. But yeah, uh from what I gather, Madison Square Gardens has been booked for this weekend.
SPEAKER_02Oh, really?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. The the Swifties are gonna be all in there. You get you get the invite? I I don't think so, but I was expecting, you know, just you know, that I might be I well I you know, I don't even know when to tie, so it's kind of like I really don't want to go. So I don't have enough time to shop. Um today, though, special day here. Uh I don't know when this is gonna air. Canada Day. This is the day where everybody celebrates Canada, you know? So it's uh not actually probably more people all over the world are celebrating now because of that game the other day. The uh I was gonna say they they became quite uh famous uh um for that. And uh I think there's a huge patriotism uh thing going on this year for I mean, partly for because of the World Cup, partly because of uh world politics and all that. So it's kinda gonna be interesting. We're gonna drive into Toronto for other reasons, but gonna be able to just walk a block from my mom's house to go see the fireworks later on. So that's cool. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. There's a few matches here in Philly. Um I think the last one is coming up. I can't remember what it is.
SPEAKER_00Do you get any free tickets? I mean, don't they give us free tickets for anything?
SPEAKER_03You would have thought. Yeah. Yeah. No, I got bupkis, and I'm pretty crowd averse anyway. Um You can't buy us. Yeah, no, can't be bought.
SPEAKER_00Lifeless is not for sale. Although you can try.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I don't know. Maybe Molly would say differently. She's in she's in Panama right now. But uh Yeah. Yeah, no, the World Cup has been a ton of fun, man. It's like a lot of uh a lot of fun games. I think the fun uh the most fun thing is seeing all the visiting fans from other countries and seeing them like head to the stadiums and you know, like the you know, the the Scottish uh, you know, drinking Boston dry. That was a pretty good, you know, and they then they went to some park and had a huge party and then they all cleaned up after themselves and um, you know, stories like that. A lot of a lot of good fun stories that, you know, this I think in a way though, it world cup, and obviously we're only probably kind of halfway through it here, but it had a chance to be a real miserable politicized uh debacle, um, at least in the US. Um and uh so far.
SPEAKER_00Well, there were some politicized bits.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I guess a bit, but overall I think what I think the the overriding story has been how much fun the fans, visiting fans have had, and how much fun the hosting fans have had. Um, you know, like what was it, Kansas hosting, was it Senegal? I can't remember. Some you know, some country that, you know, some little town in Kansas and um yeah, there's just been all sorts of fun, fun stories and and cool posts on social media about it. I've I've gotten to watch more World Cup this year, I think, than ever ever before, and it's been fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's uh it's yeah, it's interesting. I I've been I kind of don't you know, I watch like the last bits of some games, but you know, it's like I don't have the attention span to watch watch an entire game unless it really is meaningful. So it's yeah. But you you don't miss much sometimes by waiting till the last uh twenty minutes. So Yeah.
SPEAKER_03The US all their matches they've been scoring early. So the uh it's like if that that's that's been their MO so far is to score early and stay ahead. So they play tonight. We'll see. Fingers crossed going up against Bosnia-Herzegovina.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I think they're gonna lose.
SPEAKER_02That's yeah, you think so?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02They're favored. They're favored, but we'll see.
SPEAKER_00I know. I this is this is when everybody chokes, you know what I mean? This is sort of like when when they they're riding high on everything, you know, and and then then they it's wet this is when the experienced teams really kind of like know how to do it. It's like the Frances and Argentina France, yeah, they're looking pretty deadly.
SPEAKER_03I think uh actually I think the US will win by a two-goal margin against Bosnia-Herzegovina tonight. Um that's my that's my prediction. I th that they rested most of their players last time. They're gonna come in fresh and hungry. But I think this could easily be their last victory of the tournament. So we'll see.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yep. Yeah, I can't I can't say that I think Canada's gonna win. They could, but I don't think so. It'd be fun if they did, but you gotta be realistic. It's uh it's still a new you know, new uh thing for for a lot of although there's probably more per capita soccer fans in Canada than in the US, I would say. Yeah, definitely. You know. Oh per capita, yeah, maybe yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it's a it's really big. It's really big here. I mean and uh and growing, but it is growing in the US as well. So it's good.
