What if the fish Are 700 years old?

An interesting oops was discovered recently. Radiocarbon dating of fish doesn't work!

Or does it?

Archeologists have discovered that fish remains ground in pottery bowls from a freshly caught fish can give radiocarbon dates that make them appear Medieval! Apparently, water has less carbon-14 than air.

But what if the fish Are centuries older than we thought? What if fish in the wild do live unbelievably long lives?

Gold fish, nope, can't keep them alive for more than a few months.

Sturgeon though, they can be hundreds of years old.

And lets not forget about the Lock Ness Monster... that's prehistoric.

Unfortunately, radiocarbon dating shows time of death, not age of the beast. So unless someone used a time machine to go back and catch and cook a fish in Medieval times, and then bring it back to present day... not a very likely use of a time machine if there was one... it's just not a good method for dating fish remains.

So dating of ancient cultures that ate a lot of fish may be a bit fishy.

Why am I flinching?

I do love a good webcam. Some of my favourites are:
Eagle nests from around southern BC
Bruichladdich scotch distiller in Scotland
Tofino webcam from a wonderful resort on Vancouver Island

It's nice to see people making great scotch - some of my favourite scotch is made at Bruichladdich. And it's great to watch eagles in their nests feeding baby eagles... although it can get nerve racking at the end of the season when you just want that last young bird to leave the nest and fly already!

My most frequent view is the Tofino webcam - a fabulous beach in the most relaxed place in Canada. But yesterday I was alarmed by what I saw. It was black and covered the picture... was it apocalypse? was the camera in jeopardy? No, it was a bird. A bird tail actually. A big black bird tail that looked frightening on my computer screen! It may have been from a crow, or a raven (known as the trickster bird so a likely candidate) but I think it was a bit small for an eagle (I've been close to one in flight by the water's edge - they are bigger than me).

I can giggle at it now... but it made me flinch when I first saw it. A link to an outside reality that felt a bit too close to home for a second!

I may need to get out more.

Do flies copulate in mid-air?

If we leave our balcony door open in the mornings by noon we have half a dozen flies flying about in our living room.

If we leave the balcony door open into the evening... the flies go away. This is a bit disturbing... I hope they are flying out.

It's like they commute into the office in the morning and then leave again in the afternoon. Or I'm just going a bit insane.

So when they are here, they spend the entire day flying around in circles. Just over there. In reality, just in the one spot. Again, I'm thinking desks in an office... insanity creeps up on you, you know.

Sometimes they meet in mid-air and briefly fly around each other. So are they having sex? In mid-air? Is this office romance? Are the co-workers finding they have a lot in common, and getting to know each other really well?

Or is this just a plot to drive me insane? I don't like driving, so I guess it's nice to have a chauffeur, but I do get dizzy watching them fly around in circles.

Does a water tornado mean sushi rain?

Waterspouts or water tornados are a truly awesome thing to see. With the huge number of land based tornados in the US this year, it doesn't seem to be so odd that there are water ones around Australia as well.

But what about the fish?

Do fish get caught up by these water tornados? Well, yes, it seems they do! See this news article from the UK Daily Mail on the subject.

So what would you do if a whole lot of fish started falling on your head? They're probably dead from their flight... but they are fresh. Is it sushi time or not?

And what about the fish's take on this... just swimming around, minding their own fishy business, and whoosh, they're airborne! Flying fish. They probably think those silly fish that started walking millions of years ago were nutters, but now they're flying in the air.

There are fish that leap out of the water by themselves and attack people in boats in the US. Intentional flight, not just a gust of swirly wind.

Does this mean the fish are trying to take the next step on the evolutionary ladder? Is Nature trying to help? Should we sit them down and have a talk about this... is it really a good idea?

Is it a bird? Is it a plane?

Yes, actually, it's a bird.

It's a bird in a grocery store. Hmm. Hmm. Hmm.... Is that supposed to be here?

I'm not talking a turkey or a chicken here. It's not a dead bird. It's a little, live, and very quiet sparrow. I think it's infiltrating our supply of crumbs. Not content to just pick up crumbs from outside eating areas, it has sussed out where humans go to eat when it's raining cats and dogs outside, and has made it's way into crumb heaven! That's a smart little bird with a strong survival instinct!

