The Science of Birds - Sunbirds and Spiderhunters

Episode Date: August 17, 2023

This is Episode 81. It’s all about birds in the family Nectariniidae. These are the sunbirds and the spiderhunters.If you live in or have gone birding in places like Africa, India, Southeast Asia, or Indonesia, you’re probably familiar with sunbirds. Consider yourself lucky.But if you have no idea what a sunbird or a spiderhunter is, or if you have only a vague idea, I’m excited to introduce you to this group of wonderful birds today.Links of InterestThese sunbirds keep singin' their song [VIDEO]  ~~ Leave me a review using Podchaser ~~Link to this episode on the Science of Birds website Support the show

Picture a small, vibrantly colorful bird. Its feathers flash in shades of metallic purple, green, and red as it hops around in a cluster of yellow flowers. The bird methodically probes each flower using its curved bill. Its long, needle-thin-tonged tongue flicks in and out, lapping up sweet nectar. If I told you this scene was in Peru, Costa Rica, Texas, or just about anywhere in the new world, you'd be right to assume we're talking about a hummingbird. But what if I told you this hypothetical, iridescent, flower-loving bird lives in India? There are no hummingbirds in India.

In fact, there aren't any hummingbirds anywhere in the old world. Not a one. You are a smart cookie, and you probably noticed the title of this podcast episode before hitting the play button. So I'll stop playing games. The bird I'm describing, what with the shiny green purple and red plumage, is a sunbird. Specifically, a crimson-backed sunbird, leptocoma minima. The crimson-backed sunbird is just one of many sunbird species in the world. Now, if you've lived all your life in North America or anywhere in the Western Hemisphere, you might point at a sunbird and say, Look at that little dude. He's trying to be a hummingbird. But sunbirds are their own thing.

They aren't closely related to hummingbirds, and they aren't trying to be anything other than their fabulous little selves. Hello and welcome. This is the science of birds. I am your host, Ivan Philipson. The Science of Birds podcast is a light-hearted exploration of bird biology for lifelong learners. This is episode 81. It's all about birds in the family, nectarineidae. These are the sunbirds and the spider hunters. The title of this episode, Sunbirds and Spider Hunters, is, in my opinion, the coolest title ever on the Science of Birds Podcast.

I don't know, it's just, it just sounds evocative, kind of fantastical or sci-fi. If you live in or have gone birding in places like Africa, India, Southeast Asia, or Indonesia, you're probably familiar with sunbirds. Consider yourself lucky. But if you have no idea what a sunbird or a spider hunter is, or if you have only a vague idea, I'm excited to introduce you to this group of of wonderful birds today. Let's begin by describing what birds in the family nectar aneidae look and sound like.

Sunbirds and spider hunters are small songbirds. If we can ignore the beak, the overall proportions of these birds are remarkably consistent from species to species, their bodies are shaped more or less like those of warblers. They have fairly short, rounded wings. Tail length is short to medium in most species, but some sunbirds, like the six species in the genus Nectarinia, have very long tails. Their two central tail feathers are elongated,

extending well past the other tail feathers. Spider hunters have, I would say, the shortest tails on average. But they make up for this shortcoming by having the longest, heaviest bills. All sunbirds and spider hunters have pointed bills that curve downward, some more dramatically than others. And some are relatively short, some are long. Bill color is pretty much always black or gray. When it comes to size, most of these birds fall somewhere between a hummingbird, and a warbler. Among the smallest species in the family nectarineidae are the tiny sunbird and the Palestine sunbird, each with lengths of about 8 to 10 centimeters. As always, when I give the

length of a bird, that's the distance from the tip of the beak to the tip of the tail. The largest sunbird species is the Sautamei Sunbird, Dreptes Tomensis. Males of this species are up to 23 centimeters long. The other common name for this species is the giant sunbird. Another member of the family that has a similar body length, but an even heavier body, is the spectacled spider hunter, arachnothera flavogaster. So you can think of this species from Southeast Asia as the big bruiser of the family. The tank. Let's just say that if you got into a bar fight with some birds in the family nectar aneity, you'd have better luck taking on three Palestine sunbirds at once rather than dealing with a single spectacled spider

