March 19, 2025 • 40 mins
Owl the news that's fit to print! We've got bird news stories today, including an orange snowy owl, owl tinder, and a real life "Wild Robot" situation! I'm joined by friend of the show, Bridgett Greenberg!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeart Radio. I'm your
host of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and
evolutionary biology, and today on the show, it's birds in
the News Owls. Well that ends well, we're talking about
some noteworthy birds, especially owls. This is a very owl
heavy episode because I like to keep up with the
(00:29):
bird news, because if you birds news, you bird lows.
So we will learn about orange owls, what's happening. We
will also learn about how an owl was at the
center of a fight for the Endangered Species Act. And
we will in the show with a short sweet kids
(00:50):
story about robots taking care of birds, which I do love.
Discover this and more as we answer the age question
was the wild Robot just a documentary? Joining me today
is friend of the show, producer host of the podcast
Rough Stuff as well as shooting threes, Bridget Greenberg.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Look, Hi, it's me. I heard an owl the other
day at like at like four in the morning, and
I was very excited, and I woke up my boyfriend,
who was not as excited as me about hearing an owl.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I am so proud of you, Bridget. I can't even
begin like this is I this is why you're on
the show. I approved so much. Tell your boyfriend he's wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
This happens with my husband all the time, where I'm like,
did you hear that bird? He's like, what are you
talking about? And it's like do you have ears? Do
you not hear the birds?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Like they're all around us?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I cannot. I cannot navigate to save my life. I
will like go into a building, exit the building, and
run directly into like either traffic or a wall. Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I can never find my way around. I have no
sense of direction.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
The fact that I'm not in a parking garage right
now looking for my car is amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
No, No, I know, same, same I've I've been. I've
been stuck in a parking garage just going around and
around and around for like more times than I care
to admit. Uh. And I I do sometimes have to
be guided like a sort of untrained mongrel uh to
make sure I do not interact dangerously with traffic. So
(02:34):
you would think that, Okay, my skills of observation are
not that great. But the thing is, I'm using like
ninety nine percent of my brain power to like hear
listen for and observe birds. So every time I got
your important yeah, I'm like, I'm like Brett, who's my husband?
Like Brett, there's a cout Did you hear that? That
was a cout? Hey, there was a There's a tit?
Did you hear that tit? Hey, there was a houseparrow?
(02:55):
Did you hear that?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
They'll guide you. The birds will guide you if you listen.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
The birds will guide you, possibly into traffic. But the
point is it's really important to observe birds at the
expense of any other sort of.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So we're on the same page there, and people have
been observing one particular bird near Lake here on Michigan.
People have spotted an uh orange owl. Orange owl just dropped, Yes,
new orange owl. New orange owl is So they have
(03:33):
spotted a snowy owl that people have named either Rusty
or Creamsicle. I kind of like creamsicle. Yeah, I'm sort
of on the I'm voting for creamsicle is the name?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, Rusty is like, yeah, cute classic. There are probably
other birds named Rusty Creamsicle. Creamsicle is it original name?
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Also, if you see this bird, oh wait, I have
to yeah, I have to give you the images because like,
this is like a bright This is not just kind
of orange in the sense of.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
No, it's not a color.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, it's like a like how a fox is orange
or whatever, where it's like, it's a pretty decent foxes
are a decent orange. But it's like a natural looking orange.
This is bright, synthetic looking orange.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, it's like someone like a toddler started coloring it
with a cran and then forgot.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yep, that is but like precisely, precisely what it looks like,
like a toddler kind of spilled some cran juice. Cran
juice isn't a thing, but.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
The grand juice.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
That is kind of what it looks like.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, what a stunning bird, very beautiful. Yeah. Creamsicle. Yeah,
creamsicle is a name one hundred because it's also got
the white mixed in. It's not just as.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah yeah, no, it's it's one hundred percent of creamsicle. Uh,
perfect name. No notes on that this bird is a singular.
