Science Friday - SciFri Extra: Bird Nerds Of A Feather Flock Together

Episode Date: September 11, 2019

The Science Friday Book Club is done birding—for now. But after wrapping up our summer discussion of Jennifer Ackerman’s The Genius of Birds, bird enthusiasts flocked together at Caveat, a venue in New York City, for one last celebration of bird brains and feathered phenomena. We pitted audience members up against some local bird geniuses in tests of memory, pattern recognition, and problem-solving. Then, we brought on a gaggle of experts to talk about the special and smart birds of New York City, along with some of the threats they face—including bright lights and deceptive glass. And with fall migration underway, we’re talking about many more species than pigeons. Science Friday SciArts producer and book club flock leader Christie Taylor hosted the conversation with NYC Audubon conservation biologist Kaitlyn Parkins, Wild Bird Fund director Rita McMahon, Fordham University evolutionary biologist Elizabeth Carlen, and National Audubon editor and Feminist Bird Club vice president Martha Harbison. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

Hey there, Ira here, host of Science Friday. We have something special for the bird nerds out there. After we wrapped our summer book club reading of Jennifer Ackerman's The Genius of Birds, we got together at caveat. That's an event space here in New York City for a bird party. We pitted our audience members up against some bird geniuses in tests of memory, pattern recognition, and problem solving, and then brought on a gaggle of experts to talk about the special and smart

birds of New York City and some of the threats they face. And yes, we've got more than pigeons. Science Friday's site arts producer and our book club block leader, Christy Taylor, hosted the conversation. Take a listen. We wanted to talk about all kinds of birds and all kinds of smarts and all kinds of things you can appreciate about birds in New York City specifically, since we are, after all, here.

So we partnered with some amazing organizations and researchers to do just that. So we're going to have a panel discussion. Joining me here tonight are four New Yorkers ready to chirp the night. Diana, chirp the night away about our feathered friends. Please welcome to the stage, Rita McMahon, Caitlin Parkins, Martha Harbison, and Elizabeth Carlin. So welcome everyone, and thank you so much for being here tonight. I'm going to invite all of our guests to first introduce themselves since we don't know who they are yet

and what they do. And I'm also going to ask you to say something to say something to say something about your favorite bird to see in New York City while you're introducing yourself. And let's start with Elizabeth. I'm Elizabeth Carlin. I'm a PhD candidate at Fordham University, and my dissertation is looking at the ecology and evolution of feral pigeons in the northeast. So I've been traveling from Boston down to Washington, D.C., and collecting pigeons, taking blood samples in all the major cities. I'm originally from California, and so when I moved to New York City, my favorite birds are really cardinals. They're super easy to spot and they're very charismatic. That Mohawk is very, very exciting to me. As I'm walking through the city, they're just so easy to see.

So that's kind of been my favorite New York City bird. Hi, I'm Caitlin Parkins. I am the conservation biologist at New York City Audubon, which is our local Audubon chapter working to conserve birds and their habitats in the five boroughs of New York City. I'm part of a science and conservation team that includes our staff, but also community scientists. I work with a lot of them, and some of you are here tonight, so thank you so much. Just a quick round of applause. Our community scientists allow us to do what we do. Yeah. My favorite bird in New York City is probably the American oyster catcher.

I love to see them come back every year. New York City Audubon. Our team has banded close to 100 of them so far, so not only are they that. That American Oyster Catcher, it's, you know, they have these big orange plastic bands with letters on them. So we've got yaks and yaw, and they, you know, nest in the same place every year. I banded one with my initials, KLP this year. So I feel like I know them individually. Yeah.

I'm Rita McMahon from the Wild Bird Fund. We are New York City's. Thanks, God. Yay, wild bird fund. We are New York City's one and only Wildlife Rehabilitation Center. and we expect to do over 7,000 birds this year, which speaks of how much New Yorkers care, that each bird is brought in by an individual

who is given up half a day or the whole day, one to research us, to find us, and to bring that animal in for care. I am so heartened by how New York has the big city, the big apple, is making sure we take care of our ones, wildlife. If I speak of my favorite bird, it is the pigeon. Round of applause for the pigeon. They are brilliant. And now I have a second favorite.