hunter. All right, it's time to have a look at the plumage colors of these birds. This is their claim to fame. As with hummingbirds, people go gaga over sunbirds because of all their pretty colors. How about I describe a few of these birds? The purple-breasted sunbird, nectarina perpuriaventress, lives in the forested mountains where the borders of Uganda, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo meet. This is also the home of the mountain gorilla. Male purple-breasted sunbirds are black overall, but with lots of iridescent patches that shine when they catch sunlight at the right angle. The breast and belly are metallic purple, blue, and green. The wings have shaded. of green and copper. This is one of the long-tailed sunbird species. Its central tail feathers are

as long as the rest of the bird's body. A cousin to the purple-breasted sunbird, and also found in Africa, is the malachite sunbird, necturinia Famosa. Famosa as in famous, and malachite refers to a beautiful green mineral. This bird is famous for its green color. Male malachite sunbirds are pretty much bright green all over, and they have a long tail. They're amazing. Then we have the ridiculously gorgeous fire-tailed sunbird, Ethopica Ignacouda. This is an Asian species that lives in the Himalayas. The long tail and upper parts of a male fire-tailed sunbird are scarlet red. The crown on the head is blueish-purple, the face is black, and the underparts are lemon yellow. The olive-backed sunbird, cinerous jugularis, is perhaps a more typical sunbird, if there is such a thing.

It has a relatively short tail, yellow-green upper parts, and a yellow belly. Males have a metallic purple-blue throat and breast. Males of many sunbird species, and even some females, have brightly colored pectoral tufts on each side of the breast. These pectoral tufts are patches of yellow, orange, or red feathers that the bird can fluff up for display purposes. Or a sunbird can choose to keep its tufts hidden beneath their wings, like when it wants to play it cool and not draw too much attention. So pectoral tufts on male sunbirds might function like the epaulettes of male red-winged blackbirds. They're little feathery flags that say, look at me ladies i'm super awesome i'm objectively the best male ever or when directed toward a rival male

the tufts or epaulettes send a different message they say hey there buster you see these colorful feathers yeah you see them well this is my territory if you don't clear out of here in five seconds i might have to warn you even more sternly. Some species, like the malachite sunbird, actually keep their pectoral tufts on display nonstop all night while they sleep. That's kind of weird, right? One hypothesis ornithologists have suggested for this behavior is that it's a defense against nocturnal predators.

The idea is that a predator is slinking along a tree branch at night when it encounters a sleeping sunbird. Those two pectoral tufts are bright and look like a pair of eyes shining in the dark. The predator sees those eyes and gets spooked and runs away. Now, is that really what's going on? Maybe, but more research is needed. I mean, that's why every night before going to sleep I put on a rubber werewolf mask. It's got bulging yellow eyes, fake fur, and a snarling snout full of bloody fangs.

If anyone tries sneaking up on me when I'm asleep, they're going to have a heart attack when they pull back the covers. But let's get back to sunbirds. Sunbirds come in so many excellent color combinations that people have given some of them official names like Beautiful Sunbird, Elegant Sunbird, Magnificent Sunbird, and Gorgeous Sunbird. I wonder if the beautiful Sunbird

used to feel pretty good about itself until one day when it heard there's a species out there named the gorgeous Sunbird. Maybe it was like, Oh, so I'm not gorgeous, I'm just plain old beautiful? They're basically saying that compared to the gorgeous sunbird, I'm like a pile of garbage in the gutter. Is that it? I'm beautiful like a pile of garbage to you? And if you think that's bad, imagine how the lovely sunbird must feel.

It's not gorgeous, it's not beautiful, it's just lovely. Anyway, sunbirds are sexually dichromatic. There are major color differences between males and females. It's the males that sport all those shiny, iridescent feathers, while females are much less conspicuous. Now, let's not forget about spider hunters. These birds aren't nearly as colorful as their sunbird cousins. Spider hunters are an olive color overall,

with some yellow or white accents. But some species do have relatively flashy pectoral tufts. One species is actually named the orange tufted spider hunter. Let's move on now to listen to some of the vocal sounds of necturaneid birds. Most of their songs and calls are high-pitched and fairly simple. Young birds in this family have to learn their songs from adults. We'll start with some spider hunters. I just mentioned the orange tufted spider hunter.

Here's one calling in the Philippines. Next up is a streaked spider hunter. This bird was recorded in Thailand. Remember the famous, Malachite sunbird, the one that's green all over? Here's a male malachite sunbird in South Africa. He's singing while perched on an aloe plant. If you listen carefully, you can hear a bonus bird.

