From a small town to a big city...
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A Birding Blog
By Jared Conaway
From a small town to a big city...
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Hi all, I had a weekend packed full of fun, laughs, and a bush man @ Tonto Rim Christian Camp! I went with my church youth group, and on the last day got my 300th life bird, but didn't realize till I played the birds' flight call at home! One of the great aspects of the camp I was excited about was exploring Gila, a new Arizona county for me. Before some good birds, plus my lifer, let's talk mammals. ABERT'S SQUIRRELS and ARIZONA GRAY SQUIRRELS were very abundant, with a few of each being present at camp. 3 COUE'S WHITE-TAILED DEER were present on the second & last day. Our lunch host and announcer was talking when, all the sudden, everyone says WOOOOOOH!!!! I turn around to the dining hall window when a deer leaps across gracefully, bounding away from whatever disturbed it. On the last day, as we were positioned for pictures, 3 ran across the gravel area in the distance. The biggest highlight of all, maybe more so than my lifer, was this story: We hiked up a large hill at night, after 10:00 or so, and were promised a cave to crawl into. I didn't want to crawl through because of my camera, plus I wanted to see those little fluffy things with wings. ;) Hayden jokingly kept saying, "guys, there's bats in this cave!" I could identify the sarcasm, but I really wanted to see a bat in there. I investigate a small side cave with many crevices and ledges, and no one was in there too. I'm shining my flashlight all over the walls, when right above me, I focus my light on a tiny, brown, fluffy thing with wings folded close to its body! As soon as I saw it, I knew exactly what it was (well the family it was in at least). I called out to my nearby youth group, "guys, there is SERIOUSLY a bat in this cave, NOT JOKING!!!!!" I said it about 3 times before the group worked their way over there. I didn't specifically say where the bat was, so they searched in the opposite direction. So I said, " over here, where I'm shining my light." The fluff-ball was thought of as dead at first, but then it started breathing, very noticeably. When Mr. Adidas, I mean Isaac held my jacket and light for me, and everyone else held lights up to it, I fired away with my camera, getting reasonable pix of him. The little mammal was in a deep sleep, in sort of a hibernation phase for now, heck, as I type this he's almost certainly in the exact same spot... Even with flashlights, my camera doesn't do well in the dark, so the photos are only decent, some poor. Back at home I went onto iNaturalist.org and identified my bat as a DARK-NOSED SMALL-FOOTED MYOTIS, Myotis melanorhinus. YIPPY! A lifer bat!!!! What a name, too! Now let's move on to the flora, I'm just gonna go all out and put a full list of the location's predominant flora (that I saw) below. Here goes:
The Sonoran Scrub-Oak Quercus sp. probably Gray Oak or Arizona White Oak. Quercus sp. Probably Emory Oak. Alligator Junipers. Alligator Junipers are far bigger than any other Juniper I encountered. At night I attempted to photograph some ENORMOUS ones, some possibly 55 ft. tall! They are also very thick and wide. The Sacahuista, a lifer Yucca FIRE! We have this guy to thank for very delicious s'mores... My amazing discovery, the DARK-NOSED SMALL-FOOTED MYOTIS That was a great weekend, and along with lots of fun wildlife, I had a great time getting to know my youth group! We kidded, joked, conversated, laughed, and played dodge ball. And overall, had tons of fun with one another. The bush man was fun too, he shall remain a mystery... Also, I've gotten back into the groove of sketching birds. On Tuesday, I drew my 300th lifer as a tribute, and the night before the Pyrr chase, I drew the Mountain Bluebird, I want that bird really, REALLY bad! Now I'm going to cover to topics that are left unanswered by many: Why do we bird? I believe, deep inside, we get hooked and stay hooked on birding because it takes a black and white, monotone life, and turns it into a colorful life. A life of fun, a life of adventure, and the thrilling feeling you get when you see a lifer. You also build wonderful memories you never could have without birding. In a life of birding, you go places you would never go to in a normal life. Like I stated in the Alaska Photo Gal, "birding can take you to the most spectacular places on earth," and usually, it does! Birding is a life that's very close to people, but what's unique is that at the same time, it's also a life that's very far from people. Birding is a network, a connection, maybe even a family, of people who share a beautiful passion. And the adventures you go on to see birds are phenomenonal! Whether it's a drive across one of the most remote North American highways, venturing far off trail in Colorado, or hiking the 15 mile long, stunning Primrose Trail of Lost Lake, birding takes you to some far away places! When you bird, you don't