The second favorite is the black vulture, who is now moving north because of global warming. That's one of the only positive aspects of global warming we have. They are exceedingly beautiful and when you have a juvenile, they are cute. Hi, my name is Martha Harbison. I'm the senior network content editor for the National Audubon Society. That means I work on the magazine and the website. I'm a journalist by training. I'm also the vice president of the feminist bird club,

and we'll be talking a little bit. There's a lot of feminist bird club people out there, and I'll be talking a little bit about that later. And my favorite bird in New York City, actually have one on my lap right now. This is the American woodcock, also known as the timber doodle, the bog sucker, the bog straw. It has like 11 or 12 different nicknames, but they come through in the springtime and hang out in Bryant Park. So you'll see tons and tons of birders in Bryant Park, stalking the, basically stalking the hedges looking for these guys

because they hide under the hedges. And actually a lot of them end up at the Wild Bird Fund because they tend to run into buildings a lot. But anyway, I really love it. the American Woodcock. So Caitlin, I'm going to start with you, because I think we've talked about pigeons a lot tonight. But when we're talking about birds that need conservation help in New York City, how many different birds are you working with?

What kinds of projects do you have going on? Yeah, a lot. I work on a lot. New York City Audubon has our hands in a lot. So we monitor and survey and do a lot of work trying to learn more about the birds in New York City and what habitats they need so that we can use that in-house science that we do to advocate for the protection of those birds. So we work, a lot of people don't know that we have 17 undeveloped

islands in the New York Harbor with colonies of long-legged waiting birds, so eagrots and herons and ibis, about 6,000 of them nesting in New York City. So we work with those birds. We work with the beach nesting birds like common terns and black skimmers and American oyster catchers and the piping clover's have the protection because they're federally protected, but no one is watching out for these other species. We work with migratory land birds, so our songbirds that are migrating through, they're coming through right now. We focus on bird building collisions,

and then also looking at novel habitats for those species like green roofs. So I would say that all of the birds in New York City need protection. There are more than 250 species that spend some part of their life cycle here, so we're more than just pigeons and starlings and house sparrows. Sorry. And these birds are doing incredible things. And Martha, what is the feminist bird club? And why do we need one?

Thank you for asking. The feminist bird club is, I mean, broadly, it's a birding club. So we go out and we look at birds. But birding traditionally has been fairly homogenous. It's fairly white. It can be overwhelmingly male, depending on where you go. And so in 2016, founder Molly Adams was really looking for a more like an alternative group in which to go out and like interact with birds. And also really wanted to focus on intersectional feminism.

So we set up our walks to be fully inclusive. So we're going to respect your pronouns. We're going to make sure that if you know you come from a different background that we're not going to be asking weird questions of you. And we really want you to appreciate birds and natural habitat. Not just in New York City, but we have chapters all over the world now. But the other main component of the Feminist Bird Club is when we fundraise, and we do a little bit for ourselves, but most of we fundraise for other causes. So we've done fundraising for Black Lives Matter and for reproductive justice. So for us, it's very important not just to raise money for conservation, but to raise money for other marginalized communities because they actually need the help to.

And what are the birds that we're seeing right now? Like is now a good time for birding. I think Caitlin is sort of getting to this. Totally. Yeah. Right now it's totally. Awesome. Like the warblers, I'm wearing a shirt that's got a bunch of warbler names on it. They're all coming back through New York City. But right now, like, for me, it's shorebirds.

All the shorebirds are coming back. They all were breeding in the Arctic over the summertime, and now we're getting the red knots and the sanderlings. And even like the resident ones, a piping plover, the American oyster catchers, they're all hanging out on the beach. So go to the beach this weekend. There are so many birds out there. And they're all awesome. So we were looking for birders. We should be going to the beach this weekend, too. Yes. So Rita, you were referring, we're going to see 7,000 birds going through the wild bird fund this year. Why did you start the wild bird fund in the first place?

It's a case where I found a bird and I couldn't get help for it. And I discovered then that New York City was the only wildlife, only city in the country. Go down 15 cities. The only major city in the United States that did not have a wild life. rehabilitation center. And it wasn't me alone. It was many people who helped to make it happen. But because of that, we now are able to tend the wildlife that comes through, which it was criminal that we did not, when we are so rich in so many species that come through New York, that we never attended to them. But I gotta tell you, it ain't easy.