It's not that this is a new species. This is
a snowy owl, so this is known. And the the
fact that it looks like it's been stained with a
highlighter or dipped in sauce has been there's been multiple
(05:11):
photographs of it, so it's not like a photoshop hooks
or something of that nature. So it is definitely a
bird that exists who is orange, and we don't really
know why. So it's not like it's not like, oh yes,
oh yes, we know this is this owl has uh
(05:31):
orangeitis that.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You know, are like a variety of snowy owl that
is orange.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
No, no, no, no no. Researchers are like, no, this
is not this is not normal, and so there have
been a variety of theories as to what is going on. Obviously,
someone could have possibly captured a snowy owl, dyed it
(05:59):
and then release it as a prank, which seems somewhat
unlikely in my opinion. I not I don't put it.
It's not it's not a good prank. It's not that
I don't put it past people. I you know, as
much as I love humanity, we got some stinkers, We
(06:20):
got some stinkers, and we got some perverts. So I
would believe a person would do this. It's that I
think it's that I doubt the person who would want
to die an owl orange would have the capacity to
do it. You know what I mean, like a pigeon,
Sure you can't. You can catch a pigeon. So like
people have caught pigeons and like done weird things to pigeons,
(06:42):
like glued little hats to their heads, which I disapprove of.
Don't do that. If a pigeon wants to wear a hat,
it'll wear a hat.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
You don't. If you glue it will find a hat. Yeah,
they're around enough trash, I'll find a hat.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
And honestly, like pigeon fashion is so far advanced from
human fact, like pigeons who wear bread around their necks
or bagels around their necks. Like, pigeon fashion is beyond us.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah we're not ready for that runway walk.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
No, no, exactly, So leave the pigeons alone. But yeah,
like I would, I would believe this was a prank
if it was a pigeon because people are weird. But
a snowy owl, I don't see how someone would catch it.
I mean it's possible, but it just seems it seems
like an odd thing to do. Uh, it's not done
(07:33):
by researchers, right, because there are like bird conservation projects
and stuff, but there's nothing right.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
There are other ways to tag bird.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
There used to be I think, like a few decades ago,
there used to be some things where they would use
paint to track birds. But that was a long long
time ago. We don't do that anymore. It's banding birds now.
Radios or banding birds no longer using paint to track
migratory birds.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So that's that's a lot of paints. I would imagine. Yeah,
I would imagine they just like kind of give a
stripe when they did it, not try to.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, they didn't dunk. They didn't dunk the bird into
sort of the that little package of seasoning that comes
in with Kraft.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Mad and cheese. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
So uh yeah, So various researchers have various theories. So
one is by Michigan State University bird coloration expert Kevin McGraw,
who thinks it's possible the owl has a mutation resulting
from environmental factors such as pollution. So that's theory number one,
(08:38):
that this bird is an orange mutant. Huh.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Sad for the reason, but cool turnout like that if
we get more orange owls, that's pretty cool, but you know,
for bad reasons ultimately net zero.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, I don't want the lesson to be let's let's
keep oranging our owls like.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
No, no, it's a net negative for sure, but cool.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
But that's that's a theory, right, that is not there
has been no evidence of that, other than the fact
there's an orange owl going around. Auburn University ornithologist Jeffrey
Hill believes it is not a mutation. He thinks that
it the pattern of coloration seems to be a die
that was applied. But again the question is why and
(09:31):
who and how and what?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, what I mean? I like I people are weird,
they really are. So I'm being like, this is my bird,
and I want to know it's my bird. But owl
seem hard to.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Like.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I I've had enough like trouble, trying to trama, housecats, nails.
I can't imagine trying to die an entire owl.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I've often thought about how one would go about dying
an entire owl. I've given a lot of thought of it,
about it, a lot of thoughts to it. But I
would imagine be quite difficult. And owls are essentially the
cats of the sky. Yeah they don't, they really do.
They don't want to be dyed. Uh, And so it's
(10:24):
not like. It's not like an eery PoTA where the
owls are just gonna like fly around and deliver you
mail and let you do weird wizard stuff to it.