In the background is a male southern double-collared sunbird. The Camero Islands lie off the southeastern coast of Africa, east of Mozambique, and northwest of Madagascar. Humblot's sunbird is found only on the Camero Islands. It's an endemic species there. Here's the cute sound of Humblot's sunbird calling. Also, I want to be a little bit of humblots sunbird calling. point out that the name Humblot, H-U-M-B-L-O-T, sounds like someone made a typo when they were trying to write the name Humboldt. You know, it's like that common mistake we all make when we spell Eagle

E-G-A-L instead of E-A-G-L. No, just me? English is hard, you guys. Well, how about we listen to the lovely, or dare I say the gorgeous sound of an eastern violet-backed sunburn? This is in Tanzania, not too far from Mount Kilimanjaro. This next one is a purple sunbird. In this recording, made at a desert oasis in Oman, you can hear at least two purple sunbirds calling. And last but not least, we have the calls of an eastern double-collared sunbird. This bird was recorded while it foraged among acanthus flowers in Kenya. That last species you heard, the eastern double-collared sunbird,

Cinerous, mediocris, was recently the subject of some interesting research. Males of this species have metallic green heads and backs. The double-collared part of the name refers to parallel bands of color. across the breast. One band is iridescent blue, the other is scarlet red. Populations of the eastern double-collared sunbird live on isolated mountain ranges, scattered across eastern Africa. Some of these populations have been separated from each other for hundreds of thousands of years, or even up to a million years. So there was this study published a few years ago in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The researchers reported

that eastern double-collared sunbirds in some of these long isolated populations not only look the same, they also sing songs that are shockingly similar, like almost identical in some cases. Why is that surprising? Because, as I mentioned, sunbirds learn their songs. Biologists expect learned behaviors like this to gradually diverge, to become different between isolated populations. Just like with humans, birds separated from their relatives for many generations often

develop their own dialects, like New Yorkers and Midwesterners, or like the many different regional dialects in the UK. So, it turns out, the songs of sunbirds in East Africa are way more similar than we expect based on how evolution is supposed to work for learned behaviors. The researchers in that study think that this song stasis has something to do with the stable environment the birds live in, because mountaintop habitats in tropical East Africa have been stable for a long, long time, for hundreds of thousands of years. It seems that natural selection acting on the songs of eastern double-collared sunbirds in those mountains is keeping the songs the same among populations.

So selection might be acting as a stabilizing force rather than causing the songs to become separate dialects. The avian family we're focusing on today is called nectaraneity. This name should be easy to remember because it's got the word nectar right in there. And that tells you something about what these birds like to. eat. We'll come back to all that in a few minutes. But first, let's look at the diversity of sunbirds and spider hunters, at their geographic distribution and at their habitats. The family nectar aneidae belongs to the avian order Paseroformis. That means these are perching birds,

songbirds. That's one major difference between sunbirds and hummingbirds. Hummingbirds are not passerine birds. Hummingbirds belong to a more ancient lineage, and they're in a different taxonomic order, capromulgiformes. So if hummingbirds aren't the closest relatives of sunbirds and spider hunters, which birds are? That would be the flower peckers. This is a group of about 50 species of fruit-eating, nectar-slurping songbirds that belong to the family Diceidae. Flower peckers are found in India, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and Australia. Returning to the family nectar aneody within the order Pasariformis, there are somewhere between 140 and 155 species in this family.

The number depends on which official list you're looking at. I prefer Clements checklist, which is the one used by Ebert and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. That list currently has 143 species in the family. necturaneity. Those species are divided into 16 genera. Thirteen of the 14 spider hunter species all belong to a single genus, arachnothera. That's a cool name. The literal translation of arachnithera is spider hunter. And in the German language, just for fun, the word for spider hunter is Spinenyega. Also a cool name, and I'm sure my pronunciation is lousy. Spinnenegue. Apologies to my German listeners. There are two genera in the family that contain a disproportionate number of

species. The genus Cynaris, spelled C-I-N-N-Y-R-I-S, contains 53 sunbird species. And the genus Ethopoga contains 23 species. Sunbirds and Spinnanjega are birds of the old world. We find them in sub-Saharan Africa, parts of the Middle East, in southern and southeast Asia, and there's one lonely species in Australia. That's the little olive-backed sunbird I mentioned earlier. The highest diversity of species is in the equatorial latitudes of Africa and Southeast Asia. For the most part, these birds are residents where they live. They are not long-distance migrants.