And I wanna jump in here because Rita's been, so influential to my dissertation. About three years in, my PhD advisor sat me down, was like, you really got to get your ass in gear and catching these specimens. Pigeons are a lot harder to catch than you would imagine. And I was able to go to Rita, and her rehabbers have been collecting blood samples for me from their patients. And I think I have like over 200 samples in my dissertation right now that are from the wild bird fun so you guys have really saved my a bit there really appreciate that if i can follow up on that we also have probably 900 samples for avian influenza we work with mount sinai and we are testing all waterfowl to be able to

record when it's not if it's when avian influenza strikes in new york city and these are important research initiatives that will save human lives as well as the bird lives right and there was actually a paper that was published a few years ago where with samples again from the wild bird fund uh that showed that lead levels and pigeons were actually correlated with lead levels and children and so the environmental lead levels were this indicator so pigeons were acting as this bio indicator of places that we might see lead points and poisoning and these children. So there's all this data here that's being collected, thanks to what all your patients that come in and all the people that bring them in. It all comes down to if we do look at wildlife, we'll be saving our own necks.

There's clearly a lot of really amazing research happening on birds in this city. And actually, Elizabeth, I wanted to get to, you weren't actually a pigeon fan when you started making your whole life about pigeons, right? Yeah, so my training is in mammals, and I got to New York, didn't really want to move here from California. Seasons, not a big fan when I moved here. I love it now. It's amazing. This city is fantastic. And I thought I was going to work on mammals. But I got into my lab, and we had a couple of mammal projects going, and we had a Hurt project.

someone was working on salamanders, and we didn't have anybody answering questions about birds. And my lab is really focused on trying to understand how organisms are evolving in cities, because cities are taking over the world in a lot of sense, and they seem like an odd place for wildlife to be. They're loud, they're full of toxins, they're just really crowded, there's all these new species interactions, and so why are some species doing really well in cities? And when I kind of, came to think about okay we have mammal projects going we have a hurt project going nobody's working on birds and the first kind of bird that you think about when you think of new york city at least me is uh is a pigeon and they're everywhere in the city i get to kind of cheat on my research

in the sense that when i'm coming home from a bar at 1 30 in the morning and notice a pigeon out i get to be like oh yeah i totally am doing research right now i'm trying to figure out why that pigeon is out at 1.30 in the morning. Is it trying to avoid a predator? Is it accessing all the garbage that we put out? So it gets these questions going, and I have this excuse to be out at 1 o'clock in the morning. And pigeons became this really kind of fascinating thing.

And my previous research was on this elephant shrews, which I've never seen alive. My master's research, I spent years studying this thing. I've never seen it alive. Only worked with museum specimens. And I really wanted to work with something that everybody has a connection to. Everybody has a story for you about a pigeon that they've interacted with, about one that nested on their air conditioning unit or one that flew at their face and scared them.

And so pigeons kind of just fell right in. And I've grown to really love them. And they're just this great animal that people can kind of interact with and that I can bring the community in to interact with as well. Caitlin, you also, you didn't mention gulls when you were listing birds and I have heard a few goals stories from you. Yeah, I'm becoming like the gull lady now. I even have the shirt.

Better than the pigeon lady. Yeah, so green roofs. So we work on green roofs across the city monitoring these roofs for wildlife that use them. And we have a lot of migratory birds that stop over and use green roofs, which is cool. and the Javitt Center, you know, in year one, 2014, the green roof is installed, we have eight gall nests. And then in year two, we have 20 gall nests. And then in year three, we had like 25, 30. And then in year four, we had 150.

And then this past year, we had 200. So that gall colony has grown exponentially and gives us a really cool system to study, the roof nesting galls. We also work with colleagues. So Gauls are also one of the top plane strikes. So the things that can bring planes down, so the Port Authority cares a lot. We have colleagues that we work with there. And so we started working in Gaul colonies,

and I was not that interested. I mean, I had the opportunity to go out and hold egrids, which are amazing. But the Gauls are really growing on me. They're so funny. They're funny, and they're smart. And, you know, they've learned who we are, which is not great for us.

if anyone has made the mistake of going into a gall colony, don't do it. They will dive-bomb you, they poop on you, they throw up on you. But they're also doing really cool things. They're communicating with each other, so researchers have found that the intensity and sort of how close together the calls are mean different things to the gulls about where the predator,

which is me in some cases, is, so they're communicating with each other. They are, for the most part, monogamous. They mate for life. They communicate with each other about where they're going to nest. They communicate with each other about who's brooding the eggs and for how long. They're amazing parents. They learn who I am.