I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't been sitting drinking coffee in the little coffee alcove. It was just a flash of something dark that I saw a couple of times, and then I looked closer. It was very silent! Not a peep, and it's wings are so tiny they don't make a lot of noise. You really have to look to find him.

So do I tell any of the humans at the grocery store? Hmm again.

OK, so bird poop on the groceries would be a bad thing... but you should look closely at the packages on what you buy as a routine step in the purchasing process, and any fruits and vegetables that don't come in a package should always be washed before you eat them anyway. It's just good hygiene, and if you don't do it already you may have built up an immunity to all the junk you have ingested. So I can't imagine anyone getting sick from the little bird.

And you have to admire the survival instinct of the bird. It managed to get inside. It knows enough to be quiet and it's staying mostly hidden, it's not hopping up on tables begging for crumbs the way they do outside. And it is not in the bulk area sitting on a pile of stuff and gorging itself... at least not while the store is occupied by humans. And the ceilings are very high, so it could easily fly out of reach of any humans and hide.

And how would a human manage to get a bird out of the store? I can't see anyone having the patients to lure it out. It may drive them insane. Would they have to resort to violence to get rid of the bird? I don't want to be part of that, it sounds painful for both human and bird.

So the little flutter you thought you heard could have been a bird... don't worry about it, it's not the end of the world, it's just the little animals getting smarter.

Did the skunk get them?

The rather pleasant - from a distance - scent of skunk once again fills the night air, and I remember an incident from last week that has made me think.

My spouse and I were walking home from the Tea House in Stanley Park after a lovely dinner on the patio, watching the sun go down surrounded by puffy clouds. We were in mid-conversation when we heard someone whisper loudly (like a stage whisper) "Watch out! There's a skunk over there!"

Looking ahead of us we saw the skunk. We glanced back, and saw a couple of humans who were apparently hiding from the skunk. (All things considered, it was likely the humans, not the skunk who whispered the warning.)

The skunk was just crossing the path in front of us, so we slowed down, let it amble on it's way, and then kept going past the skunk. We know the skunks, they live here, we live here, we all try to keep out of each other's way. (And oddly enough, skunks DO smell of skunk just walking around... the creators of Pepe Le Pew had it right.)

But thinking about it now... I don't know if the whispering humans made it past the skunk.

We have had many nights of smelling skunk lately, so someone has been scaring them. We find the scent infinitely preferable to the cancer stick smoke coming up from one of our neighbors who likes to smoke on his balcony, and it keeps him off the balcony, so it even has a bonus! But it has been very frequent.

Hiding from a skunk doesn't actually make any sense. It's when they get frightened that they spray and run. If the skunk doesn't see you until you pop out from behind something... that's a frightening kind of thing. The whispering humans may have found this out... I do hope not, but I am wondering now if they simply followed our example (giving the skunk a wide berth and walking slowly by) or if they panicked and scared themselves and the skunk into more of a life story than they had planned to tell for the rest of their lives!

Are those crows or women?

Crows often sound like they are having conversations with each other. If you get enough of them in one place it can sound like a heated argument.

This week while at the farmer's market I was sitting waiting for my spouse as he did the shopping and I guarded the bags. I was playing a game on my cell phone to keep myself awake and didn't take too much notice of the other people. I was listening to a bunch of crows behind me having a conversation. And then I heard a much louder group on the other side of the street and I was worried there was about to be a crow fight in the middle of the farmer's market!

I looked up at this point, wondering if there was going to be a bird fight... and saw the second bunch of crows was actually a gaggle of women.

Is that supposed to be appealing?

Should I start singing now?

I was in Stanley Park taking pictures on a beautiful sunny day a couple of days ago, and I've been having trouble getting the song "Talk to the Animals" out of my head ever since!

Why is this? Because the animals were sitting on me!

This is a picture of one of the chickadees that perched on my hand while taking seeds from me. There were about a dozen of them landing on my hand, on my shoulder, on my wheelchair, some tried for my head, but I was moving about... they were just everywhere.

And the squirrel that surprised me last time I was in the park by climbing up my leg climbed up my leg again. This time I had some walnut pieces ready for it. It sat on my leg and ate! I thought it would grab the nut and run, but it didn't! It was very soft and warm. (I haven't finished up the photos I got of the squirrel yet.)