But many are nomadic, especially those species that live in relatively dry regions. They sometimes travel far and wide in their quest to find blooming flowers. And some sunbirds and spider hunters are altitudinal migrants. They spend the warm summer months up in the mountains, but retreat to lower elevations in winter. Birds in this family are found in a wide variety of habitats, from sea level to high in the mountains. Most of them, however, are birds of the rainforest. But let me give you a few examples to illustrate the range of habitats. The Palestine sunbird, Cinerus Osea, which you might recall is one of the smallest species, prefers dry, open habitats, like savannah, rocky valleys, juniper woodlands, and cypress groves.

This bird is found in central Africa, on the Arabian Peninsula, and in the eastern Mediterranean around the Levant region, thus the name Palestine Sunbird. Then we have the copper-throated sunbird, Lepticoma Calcastitha. This species is found in coastal areas of Southeast Asia. It flits around in mangrove forests, coconut groves, and other forests in the general vicinity of the ocean. Another example is the fire-tailed sunbird that I described earlier. It lives in the Himalayan mountain range at elevations up to 16,000 feet in the summer, which is almost 5,000 meters. The fire-tailed sunbirds habitat is coniferous forest and oak forest that has a thick understory of rhododendron.

To uncover the ancient origins, to uncover the ancient origins of sunbirds and spider hunters, scientists have had to use genetic evidence to piece together their evolutionary story. Fossils for these birds are few and far between, so we're lucky that so much useful information is, accessible in their DNA. The family Nectarineidae and its sister family, Diceidae, the flower peckers, split off as a distinct lineage from the rest of the passerine birds between 20 and 25 million years ago. These ancestors of sunbirds lived, most likely, in Southeast Asia. The two families then split

sometime in the Miocene epic. At that point, Nectaroneidae was on its own. path. The spider hunter lineage, what we call today the genus Arachnithera, became distinct later in the Miocene. There's also this enigmatic little bird named the purple-naped spider hunter. Or is it the purple-naped sunbird? Ornithologists have had a hard time deciding which it is. In any case, this bird's scientific name is, and let me just take a deep breath here, Kurokinagramma hypogramicum. Kurokinnagrama hypogramma hypogramma, right, hypogrammicum. Kurokinogramma hypogramm.

Wow, yeah, that one is a doozy. The purple-naped sunbird slash spider hunter is the only species in that genus Kurokinagrama. This bird is more closely related to the other spider hunters. But maybe we can think of it as a sort of missing. link between the lineages of the spider hunters and the sunbirds, like Sasquatch or the creature from the Black Lagoon or whatever. Actually, scratch that. The concept of a missing link is so last century. It's an outdated term. Just wipe that from your memory. Anyway, the family nectarineida diversified in Asia. But then one lineage, maybe even just a single species, made it

over to Africa. This also would have been in the Miocene epic, between five and 20 million years ago. Those sunbirds in Africa then diversified into many species. This evolutionary process, this adaptive radiation, was probably helped by the wide variety of habitats in the mountains of tropical Africa. A similar explosion of species diversity happened with hummingbirds in the Andes Mountains. Eventually, some of those sunbirds that evolved in Africa made their way east and sort of reinvated Asia. They went back to the motherland. One of those was the olive-backed sunbird, the single species found in Australia today. And that little olive-backed sunbird, cinerus jugularis, has an incredible 21 subspecies that ornithologists currently recognize. It seems that as this

species island hopped from Africa to Australia across the Indonesian archipelago, it left behind populations that have since become genetically distinct. In fact, recent research on this species using genetic data suggests that some of these so-called sub-species of the olive-backed sunbird are distinct enough that maybe we should promote them to full-blown species status. Another interesting thing about the evolution of sunbirds and spider hunters is their striking similarity with hummingbirds. You know what this is called, right? I've talked about this phenomenon a lot on the podcast because A, there are many great examples among birds, and B, because it's super awesome and fascinating. What I'm talking about is, of course, convergent evolution. Birds in the hummingbird

family trochilody and the sunbird family nectar aneity share similar features because they live similar lives. They occupy, more or less, the same niche, the niche of a small nectivorous bird living in a tropical environment. The shapes of their bills and tongues are similar because they're adapted for sucking nectar out of flowers. Hummingbirds and sunbirds independently evolved these adaptations. Through evolution, they arrived at similar solutions for solving the same problem. We can find even more evidence of convergent evolution by comparing these birds with the honey eaters of Australasia, the Hawaiian honeycreepers, and some of the New World Tanagers that we've also named honey creepers. All of these birds enjoy taking some