They know I come in and I grab their chicks and harass them and ban them. So if I go up there, I wear different colored hats every time I go up because I realized that I was wearing my New York City Audubon hat every time. And the second I got on the roof, I was getting mobbed. So I would wear a different hat to try to trick them. they're incredible, they're resourceful, and they're just amazing. I think one of the stories that has captured the minds of the people,

I was holding a gall. We were banding a gall chick, so the gall chick is about this big, and we're holding it, and often what birds will do if they're being held by a predator is they throw up everything. And that's really smart that move. One, the predator might be more interested in what you threw up, so you're free to go. Also, if you're trying to get somewhere fast, lighten the load.

Throw up, get out, like, as fast as you can. And the gall chick were holding it, and it threw up, and everyone there was done because the gall chick had thrown up an entire other baby bird onto the ground. So the gall chick had thrown up a baby pigeon, which is really smart. They throw up all kinds of things, but I've never seen one throw up another baby bird,

and so it was really incredible. So they've just captured my imagination. I really love them. I have a sweatshirt now with gulls on it, so I guess I'm the gall lady. So Martha, you go out looking at birds a lot. Do you find that you have a chance to observe and appreciate behavior in any particular way? Are there smarter birds out there, or are there dumb birds out there? I love dumbbirds.

I really, really do love dumbbirds. Yeah, I mean, every time I go out birding, it's not just looking at the plumage, not just looking at if they're there. For me, it's really like observing the birds and seeing what they're doing. How are they feeding? How are they interacting? I love it when birds notice that they're predators around because they freak the fuck out. And you're just like, you're like, oh, I hear like 15 really angry jays.

There must be a predator up there. And it's usually a redtail hawk. What I really love are awkward teenage birds. Oh. Because, you know, even from the smart species, it's like they're trying real hard. So these are birds that have fledged. So they're actually out of the nest. They're not like the ugly chicks, even though they're like, even, you know, chicks are rad.

But it's like, no, they're out of the nest, but they've not quite gotten to adulthood. So this weekend, actually, this past week, I was in California, and I was watching Stellars Jays. These teenage Stellars Jays try to learn to eat off of a suet feeder. And they would fly up to it and they'd miss it. And they'd overshoot it. And then they'd get mad. And then they would like try and go again. And then it would sit on the base of the banister of my feet.

family's cabin and would just shriek at the sky at their parents. And the parents would be like, fuck fine. And then they would like go in and they would like grab like one of the parents would grab like a chunk of suit and shove it down the the teenager's like face. He's like here have your hot pocket. And this is what I love watching especially in summertime and in early fall is like these birds are just learning how to like learn how to be birds and they're not real good at it. And a lot of them don't really have their feathers in yet. And you're just like, oh, honey. You're trying real hard. You're doing just great, sweetie.

Yeah, exactly. Maybe you're doing great. So these green roofs, I just thought of this, also tend to be like nursery habitat for certain young birds. So there are lots of grasshoppers on green roofs, especially in the early stages. Often they come with grasshoppers when they're rolled out like carpet. And what eats grasshoppers in the city are fledgling kestrels.

So kestrels will nest nearby to these roofs. And then in the very late summer, we'll see the fledgling kestrels really awkwardly hopping around and trying to catch these grasshoppers and learning how to fly. And it's just been an incredible experience to see them grow up. Rita, you spend a lot of time up close and personal with birds not in their natural habitat, but are there birds that make better patience than others? Or are there moments where you've seen that, like, you know, this bird is really smart and it's just hurt, but like it's doing its best? The bad patients are the pelagic birds who come to us

only because they're afraid of dying. They're out in the water. They would normally only be in the ocean. And they come to land because they're hypothermic or they're really sick. And so we get a gorgeous northern Gannet. And we know it's going to die because the only reason he's with us

is that he's afraid of drowning. Those are the bad patients because we really can't. We do everything we can't, and we just can't succeed. The good patience, they're remarkable. Because when the bird comes in, oh my God, what is this place?