So I've learned a couple of things from this - one, the breathing exercises from my yoga classes have paid off in my ability to stay still and relaxed while little animals are running all over me. Two, it's still very difficult to take photos of chickadees, even if you know exactly where they will be - getting seeds from your hand - because they are incredibly fast! I took maybe 30 pictures, and this is the 1 that came out. This will take a bit more practice... If I could talk to the animals, talk to the animals...

What is crawling up my leg?

Oh my goodness, it's a squirrel!

Yes, really. Yesterday a squirrel decided to climb up my leg. It was a rare sunny November day yesterday and I was taking photos in Stanley Park. Just as I got to the little bridge over the western end of Lost Lagoon, I was greeted by a grey squirrel who thought my leg looked like a good thing to climb. I didn't have any nuts to give him, so I shooed him off when he got to my knee, and thanked him for the mud his paws got on my pants.

It has become very obvious to me that, as I've admitted I need a wheelchair to get around, I am now in the "weak and vulnerable" section of the human herd. I have no illusions of humans being above primal pack instincts to prey on the "weak and vulnerable". This makes me very wary of other humans. I would not be in Stanley Park by myself unless I was sure there would be a lot of other people there, including many park workers, who could potentially help me if an individual human was being beastly. Safety in numbers... I have primal instincts too.

It's shocking how this has changed my relationships with other animals as well. I smile at dogs, and I'm closer to their level now, so they often wag their tails back at me. I have to slow down and make "pigeon, pigeon, pigeon" noises very loudly to get pigeons out of my way when I'm driving my wheelchair around so I don't run over them. Cats glare at me and stay as far away from me as they can go while still watching me. And now I'm considered no risk at all by squirrels! At least not by the grey squirrels in Stanley Park who are used to being fed by humans. Another couple of squirrels bounded up to me a while later, but I shooed them away before they started climbing. (See the photo above for one that was bounding up, as I shooed at him.)

As I contemplated this event while taking photos in the park, I also realized I keep my left-hand pinky up in the air while I'm pointing my camera... because a chickadee landed on it! That made me shriek just a little bit. Those claws are sharp! So I'm not a risk for little birds either!

Now I have to figure out how to take photos of these animals while they are visiting me so closely... and I need to find some bird seed and some nuts for my new friends before I go out again. You're not supposed to feed the wildlife... but obviously I'm not considered the average human anymore, so maybe I'll side with the little animals.

Ever had one of those days?

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Is that a bird or a fish?

Yesterday my spouse and I were going around Stanley Park on the Seawall when we saw things jumping out of the water just to the east of the Lions Gate Bridge. It looked a bit like white birds fishing, but after looking closely for a couple of minutes... it looked like fish! Yes! It's fish jumping out of the water!

We've never seen fish jumping out of the water! So a googling was called for.

I think those exuberantly jumping fish were Coho Salmon! From the scientific sites my googling found, it seems they are spawning right now, and the Burrard Inlet is one of the places where they do that!

I've seen films of salmon jumping out of the water to get up rocky streams, but the Burrard Inlet is a deep body of water. A cruise ship on its way up to Alaska went out of the inlet shortly after we saw the fish jumping in the same place. So there are no rocks for them to jump over out there. Are they just so jazzed to be going upstream that they are jumping happy? Are they trying to get rid of parasites that started letting go once the fresh water started hitting them? I've heard this is one of the reasons why whales breach (jump out of the water) - to get rid of unwanted parasites clinging to them.

It was a really cool thing to witness, fish jumping out of the water so close to where we live in a big city!

Is that a bridge troll?

Bridge trolls: Mythical creatures that live under bridges and eat those who attempt to cross their bridge.

Great Blue Heron: Large bird that hunts fish and bugs at the water's edge using a patient waiting, then quick snapping at opportune moments method.

So why is this heron being a bridge troll?

We were recently at VanDusen Botanical Gardens taking photographs on a bright sunny summer day. When we got to this little bridge that crosses a pond we found a large group of people sitting or standing on the end of the bridge. It took a minute, but then we saw the Great Blue Heron that was standing in the middle of the bridge. None of the humans wanted to disturb the bird, so they were not crossing the bridge. More humans were standing on the other side of the bridge, they did not want to disturb the bird either.