SPEAKER_02It is.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it would be interesting to see what happens when there's more soccer fans in the U.S. than there are, I don't know, baseball fans. Yeah. Because it's probably gonna happen eventually.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Could do. Well, next up for Canada is Morocco. That'll be a very good test uh coming up.
SPEAKER_00That's what I say. I can't can't see them winning that.
SPEAKER_03But yeah. Yep, that'll be a tough one. We shall see. Yep.
SPEAKER_00We shall see.
SPEAKER_03We shall see. So, Al, you're heading out soon to beloved California and the and the Half Moon Bay area for some pelagics, yeah?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, actually, most of them are out of South Salito for the fair lines, but there will be one Half Moon Bay Pelagic. I am most looking forward to the beers after the trip because they're always fun. But I we I don't want to jinx the trip, but there's been so much petrol action in in the California waters this year, you know, from early Murphys and now Cooks at Dumbers and Hawaiian petrels, that it just is sort of like if we get out there, we're all gonna be looking hard for any of those birds. But, you know, they're ephemeral. Sometimes you have a couple of weeks of hot, you know, the right habitat, then it goes away, and then you go to the same places and Zilcho. So I don't want to jinx it. That's why I've I'm being safe and I know I will enjoy and have a great beer after the trip.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I don't want to say too much about what it might happen on the trip.
SPEAKER_03So right on. There'll be you'll have good company, like that's sort of a tr one of the traditions, right? As you guys, after those trips get together, grab a beer, and uh and so you'll you'll you'll have to have some Peruvian food. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh, nice. Yeah. Yeah. So it's I feel like Peruvian cuisine is one of the most underappreciated cuisines in the U.S.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's right. Perhaps the world. Yeah. Right? Like it's one of the best.
SPEAKER_02It's really that's cool.
SPEAKER_03Well, I look forward to hearing how that goes. We've got I've got a bit of a wait till my next pelagic. We have one going out in August and one going out in September. They're deep water overnighter trips. And yeah, man, we have struggled with weather on our side, seems like always. Um, but hopefully we uh we'll get out on the side. Both those trips, white face storm petrol will be a big target. And um we'll be hoping for winged runners, as I like to call them, the pterodroma petrels. Something in the genus Teradroma is always welcome. And um yeah, uh hopefully they'll they both go and both come back with some really amazing birds. I'm getting ready to shove off in uh the not too distant future here for Brazil and the Pantanal, uh, which is really one of my favorite trips. It's become a favorite. And uh my wife, Kristen, is coming with me on this trip, so that'll be fun. She's never been to Brazil. And I had to explain to her the other day, Alvaro, what a caipirinha was, and now I think she might be more anticipating uh a caipirinha than she even was a jaguar or um, you know, um a jabbaroo.
SPEAKER_00Uh so uh you know what's ironic is the almost all caipirinas I've had were at the field guides annual meetings.
SPEAKER_03Brett Whitney makes pretty mean uh pretty mean caipirina.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. It's uh it's not it's I haven't been to Brazil that much, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So I will it's sort of like it's sort of like a gin and tonic uh uh you know, it's uh as a sundowner in on in Africa, like it there's something about the climate that really makes it hit, you know. If you're on if you're in a hot, hot climate, some some some of those cocktails just s hit in a different way um than they do like, you know, in the frigid cold or what have you.
SPEAKER_00I am in a hot, hot climate right now. I gotta tell you that. I love it, but it's pretty hot and humid here. It's like right now. Yeah. It's the same thing. Dragonflies going out everywhere, you know, like there's hatches happening and yeah. I I always every time I leave, you know, to go to a trip or Pelagics, I'm excited, but I'm also like, oh, I want to see what's going on here, you know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That's I feel like that's the perpetual um, you know, argument we have is our s the battle we have as tour leaders that and and people that travel to see nature elsewhere is that the stuff that you, you know, there's so much to discover right in your backyard. And uh I do love I mean, like, as much as I it does pain me sometimes to like think what I'm gonna miss at home. Um I do it is also fun to be come back like two weeks later and be like, oh my God, the garden looks completely different, you know. And and oh oh wow, there's some migrant birds moving now, you know. Yeah. So that that drum that kind of dramatic, you know, or even subtle changes um can be fun to to witness uh you know, after you've been you've got a gap as opposed to sort of the the day by day.