just see birds, whether you like it or not, you see the World. The places that birding takes you, may likely just remain dreams for those who don't bird, or maybe not, if world traveling is their passion. So do you see my point, because I know these are the reasons I bird, I mean, it's for the birds, but can you really say no to the scenery I've witnessed, and I think it's why we all bird. So now I'm going to water it down: The thrill of getting a lifer. The fun you have when you share a lifer with someone, or help them obtain a lifer. An adventurous, colorful life. The places you go to see birds are usually stunning and spectacular! You visit very remote areas of North America and/or the World. The second topic I want to cover is the criteria and definition of a bird species: If you look at Wikipedia, they give a very complex and confusing definition of what a species is. This is my definition that is sort of based off that, is my own understanding, and is more watered down: A species is a population or more usually a series of populations of the smallest unit of taxonomy. A species will change under shifting climate conditions or to have an identical role as a sister species. For example, American Black Ducks and Mallards, both full species, have identical roles in their ecosystem, and there's wide range overlap in the North East US. The Mallard, or sister species, is present because if say the Black Duck goes extinct, the Mallard will be there to play the same role, and eventually will re-adapt into Black Ducks after a few generations. Make sense. It's the same concept as 2 chicks instead of 1 in a nest, in case one dies, the other will take its place. So, that's why species ONLY within a genus (I don't believe in evolution) are ever changing, both with shifting conditions and mainly because there needs to be plenty of birds (such as Empid flycatchers) in case one or many go extinct, the others will fill its role and eventually re-adapt into that species again. Think of it this way, there is one species of dabbling duck, the American Black Duck, if it goes extinct, no Mallard will be there to come to rescue and fill the gap that has just been made, the ecosystem will fall, leading to the extinction of the rest of the ecoregions and ecosystems. It's liturally the domino affect, on a HUGE scale, if one falls, they all go down. And it doesn't matter if one falls from the middle, the front, the back, they ALL go down in the end! So the universe came about by probability? Ha, yeah right! We all know, whether we believe in it or not, that God created everything once. So if there was always only one of each species ever, in any family, genus, etc, extinction of just one of them, or a few would mean the collapse of the natural world! God had to have given species the ability to adapt, especially with an ever changing planet. After all, there was like 1000 animals on Noah's Ark, but we have literally millions of species of animals today. This very well explains why Dusky, Hammond's, and Pacific Slope Flycatchers breed and live side by side in many areas of where they are found. If the Dusky falls, The Hammond's will be there to fill in until it adapts into a Dusky. Then there's hybridization. Because of many species hybridizing, Ornothologists often propose lumping birds like the Hoary and Common Redpolls, and Iceland and Thayer's Gull. For example, the Thayer's Gull is now the same species as the Iceland, but represents a subspecies. A subspecies is a bridge between 2 species, so one species can converge into another. A good example of this is the Gray-headed Junco, Red-backed Junco, and Yellow-eyed Junco. The Gray-headed Junco is the last stage of conversion to the Yellow-eyed Junco, with the Red-backed Junco being a bridge species to connect the 2. Even though the Red-backed Junco is a full species, it's the same concept as a subspecies. The reason the Red-backed Junco must be a full species is because it has an isolated breeding range from both Dark-eyed Juncos and Yellow-eyed Juncos. A good example of a bridging subspecies is the Hawaiian Duck. The Hawaiian Duck is considered a full species by all authorities, however, I've figured out that it's not. It may seem weird, because the bird is an ocean away from wild Mallards. The reason it's a subspecies is simple, every When a Koloa and Mallard breed, the offspring will always have dominant Mallard traits. To explain this I have to back track a little. A subspecies is a bridge right, which means a species is what's at the beginning of that bridge and the end of it. So what is a subspecies? When 2 subspecies cross, the offspring, and the generations from that original offspring, will always show more traits of one subspecies and never the other. Basically, what this means, is the Koloa is always the recessive subspecies to the dominant northern Mallard, never the other way around. It's because the Koloa isn't a fully developed species, therefore, its genes don't act dominantly, or evenly with northern mallard genes. Make sense. If the