Cameras were clicking and "wow" was being uttered. The bird occasionally snapped a dragon fly out of the air. This went on for a good 15 minutes. Most of the humans got bored and wandered away from the bridge, not crossing it. 

So this heron was in control of the situation, he was being the bridge troll, not letting anyone cross the bridge.

It's amazing how wild animals can figure out humans and be in control of a situation like this. The heron was not timid. He was confident he had the situation under control and did quite a bit of stretching and scratching while standing on the bridge.

Real animals must have been the spark for the old bridge troll stories, but I wonder if they were all birds.

(Click on the image to see a bigger image.)

Is that why otters always seem so happy?

A missing link in the evolution of sea otters and seals has evidently been found. The newly found link shows the ancestors of otters and seals walked on land before becoming sea animals. Is that why otters always look like they are playing all day and just having fun with life?

Douglas Adams wrote that the decision of human ancestors to come out of the sea was the big mistake. In one episode of the old Hitchhiker's Guide TV shows Douglas Adams actually appears in the buff walking back into the ocean. Was he right? Darwin thought it was a natural progression - the transition from land to fresh water to the sea.

Did we get it wrong by leaving the ocean, and sea otters got it right by going into the ocean? Have we missed something? Are we supposed to be somewhere... else?

See this link for more information on the progression to the sea: BBC News

How badly do we want to photograph Snow Geese?

At this time of the year there are snow geese in the Vancouver area, but they don't stay around for long, so photographing them can only be done for a short time. We are getting quite into taking pictures of birds, so this sounds like a challenge we need to pursue. But should we?

It is very cold out there right now. There is snow on the ground, so it's difficult to drive safely. The birds are typically found in fields - last year many schools had to keep the children inside because the school grounds were covered in birds. But the fields they like are way outside Vancouver in the suburbs, so that means driving.

We were at the Reifel Bird Sanctuary a couple of days ago, but the birds were not. We did see some flocks of large white birds that were probably the snow geese while we were driving to the sanctuary, but there were no snow geese in the sanctuary, so we missed the opportunity to photograph them that day. On the way home we may have seen a flock flying back where we had just come from, but we weren't sure, so we decided not to go on a wild goose chase.

So now we have to decide how much more effort we will go to for photos of these birds... it is cold out there, but we didn't get any pictures last year, do we wait until next year? That's pretty long term planning for us! And if we get some pictures this year, will we have to get better pictures next year? Such pressure from these migratory birds!

This could be the makings of a multi-year wild goose chase!

What can you buy for 50 cents?

Interestingly, there is no easy key stroke to get the cent symbol anymore. Maybe that was just on typewriters.

So you're probably saying there is nothing you can buy for 50 cents... but there is something very valuable that provides for many minutes of enjoyment. It's bird seed!

We went to the Reifel Bird Sanctuary on Tuesday. It was a frigid -6 degrees celsius (yes, in Vancouver that's too damned cold and no one is used to it) and there was snow on the ground (which also doesn't usually happen in or around Vancouver) but it was sunny and it's a great time of the year to take photos of birds. So we braved the cold to take some photos. Because it is winter and it's very hard for birds to find food under the snow, we opted to get a couple of bags of bird seed at the entrance gate. It was 50 cents a bag!

When we got the bird seed the woman at the entrance said the birds would be happy to see us because very few people had been there in this weather. The mix of seed was good for the birds right now, so they could use the food and we were sure it was all good for them. Typically we don't get bird seed because it's not a great idea to make wild birds dependent on humans. Unfortunately, that's why the birds are at the sanctuary, so they already are dependent.

We saw many little sparrows and chickadees, the ubiquitous mallards, coots, and pintails, and 3 sandhill cranes! The sandhill cranes were almost as tall as me! They are graceful grey birds that introduced themselves by walking on water - the frozen water in one of the ponds. After a great photo shoot they flew off and we followed them. They were near some handy benches, so we got the bird seed out and had a wonderful time feeding the cranes (and some ducks too). The cranes have long thin beaks and very good aim to collect the bird seeds on the ground. So we took even more pictures.