One of these people? Oh, but my foot feels better. And particularly there are some birds that really take, pay attention to what you're doing. And though turkeys don't get high in the intelligence range, Somehow they are watching. And you're splinting the foot with the broken toes. And when you get it right, he goes, ah.

And then when you have to change it, he goes, I'm watching you, I'm watching you. And we had a swan suffering from botulism. And he was one of five swans who was brought to us. They were all poisoned with botulism. He was the only one who lived, because by the time they went back to get the others, they had died. He came in and he was put on IVs

to flush his system, antibiotics, and such like that. And he was going to be with us for a while. And one person, Richard Bloom, was off for the summer. And he came in every day to be with this bird. And he would talk to him. And this is a big male swan known to be very aggressive. But he can't even lift his head. because botulism is also called limberneck.

It's such a neurotoxin that they can't do anything. And he would see him get distressed, and he'd pick him up with the IV and hold him over a garbage can and say, I think you want to poop. And that swan got it. And he would poop over the garbage can because he did not want to lay in his own fecal matter.

He wanted a clean bed. And so Richard came in every day, And that's why I'm going to go, hey, Richard, it's time. Time for me to poop, come on. And he would call him, and Richard would pick him up and hold him over the garbage can. He'd poop and he'd go back and it was like, yeah. Communication. They realize what you're doing.

We have pigeons, we're splinting the leg, and they're like, and then the splint starts to go on. It's like, oh, God, that feels better. they're falling asleep while we're still finishing the splint. We had a red-tail hawk. Her name was Darien. And she arrived in someone's window well. And this person can't leave without a wheelchair. And she calls up and says,

I have a red-tail hawk in my window well. And I'm going to spend the night with him. So she's laying there with the hawk, and they are like this. through the screen. And the next day we get animal care and control goes and picks up the hop. But what they do is they open the window and the hawk walks out. Did the hawk come there for help? I don't know. But she comes and she's there with us and she has tar encrusted on her feet so that she cannot really walk except on her knuckles. And what that really means is she's not

going to be able to catch any food. She was in a panic. So big Joey Luther. holds it, wraps her up, puts her down, and Ruth's heart and I are there with these long Q-tips, wrapped in mayonnaise because mayonnaise takes off tar in a non-toxic way. And we're going and we're going and we're going, and then we realize she's opening up her feet as we do this. And so we slather it on with our hands, our bare hands.

And after 45 minutes to an hour, you leave them alone. The next day, I mean that night, we put her back in the cage, and she's like, ha ha, and okay, okay, dear, okay, she was a one and a half kilograms. That's a big female. The next day we take her out, Joey grabs her, wraps her in the towel, lays her on the table, and out from the towel come the two feet. Please finish my pedicure. And we released her that same afternoon.

And she was ferocious, but she was fabulous. That's such a good story. So we've been talking about bird intelligence, and I feel like you've just given us one set of examples of what a smart bird might look like. But I also know that there are maybe some differing opinions about whether birds can be smarter than other birds. So I'd love to hear from everyone else.

What intelligence means to you in any kind of animal, but birds especially. So Caitlin and I were just talking about this backstage in the green room. As an evolutionary biologist, I find the term intelligence just a really difficult. one to wrap my head around because in my mind things are adapted for their environment and so whether or not they need to problem solve or whether or not they need to communicate that's kind of dependent on their environment and how

they interact with conspecifics or other other organisms and so intelligence has just this really sticky kind of it's a sticky term for me that I'm really kind of struggling with in terms of what does that mean? I also get a lot of people kind of telling me that pigeons are really dumb, and I take a little bit of fence to that. I had one pigeon when I was using traps

that would just constantly come back into my trap. We call that getting trap happy. So every time I would go into this trap, this pigeon would be in there. People like, oh, God, that pigeon is so dumb. And I was like, that pigeon is so smart. Like there is food in that trap, and it is safe from predators.

Why would you not go in there? Like, that is perfect. And so, you know, eventually I took down the trap and I don't know what happened to that bird, but I think things are adapted for their environment. So whether or not that intelligence is just a weird word. I agree. No, we were talking about this.