Koloa was a full species, the offspring would either be half and half, so half Hawaiian Duck half Mallard, or they would would be every where between. So, when a full species and a subspecies of that same species breed, only the full species' traits will dominate in the offspring, since its genes are individual and unique to that species. So a full blown hybrid of 2 full species, will either be 50 50 of the 2 or sometimes it'll look more like a Hoary Redpoll and other times it'll look like a Common Redpoll, and that's how you know it's a full species. So since I've described it a couple times, I would like to dive into the latter of the 2 outcomes. OK, we know a full species will have 2 outcomes if it hybridizes with another species, and there's only 1 outcome when a subspecies and its original counterpart intergrade. For this I'll use the Redpolls again. Common Redpolls and Hoary Redpolls were almost lumped, and probably will be lumped because there was so much hybridization, and the offspring didn't have half Common half Hoary traits usually. There were ones that looked almost like Hoary but not quite, and other times mostly Common but a little pale, and more often everything was indeterminate. Because of this, birders often times leave questionable birds as Hoary/Common Redpoll, since they are unidentifiable. So then came the proposal of lumping the 2, since neither was probably a full species. Basically, many so called Hoaries were intermidiate, not full-blooded individuals but intergrades. The Hoary extreme was too rare and hard to come across. But, like I said early, if 2 species have identical roles in their shared ecosystem and the only reason the other birds are around is as an insurance policy, then that means hybrids have the same purpose. Anyways, since Hoary Redpolls and Common Redpolls can show either extreme, or have 50/50 offspring, they are the opposite of what scientists say they are, they are full species. The same goes for the Iceland and Thayer's Gulls, because there is so much variance between the birds and lots of 'intermidiates' they were lumped together. Let's look at one more example to sum it up: The Flickers. The offspring of Yellow-shafted and Red-shafted Flickers almost always show 50/50 traits, basically the 2 subspecies that are parents are evenly divided into the offspring. This means that the 2 Northern Flickers are full species. It's funny, because I myself always thought of the Northern Flickers as one species. But with this new criteria and definition of a species I came up with, I may split quite a lot on my Life List! So, one more time: If there's lots of overlap and variance within 2 species, like Iceland Gull, and the Redpolls, it's a full species. If other times 2 parents of 2 sister species are evenly divided into the offspring, it's a full species as well. If only 1 parent of 2 different taxa of 2 parents is dominantly expressing traits in the offspring, then that dominant parent is a full species, and the other is a subspecies of that species, regardless if the dominant parent is male or female and the recessive parent is male or female. Furthermore, because the Mallard is always dominant to the Koloa with traits, and Mallards typically breed with the Koloas before the Koloas can breed with another Koloa, they are quickly turning back into Mallards. The Koloa bridge is fading away back to square one, but after a while those introduced Mallards will adapt into Koloas, and hopefully into another full species.The reason Koloas are adapting so slowly, and now backwards, is because a tropical island in the middle of the ocean is a very different ecoregion than where they originated from. Make sense. Animals always adapt quicker in a place they don't belong, rather than where they do belong. Koloas (Hawaiian word for Hawaiian Duck) belong in Hawaii. Mallards do not. The Koloas adapting is reversing, because the introduced Mallards are breeding with Koloas before the Koloas can breed with their own kind. The Mallard is already well established in Hawaii. Funny how the Koloa originated from the Mallard! But the Mallards came there to adapt into Koloas so they could be prepared to play their role in the Hawaiian islands ecoregion. So that's my criteria for a species, and a subspecies. I know it may seem complicated, but this is a much more simple, accurate, and realistic than some other definitions. Yes species can change, but they are limited to their own genuses only. It sounds like a fairy tale when they say "over 100s of millions of years, the salamander-like creature turned into something like the Gray Wolves we see today." Hopefully I've given you a better understanding and less confusing definition of a species. After, the most complicated, neatest, answer, isn't always the right answer.
I'm Jared Conaway, and stay tuned for my next post! I've really been slacking on the TIMELINE series. I'll also try to do a post on my 2 recent drawings. Have a great week, and a great birding life!
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