It was good for the birds, and good for us too. So that's what 50 cents will buy.

Why did the pigeon cross the road?

Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.

The question I have is: Why are those pigeons on the road in the middle of traffic? And if they are crossing the road, why are they moving in odd circles rather than going from one side to the other? And if they are pigeons - which they are - why are they walking instead of flying across the road?

These are the pigeons who usually sit on the power lines that cross the road at the corner just up the hill from us. They are the ones that are known to aim their droppings so that they hit as many people as possible - we have washed off plenty. So they don't seem to be dumb birds.

The weather may have changed rather drastically at the beginning October here in the rain forest (oh yeah, rain forest, I remember that, it was such a sunny summer I almost forgot) but the pigeons knew about this. They've been through this before, the rain comes, it gets cooler, been here, done that. It's fall, it's now going to rain until March.

But the pigeons seem to have, on mass, lost their common bird sense about not walking across roads and into traffic. As we drive onto the ramp down to our parking lot, 3 pigeons decide to walk right under the car! We are going at a crawl and hoping the birds get out of the way of the tires, but why are they walking under the car instead of flying away? A quick look back confirms that no one was hit, but that was a tense drive for us! Are the pigeons messing with our minds?

Has mother nature gotten bored with the using obvious climate changes to wake us up to the peril that faces us and she's now making the birds do wacky things to get us to pay attention? Or have the pigeons upped their consciousness to a point where all of the pigeons have been watching us long enough to get a few ideas on how to make the monkeys freak out?

I don't think it's a random occurrence, I think the pigeons are playing with our minds. Why did the pigeon cross the road? To play with our minds!

Will Crows chase any bird?

While we were in Parksville (on the East coast of Vancouver Island) a couple of weeks ago I witnessed a great display of bird flight while sitting on a bench by the beach. A Bald Eagle was being chased by a Crow.

The fight was not that involved – there was no contact between the birds. The Bald Eagle looked a bit bored. The Crow seemed to be having fun. But when they came within a few feet of where I was sitting the sheer size of the Bald Eagle - and those amazing talons!!! - was awesome! This may be one of those fish stories where the fish gets bigger with each telling of the story, but I swear that bird was as big as me!

I didn't get my camera out in time to take a picture, and I'm still kicking myself for that. My spouse has some good pictures of the Bald Eagles we saw on our trip on his Flickr website.

So a couple of days ago I was sitting in a park in downtown Vancouver, close to home, when I saw a miniature version of the same in-flight battle: a Crow was chasing a Seagull. Neither of them were awesome or huge, and again the Crow seemed to be pestering and playing with the Seagull.

So will Crows chase any bird just for the fun of it?

I thought that the Crow in Parksville was trying to scare the Bald Eagle away from the Crow's nest. Bald Eagles are willing to eat anything, including small birds, so it may have been trying to eat Crow. (No, not admitting humiliation, not that kind of eating crow! Eating the little baby birds.)

But maybe not. Maybe the Crow was just pestering the Bald Eagle for exercise. Just chasing another bird because it likes chasing other birds!

Maybe us monkeys, err, sorry, people, make too much of animal behaviour. It may not be all life-and-death struggles. The other animals on this planet may have a sense of play as well.

What is the difference between a Crow and a Raven?

Two all-black birds, both inhabiting the West coast of North America – the common crow inhabiting all of North America – how can you tell which species you are looking at?

I just stumbled across the answer to that question last weekend!

I was walking in a park in downtown Vancouver about 3 weeks ago and I heard what I thought was someone talking excitedly in a language I didn't recognize. I looked around to see who it was, but there were no people close to me in the park! I followed the voice to a light post. Sitting on top of the light post was a black bird. I stared at the bird, and yes, it was the bird talking! It was all black, so it wasn't a parrot. It had a puffed up throat, which looked odd for a crow. I wondered if it had swallowed something odd that was making the noise, but it seemed to be a happy bird. It was doing quite a good impression of a laughing human actually!

Then last weekend I was reading a book on birds of BC, and I found the answer: I saw a Raven! In downtown Vancouver!

This bird is often found on first-nation totem poles, and it has a long history along the Pacific coast. It is known as the “trickster” bird because it does mimic human speech. And I saw one! I'm jazzed!