flower nectar in their diets, and many of them have similarly shaped bills. The only way all of this evolution stuff could happen was that sunbirds have been making baby sunbirds and spider hunters have been making baby spinenegger. Genetic changes in those babies accumulated generation after generation. So what's the story with how these birds make the next generation? Nectar-a-need birds are generally monogamous. and both male and female care for the chicks. The breeding season is year-round for species that live in steamy equatorial rainforests. But breeding is more seasonal for those species living in high mountains, in dry habitats, or in the

higher latitudes. The timing of breeding depends on the availability of insect prey for the chicks or on the flowering of certain plants. Males sing their little songs, like some we heard earlier, and and they try to impress females with their dazzlingly colorful plumage. If a male wants to add a real showstopper to his display, he brings out the big guns. He flares his pectoral tufts.

Eventually, males and females pair up for the breeding season. A pair might defend a territory that includes a patch of flowering plants. This is their reliable source of sweet, sweet nectar. Territorial behavior like this is apparently more common. common in sunbirds than it is in spider hunters. Sunbird nests are hanging pendulous structures. They're globular, so more or less spherical, and they have a little side entrance. I remember seeing the nest of an olive-backed sunbird hanging right over the entrance of a

convenience store in the bustling city of Cairns, Australia. The adorable little female sunbird was coming and going at the nest, seemingly unconcerned about the very large apes like me that were looking at her and her nest. Spider-hunter nests have a different design. They are typically open-cup nests, but spider-hunters protect their open nests by attaching them to the underside of large waterproof leaves. They use spider silk and plant fibers to sew the nest into place.

Eventually, the eggs are laid and incubation begins. In sunbirds, only the female sits in the nest. to incubate. But female and male spider hunters share the duty of incubation. In about two weeks, the eggs hatch, and the nest is now home to some squirming chicks. Both parents help to feed the voracious nestlings. The youngsters hop out of the nest after about two weeks, then mom and dad might keep feeding them for another two weeks. Then the naive little sunbirds and spider hunters are off on their own to go explore the world. They have to get really good at finding food if they're going to survive. And speaking of food, with a family name like nectar aneity, these birds must guzzle gallons of

nothing but flower nectar all day long, right? You'd think so, but not quite. Hummingbirds are much more specialized on flower nectar as a primary food source. Sunbirds and spider hunters, on the other hand, eat a lot more insects and other small invertebrates. But don't get me wrong, nectar is high on the list of favorite foods for sunbirds and spider hunters, no doubt. As we talked about earlier, their curvy bills are specially adapted for reaching into flowers to get the sugary liquid inside, and their tongues are brush-tipped and tubular. This tongue works sort of like a straw to suck up nectar. But surely, a bird with a name like Spider Hunter must eat nothing but spiders all day long, right? Right? Well, you know where this is going.

Nope. Spider hunters are not all that specialized on murdering eight-legged arachnids. Sure, they eat plenty of spiders, and they even like to snatch spiders right out of their webs. But spider hunters also snatch other insects trapped in those same webs. And these birds eat all sorts of other invertebrates, too. And they love them some flower nectar. The diets of sunbirds and spider hunters are not, it turns out, all that different. That's kind of disappointing, I know.

If you're like me, you were hoping that spider hunters were truly all about eating spiders. Oh, well, I suppose we can let spider hunters keep their cool-sounding name, for now anyway. But in exchange, I want a cool, semi-unfitting name, too. How about Ivan the Destroyer of Ignorance? Or Ivan, the Lord of Awkward Silences. See? Awkward silence. Nailed it!

Because sunbirds and spider hunters stick their adorable little faces into flowers, they're important pollinators for many plants. pollen from one flower sticks to the bill or feathers of a sunbird, then the bird flies to another flower of the same species, the pollen falls off, and the second flower ends up fertilized. It got pollinated, yo! I know I keep talking about hummingbirds, but it's pretty much obligatory to bring up hummingbirds when you're talking about sunbirds. It's like an unwritten rule.