So I Googled, like, what is intelligence in preparation for this? And a lot of the definitions are like plasticity and creative problem solving. So if you present an animal with a problem that is completely novel to it, it's able to solve that. But I agree with Liz. I mean, some birds are just really well adapted to do what they do and they learn. So one of the definitions of intelligence did not include learning, which to me was sort of wild. I think that any animal that's able to learn, to learn, you know, who, the person in the red hat is that will disturb them and who the person in the blue hat is that

will leave them alone. I think that's intelligence. But yeah, and maybe our scientific brains are on the same level here. But there are so many birds that are adapted to do what they do really, really well. And I think that's, that's intelligence. Martha, do you have anything? I actually agree. I'm also, I've also trained as a scientist. So it's like I think what's interesting to me is not necessarily like what do you think is an intelligent bird. It's that our humans need to anthropomorphize birds to make them intelligent in the same way that we are and not like really. It's like, do you really, do we have that big of an empathy gap that we can't just be like, yeah, you know, chicken with your weird hierarchy and pecking at people. You know, that's actually a really

interesting, that's an interesting social, like social organization and behavior. But, you know, why are we putting a value judgment on it? Why do we need to hold up crows and parrots, even though they're awesome? I mean, these birds are awesome, but it's like, you know, I kind of always just question, like, why do you need them to be smart? Why can't they just be them? I will say with handling individual birds, and Rita, maybe you will see what you think about this, is like within species, though, like, there are smart birds and they're dumb birds, right?

But within individual species, there are certain birds who are like, you're a smart one, and there are some where it's like, good luck, buddy. I don't know about you. But in many of those cases, those birds are actually suffering from our toxins. Lead poisoning, 15 to 20 percent of our cases that come in have lead poisoning. And there are other toxins that go on. So it's...

But there are definitely stars. And those who are not stars. I was actually that sort of preview as a question I was going to ask as well how interacting with us might be shaping the ability of birds to sort of live their smartest best lives and I know Caitlin you do a lot with collisions and Rita a lot of the birds that come in have collided with buildings for example but are we you know are we building cities that are allowing birds to thrive at yeah so I spend a lot of my time working on the bird building collision issue. So if you don't know about a billion

birds a year in the U.S. alone die from colliding with glass, in New York City, we estimate that number to be 90 to 230,000 each year. And that's a number that is not just like individual birds sad, but actual like conservation population level declines are possible at those numbers. And a lot of people and I've had friends say like mention offhand I guess they didn't know what I do for a living like oh stupid birds hitting windows and and birds aren't stupid how many people here have run into glass probably a lot yeah how many YouTube how many YouTube videos are a lot of hand I'm so it's not we can't see glass either that's the point it's clear um and so but we use visual cues so like the the things in windows, door handles, signs, things like that.

We use visual cues to see the glasses there. Birds might see those visual cues, but if they're far enough apart, imagine a bird flying through a cluttered florist, they can get through really small spaces, so they think they can go through or they see a tree reflected in it, and they collide with the glass. With people, I know my sisters, two of my three nephews, have run into sliding glass doors,

and luckily, thank God, they didn't die from it. They hit it, and they learned from it, And then they learn to be more careful around glass. But birds, it only takes about a meter for them to build up enough speed to die. So they don't really have, most birds don't have the opportunity to learn. Most collisions happen during the migratory season. So these are birds coming through as migrants. Most collisions happen in the fall.

There's more birds coming through in the fall and lots of juveniles who are experiencing the city for the first time in their lives. And unfortunately, a lot of their lives are ended very, very quickly when they hit that glass. So New York City Audubon, we've been collecting data on collisions in New York City since 1997. So there were some really great staff and volunteers who noticed this problem and started collecting data. And we are more than... How many years? 20 years?

Yeah. We're more than 20 years past that now, and we're just starting to see movement on collisions. And I just want to throw in one more thing, and I think Rita has some things to say about collisions, too, because a lot of the calls we get, I found a bird on the street, it's not a pigeon, and it really isn't a pigeon. and then we tell them to send it to the wild bird fund. So they get all the collision victims. And finally, finally, more than 20 years later, we're seeing movement. So there is a bill in the city council right now to, yeah, it's really, this is huge.