It's not gonna like that, and it's gonna use its
big clause on you.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah. Every time I've seen an owl at like a
zoo or some sort of bird.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Show, bird show isn't the word that you're looking for.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
But all right, yeah, but you know you know bird
with bird Yeah, bird show, bird shop.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
You're right, I apologize, I apologize. It is called bird show.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Bird show. This is bird show.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah. They do have the vibe of cats of like
gaze upon me, do not come near me?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yes, but gaze, Yeah, you make gaze. The last theory
is the one that I believe in. This is the
explanation that really does it for me. Uh. A third
bird expert, doctor Scott Whedenschnall. Also he has the best name,
so I gotta go with him. He's the co founder
of Project Snowstorm, a snowy owl research group. He told
(11:35):
The New York Times New York Times is how do
you say that? New York Times is James Krugnall Knolly
New York Times is James Krignolly. The most likely explanation
is that it was the icing fluid at an airport,
since some formulations are that red orange color. Oh, I
(11:56):
think he. I think that's what happens. That feels them
right that like doesn't me.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
That that kind of feels like the Okham's razor. Uh.
The simplest answer is the best. Uh, this alog it's
got spilt on.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Right exactly, Like when I look at this al, I'm like, yeah,
that guy could have gotten blitzed with a diceer sprayer
and uh, also like it there's like kind of it
explains the kind of tied eye pattern, the pattern, right yeah.
And also like there there's like some white feathers above
the orange ones, and it's like, yeah, it could have
(12:33):
also molted some of the other feathers and so that's
why some of them look like pristine and other ones
are sort of like have this color spread on it.
So I think this, I think this guy got blested
with with plane juice. Oh no, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I mean and that also his his his face in
the in the first one is like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I get me, Yeah, he's he's a this this is
a this is a bird that now has a vendetta
against planes, which does worry me. Yeah, yeah, I think
we should be concerned about that.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
We should watch out for this bird. If you're in
if you see creamsicle, you see creamsicle out your window
and you're flying it does it does seem like it
just takes one, you know these days, it just takes one.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, so yeah, Creamsicle. Creamsicles revenge hopefully won't happen, but yeah,
poor Creamsicle. Also, if you are in the Michigan Lake
here on area, uh, do not snitch on creamsicle. I can't.
I can't emphasize this enough. Don't be a snitch. If
(13:44):
you see creamsicle. Feel free to take a photo marvel
at creamsicles beauty and orange appearance, but do not post
online where you see creamsicle. If you take a photo
and you want to share it online, scrub it of
any I identifying information. Because people do not want this
(14:04):
owl to be harassed. This owl is like a bird celebrity.
It's like it's like bird Scarlet jo It's like bird
Scarlet Johansson. I think I saw recently this post about
like Scarlet Johansson doesn't like to take photos with fans
because she it's like kind of an invasion of her privacy.
And it's like, yeah, that completely makes sense, scargo. I'm
one hundred percent on her side. Like she's probably out
(14:27):
some stalkers, so she doesn't want photos taken. That makes sense.
Creamsicle is the Scarlet Johansson of owls.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And and yeah it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, like if you know where she is, No you don't,
No you don't, No you don't.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, I yeah. I feel like owls are very you know, solitary,
and like their silence too. I'm sure they don't want
swarms of people around them. No, no, they aren't knowing them. Yeah,
and oh, you know, it's already been through so much.
It was so exciting to see an orange owl and
(15:04):
then I was like, oh, yeah, it got hit with plane.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
The good news that the good news is that the
sort of Michigan Wildlife Conservation group has said that the
owl appears to be in good health. So great, Creamsicle
seems fine. I keep saying the owl. We don't actually
know the owl sex Uh, I'm calling her her because
(15:27):
she's beautiful, but could could easily be a meal. But yeah,
so it's doesn't probably not, probably does not care. It's like,
is that mouse? Is that tasty mouse? No, don't care.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, so that's its priority.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Taste mouse, kill the mouse. No, all right, creamsicle seems
to be doing fine.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Probably got pribe, got blasted with the plain juice.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah. Oh, it's got a cool as as long as
it's healthy. It's got a cool it's got a cool die.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It's gotta it's got you know, try something out. It's
got cool vibes. We saw her across the room and
we thought you had cool vibes. So but keep it
across the room. Don't harass this owl.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, don't stry anymore playing juice on owls. That seems
not good.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
That's right. The airport, the local, the Michigan Airport refused
to comment on the story.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
So they're like, yeah, yeah, we know.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Owl owl Tinder just dropped, bridget. I know you're like,
if you're worried about owls finding love, worry no longer.