Anyway, hummingbirds are famous for having co-evolved with the same thing. the flowering plants they pollinate. These plants have evolved to have flowers that attract the hummers and that are easily pollinated by the birds. Well, some plants have similarly co-evolved with sunbirds and spider hunters. Examples of African plants with intimate connections to these birds include proteas, aloes, and the iconic bird of paradise plants in the genus Strelicia. One thing I haven't mentioned, and this is important, is that sunbirds and spider hunters don't really hover in flight. I mean, many of them can, sort of, but they don't have the amazing hovering ability that hummingbirds are famous for. Plants that have co-evolved with necturaneid birds tend to have a little

perch or landing platform for the birds to stand on while they feed. Here's another crazy thing related to pollination and the co-evolution of plants and their sunbird pollinators. Scientists have discovered that at least a few plants have specialized pollen packets that attach to the tongues of the birds. The packets are called pollinaria. For example, in South Africa, there's a plant in the milkweed family with the scientific name Microloma Sagitatum. Along comes an unsuspecting sunbird, which shoves its pointy bill and little tongue into one of the flowers. Then these tiny pollinaria clamp onto the bird's tongue, sort of like paperclips. The bird flits over to another microloma sagittatum flower and the pollinaria drop off.

Bam! Pollination achieved! The pollinaria of some other plants actually attached to the feet of sunbirds. For example, the malachite sunbird has been documented carrying the pollinaria of some orchid species. So there are these lovely, mutualistic relationships between these birds and the flowers they feed from. It's a win-win situation for everybody. But somebody always has to go and ruin it, don't they? Yes, sometimes sunbirds and spider hunters shirk their duties as pollinators.

One of them will sidestep the reproductive bits of a flower and just use its beak to poke a hole in the base of the flower. The bird slurps out the nectar but provides no pollination service whatsoever. This shameful behavior is called nectar robbing. And some other birds and insects do it too. With sunbirds, it might be that species with shorter bills act as nectar robbers on flowers with long tubes. These birds with their relatively stubby bills

can't reach into the long tube to get at the nectar in an honest, direct way. So they just pierce the base of the flower, getting at the nectar in the only way they can. That flower with its long tube, by the way, probably co-evolved to be pollinated by a long-billed sunbird. Nectar robbing is kind of like, stealing from a vending machine. You don't have enough money to buy that bag of gummy bears.

But instead of walking away like an honest, respectable citizen, you kick the vending machine and jostle it around. You reach your arm way up into the slot, contorting yourself to try to grab the candy. But you know, as many times as I've tried this, it's never worked. Clearly, I have not co-evolved with vending machines. We shouldn't really judge sunbirds and spider hunting. hunters for nectar robbing, for doing whatever it takes to get the food they need. But what we can judge them on, apparently, is their appearance. We bestow upon them names like, lovely, beautiful, gorgeous, magnificent, splendid, and superb. Those are all real names of sunbirds, magnificent sunbird, splendid sunbird, and so on. And I'd say that those words, those adjectives,

are all perfectly fitting to describe every bird in the family nectar aneody. Each species is splendid and gorgeous, in its own unique way. I hope you enjoy this little dive into the family necteroneity today, and I hope you get to see some of these birds in the wild if you haven't already. Here's a crazy thing. Later today, I'm getting on a plane and flying to Madagascar. I'm heading over there to co-lead a birding slash nature tour. I'm pretty stoked. Besides all the lemurs, chameleons, strange plants, and other endemic birds,

there are two sunbird species in Madagascar that I'm hoping to find, the Suamanga sunbird and the Malagasy sunbird. Did you know that one of the main reasons I can keep creating these podcast episodes is that I get support from some of my listeners? These kind people use Patreon to make monthly or annual contributions to support what I'm doing here. It's really amazing, and I'm super grateful for the help. My newest patrons on Patreon are John Richardson, Christian Lundsted, and Martha Smith. Welcome and cheers to you for the awesome support.

Thank you. If you'd like to become a supporter, you can just go check out my Patreon page at patreon.com slash Science of Birds. And if you have something you'd like to share with me, please go ahead and shoot me an email. Maybe you have a comment about the podcast, or you'd like to tell me what kind of scary mask you wear at night to deter criminals from messing with you. Or you have some helpful tips on how to rob vending machines. In any case, my address is Ivan at Science of Birds.com.

You can check out the show notes for this episode, which is number 81, on the Science of Birds website science of birds.com. I'm your humble host, Ivan Philipson. Thanks for learning about birds with me today and I'll catch you in the next episode. Cheers.