So this bill is requiring bird-friendly glass to be used in new construction from 75 feet and below, which is really important. And the bill's language has changed very recently within the last couple of days, and they just scheduled a hearing on this bill for September 10th at 10 a.m. Oh, wow. September 10th at 10 a.m. If you have the opportunity, if you can go and show your support, please do. We have some great volunteers at the back table. Kate and Colista.

They have information. They have little strips of paper you can take on how to learn more about testifying. But yes, collisions. Yeah, sorry. But we, you know, we send all our birds to the little. What if I can't make it to the meeting? Great question. So you can talk to your city council person.

You can, if you'd like, we have postcards in the back. You can write a postcard in support of the bill. You can also tweet at them, write them, show up, call them, show up in their doorstep and talk about it. Say you want New York to be birds safe. Bird-friendly glass is something they see. It can be frit patterns. It's less. reflective because otherwise it's a mirror that reflects the sky and it looks like you can just fly right through it.

It's also that same glass is generally far more heat efficient, more cooling, and keeps the warmth in. It's energy efficient as well. But I'm going to give you a little safety, a little handy tip. If you see a bird lying on the sidewalk, pick it up. Number one, if it's dead, the legs will be stiff. If they move, put it in your pocket. The bird will die of hypothermia laying on the sidewalk, even in the summer. Just pick it up, put it in your pocket, take it home, put it in a bag, a paper bag, or a box in your bathroom. Leave it there for an hour. And if you start to hear inside the bag, open up the bag, see if it flies.

Then turn off the light in the bathroom, catch it, put it back in the bag, and bring it outside. You stand a 50% chance of saving a bird that's knocked unconscious laying on the sidewalk. That's about all we get when they come to us is a 50% chance that we'll be able to save it. But we're giving it drugs and such like that. Just see what it does, and you will save many lives. Martha, you have a question about finding the feral Quaker parrots in New York. Where are they typically nesting, and what are they typically eating? Pop quiz.

Wow. So the Quaker parrots, as far as I know, those are the ones down in Bay Ridge. There are two different feral parrot populations in New York. There's the monk parakeets, and those are the ones that hang out in Greenwood Cemetery. And if you go to Greenwood, there's this huge neo-Gothic structure. right at the entrance. And if you just stand there, you're going to hear this horrible screeching. It's like, ah!

And you look up and you'll see these bright green birds, usually flying in pairs. And they're green and they have white faces and these blue sort of patches or whatever. And those are Farrell-Munk parakeets that we think were released from JFK in 1960 or 1965, something like that. There's no, like, there's some anecdotal evidence of where they came from, but I don't think anyone's ever actually solve the mystery. I'm happy to be proven wrong with that. But the Quaker parrots, so when I got down to dim sum down in a sunset park, it's like they have, it's like the Quaker parrot bowl at the, like, you know, in the dust bin or something. It's this crazy park. And apparently there was another, there are feral populations of

of parrots down there as well as far as what, like, parrots eat. They eat everything. They eat lots of fruits and nuts, but they also need a lot of protein. I've wrote a story about a different type of parrot called them a caw, and those will eat everything including baby birds. If you want to go see like feral parrots in New York City, I'd say go to Greenwood Cemetery. Those are the easiest to get to. There's another population at the end of the two train,

but it's in a residential area and a little harder to find. I have another question for Elizabeth this time. This is a really cute story. I befriended a pigeon named Clyde. I spent 2.7 years with him. Thank you. Yeah. And he's super smart.

On May of 2019, he left other than death what would cause his departure from a daily food source. So it could just be that other pigeons pushed him out, that there's resource competition going on there. But as far as we know, pigeons aren't likely moving very far. And kind of some of the research that's been done where they put GPS backpacks on pigeons and track their daily movements, is showing that maybe they're moving about half a kilometer on a daily basis and that most of them aren't really moving very far from their home roost. It's a little bit kind of unknown because that study was done in Switzerland. And obviously New York City is a much different city. It's huge.