Owl tinder is here, thank god. So Western burrowing owls
are literally the cutest owl in existence.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
They are those are are those? Well? No, not Western?
I was thinking of the hoot owls from the Carl
Hyason book. They were in Florida. Those are those are
that's deep Florida. Lord, that's a he's a Florida author. Okay,
there was a whole book called in a movie called
Hoot about burrowing owls.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, well, burrowing owls are all gonna be cute though,
no matter where they are. These ones are Western burrowing
owls found in California, and they are adorable. They are
terrestrial owls, which means that I mean they can fly,
but they burrow. They spend their time in burrows. They
most spend most of their time on the ground hunting,
(17:18):
and they are I think the cutest owl in existence.
Sometimes they lie on their tom tums just to like
get that, like sunbathe. They're small owls. They're brown with
these big yellow eyes. They only weigh about five ounces.
They're truly a handheld owl.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, they're little, tiny birds.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
They're owl many and they're super cute. They have this
perpetual look of either shock, deep a fence, or plane stupidity.
Usually there's like a trio of them staring at the camera.
One of them looks angry, one of them looks shocked,
and the other one looks deeply stupid. I don't know
how they always manage to get the three three owls
(18:00):
in a band. Yeah formation I I will have pictures
of it in the show notes. But I highly recommend
just googling burrowing owls. They're very silly. Anyways, these little
dumb dumbs need our help finding love. Uh. This is
an article in Geo by Kate Ferby, which is the
(18:22):
perfect name name to be writing about the burrowing owls, which, yeah,
they are ferbie like they are ferbies, they're real furbies.
So apparently these owls are Their populations have been declining
in the San Francisco Bay Area, and one of the
problems with population decline, especially when it comes to urbanization
(18:45):
or suburbanization suburban crawl, is that you are kind of
making these genetic bottlenecks, and so genetic diversity goes down
in the overall health of the species declines. So owl
conservationists have created uh basically owl Love Island. So they
it's a it's a camp for owls where they go
(19:07):
as juveniles and it's to like they check on their health.
They ban them. They do like genetic tests and blood
tests and then like for the winter period because a
lot of the juveniles are it's still the population in
this area is still somewhat fragile. So they keep the
juveniles there over winter in this big bird sanctuary so
that they're they're grow up nice and healthy. And then
(19:31):
they play uh like match maker for these birds.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
But they they do it by finding like the least
in bread match for them. So one of the problems
when you have a declining population is if the birds
mate with someone like their cousin, it's not great. Yeah,
So they're trying, they're trying to get these birds to stop,
uh stop doing incests, some doing in so they they
(20:00):
find they find a bird that's like very genetically distant
from the other bird, pair them up. And when they're
like when they are in adults and they are released
from bird love camp. Uh they uh just it's like
you will ask like, okay, how do you like have
birds get married? What do you mean like these you're
(20:21):
matching these birds like they're birds.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, you throw both of them in a hole.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So yeah, that will do it.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
That'll do. So they they find burrows for these birds
because they they they like like they either make them
or find the burrow and they will take them the pair.
The match set that there's like you are this is this?
This match pair is the most genetically diverse birds. They're
the least related. You're not cousins, so congratulations. They stick
(20:52):
them in the hole, and the birds are like cool
with it, Like they they're just like okay, because again
at this point, the yeah, hey you're you live in
hole too.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
We have so much in common. Yeah, what else do
you need? This?
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Nice?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
The you're the bird of my dreams. You're also in home.
I'm in hole. You're in hole.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
It's a nice hole. You want to stay in this hole?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Fore, yeah, let's just stay in hole together. So like
it seems to work because again because it's like uh
it is they're out in wild, in the wild at
this point, they can do whatever they want. But they're
pretty happy usually with this match. And they're not always
like one hundred percent monogamous, but they tend to be
like they might have like some breeding seasons where they
(21:38):
go and they like kind of get a hall pass.