SPEAKER_00Right. I actually uh did find a new um um dragonfly from my area the other day, like the lily pad clip tail, which was a kind of cool thing. And there's been a lot of new flies out here. Like if you just kind of concentrate on flowers and just sort of these little tiny flies, and some of them, if you get a good picture, they're really impressively patterned. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_03Like yes, no, this is one of my favorite things. I was trying to, I'm trying to find the my most recent favorite. Well, one of my one, you know, doing, you know, was at Down to the Farm, one of my ones that was not my favorite was um giant water scavenger beetle.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah, those are those are crazy.
SPEAKER_03Those are creepy, man. Like they look like they're out of like one of those kind of like creature horror films. Um I did those kind of gave me the real heebie jeebies. I don't much care for those. And they were really having a good time in one of our ponds. They were they were digging it. Um they were going right for it.
SPEAKER_00Um you know what I saw is this fly. It's one of the um, you know, kind of the um the flies that kind of looks like bee, they kind of look like bees, you know, the like a hover fly or yeah, like I guess it's surfid or something like that. But it's the aphid eater. Have you have you run across these things?
SPEAKER_03And then I have a couple that I've photographed here. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So it's larvae, they feed on aphids. I I guess they yeah, there's a whole thing going on there. It's like uh and in fact, if you if you look at their the photos on iNaturalists, most of them are of the larvae, not the adults. Kind of like I gotta look at those.
SPEAKER_03I can't remember what they look like, but I remember Kristen and I find them and she was excited because we kind of are constantly waging a war on the aphids here. Um they really have done some damage to some of our stands of native pollinators. Um, and then we found that this uh these aphid eaters and and uh we were like, yes, go, aphid eaters, get after it. Aphid eaters, yeah. Yeah. And that's uh it's pretty neat. My favorite one I found recently, uh, I don't know if you've seen this one, Al, is the silky striped sweat bee, which it looks like to look at it to me, it almost looks more like kind of like a it's got uh, you know, sort of a bee shape to it, but it almost could pass as like a Drosophila like housefly if you weren't looking carefully. But the whole thing is bright, bright iridescent emerald green. Just bright iridescent emerald green.
SPEAKER_00Like a blue bottlefly, kind of like the green bottleflies and blue bottleflies, like those? Like soup, like shiny, shiny.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I mean, this actually is a bee. Um it's a bee, okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's a sweaty. That kind of iridescent.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it is kind of like that, but it's it's uh I'd say it's uh it's not quite as bright as the blue, but it it's one of these things that they might look a little dark if you're not, you know, really scrutinizing them. Um, but it is a beautiful insect. I got some pretty nice pictures of them. Cool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, the um there's a there's a lot going on. And uh, you know, on the other hand, you know, I'm really keen on seeing what the water temperature stuff is going on in California. And uh bird-wise, I was thinking, like, boy, I think I got a day, you know, I'll probably end up working most of the day, but like what would I want to go look at? You know, if I was thinking, well, I'll probably go up into the hills and look for Casson's Vireo, Western Warbling Vireo, get a sense with their songs now that I'm hearing these all the time. And for my my mind goes right to Lawrence's goldfinch.