There's tons of pigeons here. And there's a lot of daily feed spots from people that put out food and then also from just food that gets dropped. It's we're a dirty city guys And so my guess Is that he found that Clyde Found a another feeding spot or Or unfortunately died Yeah that's kind of I don't they don't seem to have a very long life when living in the city

It's a it's a harsh environment to be living out here What is their lifespan? Rita 50% of the population dies every year but those are mostly the youngsters, the youngsters that do. Others can live 10 years or so. Unfortunately, we're at the last question, but it's for everyone. And actually, I'm going to target yours slightly, Martha,

because I heard you have a really great sort of strategy for birding that helps you understand bird behavior even better. Like you're only looking for the female birds. Oh, yes. So this year I competed in the World Series of Birding with two of my Audubon colleagues. and we decided to count only female birds. So we went out for 24 hours

and we had to count as many species as possible. I don't know how many people actually bird out there, but finding female birds, not finding them is not hard, but identifying them is because they tend to be very cryptically colored. They don't want to... So they're all brown. They're all brown and pretty dry.

And they also hide. So it's like the male blackbirds will be on the top of like Phragmites or whatever, and the females will be way down or whatever. So you have to like stick your face into a swamp in order to find them. But what I found is that when you really look at the female birds, you're really not looking at plumage at that point.

You're looking at structure, and it makes you really look at the birds as not just species, but individuals. And it makes you a much better observer of their behaviors, because a lot of times they have very different behaviors. And listening to their songs, a lot of the field guides don't record or talk about female-only vocalizations. They only do the males.

So I am a fully dedicated female-only birder now. And if anybody wants to go out with us and look for some female birds, they're awesome. They're beautiful. But yes, it does require a little bit more investment in time and study in order to be able to identify them. Female warblers, they're all real kind of bland and sort of like drab-brown, well, drab green. yellow. I love them. I love them. So it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would say do that. So everyone else, what is your last sort of parting advice about, you know, things we can appreciate and observe on an everyday basis when we're out in New York City and we just want to

love some birds? And I would say, look up. You have to look up. When you're walking down Broadway, look up and you will see red tails circling above. If you have any outdoor space, where you get to look at the sky in the summer, there is a commute that goes on and on. It's in the morning, too. I don't get up there that often. It's with the drinks at night. But there's a commute in the sky of gulls going over,

and the eagrits come back, and the flippy, flippy, flippy cormorants going across. You just look up there. And then in the twilight, the most beautiful sound to me are the chimney swifts. Tud-D-T-D-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-a. and you'll see them up there. Look up.

That's a whole other environment that we don't give half enough consideration to. The sky is a whole other world. There's the ocean, the land, and the sky. So, yeah, thank you, Rita. That was beautiful. I would say stop referring to pigeons as garbage birds. Yeah, so many people tell me that they're garbage birds.

No, those are bald eagles. True. Pigeons, they're probably one of the only species of wild animal that you're going to interact with on a daily basis in New York City. And they are beautiful flyers. They are built to outrun peregrine falcons. And if you watch them fly, it is incredible. They are fast. They can do these swift turns.

And sometimes you can hear them. They're a little bit flappy when they're coming down. But they're really beautiful birds. They're not trash or garbage birds. Those are bald eagles. Yeah, I agree. Pay attention to the common birds. I guess birds can't advocate for themselves,

and you all are the birds' voices in this city. There have been talk of, you know, this bill could easily be killed by developers before it gets passed. There's been talk of developing North and South Brother Islands, which are, you know, have, we in New York City have 50% of all of the nesting, glossy, ibis, snowy, egret, and great egret in New York State. They're incredibly important. There has been talk of taking down the shorebird preserves and the rockways for the turns and the plovers.

So it's so, so important that all of us make our voices heard and talk to our council people and talk to our elected officials at the state level, too. because the birds really do need our help and our protection. And if this building bill is any indication, when we're loud enough, our elected officials listen. So that's really important. One more round of applause for Rita McMahon, Martha Harbison, Caitlin Parkins, and Elizabeth Carlin. Thank you all so much for joining us.

That was our science and arts producer and book club flock leader Christy Taylor, interviewing Martha Harbison, Caitlin Parkins, Rita McMahon, and Elizabeth Carlin. Thanks to caveat in New York City for hosting and to the Feminist Bird Club, NYC Audubon, and the Wild Bird Fund for their support. We'll be back Friday with more Science Friday. In the meantime, hang in there.