They explore and explore a little bit. It's like an
open marriage. But like they they they.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
In hole for so long a hole Yeah, it's like
it's like like I met someone.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I met someone today who also lives in hole. Right, crazy, right,
So yeah, they seem to be happy with the matches,
and apparently this is working like surprisingly well. By diversifying
their DNA. They this has resulted in their telomeres doubling
(22:17):
in length, which is really good news for the owl population. Again,
telomeres are sort of like, it's like this, on the
end of your your DNA, you have like this strand
of proteins that don't necessarily do anything, but it's kind
of like you know how I get on the end
of your zipper. You have that like long metal thingy
(22:37):
that like stops the zipper from just like coming off.
That's what a telomere is. Essentially, It's like a strand
of proteins that prevents the the things that like run
around run along the DNA, copying the DNA called like enzymes,
from basically messing up once it gets to the end
(22:59):
of it. And so the shorter the telomere, the more
uh basically the shorter the lifespan of the organism, because
then you start getting more more and more airs, chance
of cancer, chance of airs that is uh, incompatible with
staying alive and so longer telomeres are generally good for
an animal and uh so yeah, by this this bird
(23:21):
love Island is creating healthier birds by increasing the bird diversity.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Hey, it's working. Love Island never works. I love that.
It feels like summer camp for birds. Like it is.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I went to like a sleepway camp that was like
that felt like this of like find find your nice
little jewish boy. I went to what this owl camp is?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
I went to a science camp and uh it was, uh,
you know, nerds are very horny, so famous, surprisingly surprisingly
horny nerds. I was in the I was in the
computer science group, and uh yeah, like the I would say,
(24:15):
probably the probably the horniest group and the least likely
to do anything about it.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah. Yeah, they're the computer They're not quite on the
scale of band nerds. Yes, on the horny scale of.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
But band nerds like get pretty freaky with it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I feel like, yeah, yeah they're theater nerds are band
nerds on the other end, all those spit belts.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Anyways, Yes, I'm glad they're finding love owl tender is
working working really well for these burrowing owls, which is
it's great news.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
So just drop them in a hole with another owl,
and that rarely work.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
You just drop in. You just drop them in a
hole with another owl.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Which you know, if only love were that easy.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Only maybe maybe it could be, is what I'm saying.
Maybe maybe it could possibly be. Uh, that's what I
feel like. I went through with my my husband, like
we went through the pandemic together, and so it was
kind of like we were dropped in a hole together,
and it really I turned to him, I'm like, wait,
you're in hole too. We have so much in common.
(25:28):
I'm in hole, You're in hole.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I'm in Yeah. I think my boyfriend and I came
out of the other side of the pandemic being like, oh,
we can be alone together for for three years in
not going outside. All right, this works, Yeah, this works,
It works works good. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
So that's a that's that's it's it's a good dating strategy. Yeah, invite,
invite the person that you like to a hole.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
So also, and also when you're this cute.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, it's a little baby. Fun fact about baby burrowing owls.
They can hiss like a rattlesnake to ward off present.
So they just like a little angry.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, they're little. I feel like they don't have Yeah,
I feel like they don't have a lot of other defenses.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
One of their defenses is stomping snakes. Like if a
snake tries to get in the row to like get
the babies, they stomp on them.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Yeah. Yeah, they do. Got those sharp cloths they do.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yeah, they're feisty. They're like little tiny kittens of the
of the the out the bird kittens, bird kiddies. Indeed,
last owl story. So, northern spotted owls are at the
center of a power struggle with the Trump administration. Weird, right,
(26:46):
resist didn't think I was gonna drop politics in this episode,
did Boom? Gotcha?
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Welcome to their resistance, Welcome to the owls.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, so, I you know, like this is not usually
a political podcast, but honest, like it has become completely
unavoidable because of all the stuff happening visa the environment.
Uh yeah, so yeah, it's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Anyways, so Trump has invoked a god Squad panel, which
sounds great. H So this is basically it is a
panel that relates to the Endangered Species Act. It is
a group of high level officials who are trying to
override the Endangered Species Act like a bunch of Captain
(27:38):
Planet villains. Wow, yeah, sou So. The Endangered Species Act
includes a provision that allows for some of it to
be overridden if it is in the public interest. So
this means like, well, so it's supposed to be only
applied in very very specific, very rare circumstances. It is
(27:59):
that has rarely ever happened. Like once it happened because
there needed to be a dam on a body of
water and in order and that threatened the whooping crane.