SPEAKER_03Like, is there I would want to like that's a bird I still have relatively little experience with.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I don't think they're around this year, but I'll I'll check on those. Yeah. They would be up that way anyways. Um Hermit Warbler would be up in that that sector as well. So and they're not too far away from Half Boom Bay if I go up in the hills. But um, yeah, it's uh it's funny, you know, because when you go back to a place that you know pretty well, like there's a lot of things that are you haven't seen in a while, maybe, but they're not like they don't tweak a kind of like, oh yeah, let's what am I, you know. It's sort of context-based. So now my context is yeah, let's go, you know, I've been seeing blue-headed virios, let's go see some Castan's Vereos, you know. Yeah, it's like kind of comparative. But then again, it's like early July. If there's any peeps anywhere, it's the best time to find those vagrant redneck stints.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, those adult stints stick out this time of year.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that would be cool. But we shall see.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, similarly, I hope to get to Brig soon, uh, which is the best, closest shoreburning spot for me. And uh and I have been lucky enough not to find personally, but to see uh some stints that have shown up there over the years, including at this time of year. Um so yeah, it is crazy to think that m fall migration is is underway uh already, if not soon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, it's it's it's about it's about time. I've I've noticed here like uh Eastern kingbirds that are in places where I hadn't seen them in the last couple of weeks. So they're they're probably like just dispersing, you know, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we're I'm starting to like we we don't see many ruby throated hummingbirds in the art here until right around um now when I think they've moved away from breeding areas and young are starting to kind of zip around. And so those numbers are starting to uh to pick up at the feeders, which you know, always makes me hope for a different hummingbird species as well. Um we will we will hope and pray. But um Yeah. It's uh we're kind of getting through the doldrums of summer from a birding perspective. Bugs I feel like are about to r are picking up now and gonna get really good and and her herps and bugs are good, you know, now for a while. But uh the migration is gonna be fun. You Al, one thing I gotta ask about you s did you see that Pennsylvania had its first willow pharmigan just uh last week.
SPEAKER_00Oh oh yeah, the one that popped over from Ontario, that female? Yeah. That's wild. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Apparently it had been there for I think it was detected kind of like by a birder. I don't know the full story, so maybe I shouldn't say, but and the you know, like somebody found it, they kind of were like, wow, there's a ptarmigan, and then somebody else was like, Oh, I didn't know what that was, and had photographed it like a week earlier in the same area. Um but uh pretty pretty cool. Like, you know, vagrant grouse, always fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Um it's uh it's yeah. And uh you know, the uh the tarmigan, I mean, this is getting late for that. Like whenever that happens, it tends to be like early June, right? I mean it's sort of like the date was the strangest part about it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. I I thought the date was quite strange. Yeah. I d I wasn't sure what to make of that, honestly. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. And I yeah, it's I I don't know what to think about all these, you know, the I this pharmigan thing is kind of been historically normal. You know, like it there's all sorts of records going back. But uh it it seem it seemed like it disappeared for a while, then it's coming back. And you know, some friends have mentioned that pharmigan numbers are just higher now than they used to be because of um there was you know pressures. I don't know if it was hunting pressures or or you know habitat situations, but but the idea is that there's just more ptarmigan around. But I don't know if that's the case. And what's cool though is like here there's like a there's a highway that goes up into Quebec that you can drive up in the winter and get into actual ptarmigans wintering regularly at this spot. Where you just go drive up there in the winter. I was like thinking, oh, that'd be kind of cool to do, you know.
SPEAKER_03Dude, let me know. I'll I'm I'll c I'll I'd love to do that with you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, do late winter and then you can pop by and and find some boreal owls because they start calling, you know, late winter. Yeah. Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_03Love of this. If if people are listening and have never heard what a willow ptarmigan sounds like, it's a top ten like bird song. It's uh a pretty ridiculous set of sounds. I think my I I have no proof of this, but I think that some of the Jawa sounds in Star Wars are from Willow Tarmigan. Um But that's uh my own pet theory. But they ha they have some wonderful, wonderful sounds. All the pharmigans make funny sounds, but willow pharmigan, I think, kind of stands apart as particularly good. Red Grouse, I don't know, probably pretty good too.
SPEAKER_00Um yeah, I bet they sound pretty much like willow ptarmigans, but yeah. I don't know for sure.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um Will, George. We we gotta scoot. We probably gotta go.
SPEAKER_03We're yeah, we gotta scoot. You got you gotta get to Toronto, and I uh I I got another meeting coming up here, so I gotta run for that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and then you gotta get all ready for your U.S. game, you know? Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_03Not only that, but the Phillies have a big game with Chris Wheeler going up against Paul Skeens tonight. So it is a big sports night. It's also my niece's birthday, so we are celebrating. Uh the Armsteads are gathering up for uh a bunch of fun stuff. So looking forward to it. Good talking to you, my friend. And thanks everybody for listening. We will be back again soon with another episode of Life List A Birding Podcast. Take care, everybody. Bye bye.