So in order to do the dam, they had to
do all of these extra protections for the whooping crane
or to make up for the fact that they were
doing this dam. But they needed the dam for either
(28:23):
I don't know for yeah, for water water, thank you,
bridget that's the word I was looking for. Uh. And
so it's really not meant to be used very often,
but obviously uh in this case, like like the interpretation
of like in the public interest seems to be now
like Trump and his rich friends and like wat to
it exactly, and like the the the villains from Captain Planet,
(28:47):
whom I forget like doctor pollution or whatever.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, but it just doesn't like the look of it anymore.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, so uh the basically, yeah, so it should it
should not, it should not. This God Squad is called
the God Squad because the ideas like they have the
god h yeah, yeah, they have the power of life, death,
the blah blah blah, Jurassic Park, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So cool, not ominous at all onto the significance of
the northern spotted owls.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
These little guys have this brown coloration and white spots
with cute, perpetually grumpy white eyebrow markings.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Most owls do look grumpy, these ones. They are not surprised.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
These ones have the added benefit of having like like
sort of eyebrows, which make them increase the grumpiness. I'm
dropping this owl into the document right now.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Oh that's a grumpy Every animal should have distinctive eyebrows. Yes,
it makes them so readable. Yes, he looks grumpy, he
looks angry.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
He's very grumpy and angry. And what I like about
that is he's basically going no, you don't to do
yeah to the God squad that's trying to Yeah. So yeah.
In nineteen ninety two, the gods, the God Squad, tried
to allow logging despite threats to these Northern spotted owls,
(30:20):
and the government was sued by environmental groups who said
that the decision was based on politics rather than science,
and due to the litigation, the Bureau of Land Management
withdrew the logging request. So the Northern spotted owls, I
just imagine them in the courtroom like going like I
may not be a city city lawyer.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
You know. There is also like something to the markings
around its face that makes it look like a tough,
mean judge, whereas a powdered wig.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yes, I want I want these owls to be the
ones leading the process cution at the Hague.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, yeah, no, they they have like you look at
those eyebrows and they are you're not you don't don't
with me, So I really do. You're not getting away
with it exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So I really do like these spotted owls as the
symbol of resistance to the attack on environmental protections.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
So yeah, following this owl into battle, for sure?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I would. I would, Yes, I would follow this owl.
Probably he'd take me to a tree and then up
a kind of nugget of fur and mouse bones, and
I'd be like, yeah, you owl for this precious gift.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I had to dissect one of those.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, me too, and I like, I asked my teacher
if I could keep all the little mousebone parts and
she was like, yeah, you can. It's not just did
that you do but you can't? Was like, great, put
them in my lunch box. Yeah. My mom was like,
is their mouse bones in your lunchbox?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
You know? Yeah? That's that teacher. How to make a
make a call based on your vibe of like is
she doing this because she's interested.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Or because it was necromancy wants to murder? It was necromancy,
but the educationalency.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah, yeah, the cool kind. So yeah, she had to
make a real vibe decision there on whether you could
keep the mouse bout.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
And she made the right decision. I grew up, Yeah
she did almost normal. So last little story here, Bridget
is about the real life Wild Robot. Did you see
that movie Wild Robot?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
I did? And oh I love that.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
It got me too. I love it so much. I
freaking love the movie. It's so good. It's scientifically questionable.
I don't know what the animals man are at the end.
All the animals get along on the island. I don't
know what they're eating, if not each other.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
But but you know, friendship, the power of friendship.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Friendship. Maybe they have a system where like the old
ones giddy.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I don't know, it's like a donner party, right, or
like I worked it out.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, or like Midsummer Midsummer where the old where the
old the old people get thrown off a cliff, but
in this case the old animals. Anyways, The Wild Robot
was a really adorable movie. I loved it. There's a
real life Wild Robot situation going on. The Chingolo is
(33:39):
a tiny South American sparrow with rusty coloration, uh which
its population is in decline, but which is a problem
because do the habitat loss and population decline, some of
the young chingolos are left without adult birds to tutor them, uh,
to teach them how to sing because younger yes, songbirds
(34:03):
aren't pre programmed with the songs. They actually learn them
from older birds. They're pre programmed with the ability to
learn the songs, but they actually have to learn them.
And so if there's too much habitat loss, not a
high enough population density of birds, they may not learn
the full song. So there's the complexity of this song
(34:24):
is starting to decay, and so researchers and conservationists got
together and created a bird tutor robot, which is basically
like it sounds like it's going to be a cute
like robotic bird, it's.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
More just it's like a speaker.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
It's more of a speaker. But the thing is it's
a fancy speaker because it's not just playing pre recorded
bird songs. They trained a model to learn how the
song used to be based on old recordings, on old notes,
so that they could create a very not just like
a kind of bad recording or something, but to create
(35:04):
a really clear song and one that they can like,
you know, add variations to that that existed in the
older song.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
And uh so they songwriters, okay.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Ai, songwriters are are saving birds. I mean it is
it is. I think it is a a It's one
of the applications where it's like, this is what we
should be using, yes, exactly, uh a tool. Yes. So
it seems like some of the young birds are learning
from the song robots and have started incorporating the old
(35:43):
complexity of the songs into their song. So it does
seem to be working. And this is happening in the
in Buenos Aires in Peri aira Erolla Park. So just
you know a little bit of a little I like
to I like to judge up the end with a
little bit of good news there.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, that's that's sweet. One technology doing what it is
supposed to do, helping organic species. There we go.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
This is what Yeah, this is what we're supposed to
be doing with technology, but not laying off artists so
that we can have a movie posters with people with
like seventy five teeth, extra fingernails and like a nostril
in their eye.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Bill, yeah, something with something off. Just yeah, teach the
birds music again exactly. Yeah, And I feel like this
is it's like baby Einstein for birds.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
It is.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
They're like, yeah that like reading comprehension is going down
in younger generations, same with birds, but they figured it out.
They're learning again.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
The implication is we could also be teaching these birds
Taylor Swift songs and be able to go to the rainforest.
Ye hear's some good dead poets society.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Right, So yeah, you know, you never you don't have
to listen to someone else hiking with a bluetooth speaker anymore. Yeah,
it's just the bird.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, although I guess like if that happens enough, the
birds are gonna start learning whatever is on those awful
bluetooth speakers. Don't do that, folks. Yeah, not only is
it being for other hikers, it's also uh not great
for the birds. They don't it's going to confuse them.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, headphones, we don't want to and you don't not
ever snarr music. All right.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Before we go, we got to play a quick little game.
This is called Gifts Who Squawk in the Mystery Animals
sound game. Every week we play a mystery animal sound
and you the listener, and you the guests, try to
guess who was making that sound. Last week that sound
hint was this This little baby does not want to
be hung out to dry. All right, Bridget did you
(37:55):
hear those those little plaintive cries?
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yeah? Yeah, My guess is based off the clue, and
it is some sort of.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Bat It's a It's a very good guess based on
my clue. But sadly I think I was a little
misleading with it. No, this is the call of an otter.
It's a baby otter. Sometimes baby otters are left by
their mothers to float. Often the mothers will kind of
(38:28):
entangle them with floating kelp so that they don't drift
away and they cry like this so their mothers know
where to find them, so they have it. So if
you ever hear like you're out on a boat out
on sea and then you hear a baby crying, I mean,
it could be a baby if you have one with you,
but it also could be a baby otter.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, oh god, I love otters so much. If I
could just hold one's little hand.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I know, and they would probably they might, they might
hold your hand back. Uh yeah, so cute. Uh So
onto this week's uh mystery animal sound. Uh the hint
is this. Uh, I don't mean to bring religion into this,
(39:22):
all right, Bridge, you hear that weird sound that was?
Speaker 2 (39:26):
That was a wild one.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
And you got any guesses?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Uh again, my my guesses will be very basic and
I'm gonna I'm gonna go wail.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
That's a very interesting guess and we will find out
next time on Creature Feature. She's correct, Richard, Thank you
so much for joining me today. Where can we? Where
can the people find you?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
You can find me on Instagram. Sarah and I my
my co host Small Beans Network post chef to our
Instagram bs podcasting and you can also find me personally
there at bridget Underscore Greenberg. Then you'll post what I'm
up to when things happened.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Do check that out. Bridget is delightful in all of
her works. And thank you guys so much for listening.
If if you're enjoying the show and you leave the
rating or review, that always helps me out and I
read all of them. And thanks to the space Cossics
for their super awesome song exce Aluminus Creature features a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you
just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts. Are You Kiss?
(40:32):
For reculous your favorite shows. I'm not your mother, can't
tell you what to do. Don't harass Orange Owls though,
don't do it. Don't do it. See you next Wednesday.
Welcome to Creature feature production of iHeart Radio. I'm your
host of Mini Parasites, Katie Golden. I studied psychology and
evolutionary biology, and today on the show, it's birds in
the News Owls. Well that ends well, we're talking about
some noteworthy birds, especially owls. This is a very owl
heavy episode because I like to keep up with the
(00:29):
bird news, because if you birds news, you bird lows.
So we will learn about orange owls, what's happening. We
will also learn about how an owl was at the
center of a fight for the Endangered Species Act. And
we will in the show with a short sweet kids
(00:50):
story about robots taking care of birds, which I do love.
Discover this and more as we answer the age question
was the wild Robot just a documentary? Joining me today
is friend of the show, producer host of the podcast
Rough Stuff as well as shooting threes, Bridget Greenberg.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Look, Hi, it's me. I heard an owl the other
day at like at like four in the morning, and
I was very excited, and I woke up my boyfriend,
who was not as excited as me about hearing an owl.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I am so proud of you, Bridget. I can't even
begin like this is I this is why you're on
the show. I approved so much. Tell your boyfriend he's wrong.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
This happens with my husband all the time, where I'm like,
did you hear that bird? He's like, what are you
talking about? And it's like do you have ears? Do
you not hear the birds?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Like they're all around us?
Speaker 1 (01:47):
I cannot. I cannot navigate to save my life. I
will like go into a building, exit the building, and
run directly into like either traffic or a wall. Uh.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I can never find my way around. I have no
sense of direction.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
The fact that I'm not in a parking garage right
now looking for my car is amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
No, No, I know, same, same I've I've been. I've
been stuck in a parking garage just going around and
around and around for like more times than I care
to admit. Uh. And I I do sometimes have to
be guided like a sort of untrained mongrel uh to
make sure I do not interact dangerously with traffic. So
(02:34):
you would think that, Okay, my skills of observation are
not that great. But the thing is, I'm using like
ninety nine percent of my brain power to like hear
listen for and observe birds. So every time I got
your important yeah, I'm like, I'm like Brett, who's my husband?
Like Brett, there's a cout Did you hear that? That
was a cout? Hey, there was a There's a tit?
Did you hear that tit? Hey, there was a houseparrow?
(02:55):
Did you hear that?
Speaker 2 (02:55):
They'll guide you. The birds will guide you if you listen.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
The birds will guide you, possibly into traffic. But the
point is it's really important to observe birds at the
expense of any other sort of.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
So we're on the same page there, and people have
been observing one particular bird near Lake here on Michigan.
People have spotted an uh orange owl. Orange owl just dropped, Yes,
new orange owl. New orange owl is So they have
(03:33):
spotted a snowy owl that people have named either Rusty
or Creamsicle. I kind of like creamsicle. Yeah, I'm sort
of on the I'm voting for creamsicle is the name?
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, Rusty is like, yeah, cute classic. There are probably
other birds named Rusty Creamsicle. Creamsicle is it original name?
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Also, if you see this bird, oh wait, I have
to yeah, I have to give you the images because like,
this is like a bright This is not just kind
of orange in the sense of.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
No, it's not a color.
Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, it's like a like how a fox is orange
or whatever, where it's like, it's a pretty decent foxes
are a decent orange. But it's like a natural looking orange.
This is bright, synthetic looking orange.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, it's like someone like a toddler started coloring it
with a cran and then forgot.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
Yep, that is but like precisely, precisely what it looks like,
like a toddler kind of spilled some cran juice. Cran
juice isn't a thing, but.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
The grand juice.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
That is kind of what it looks like.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Yeah, what a stunning bird, very beautiful. Yeah. Creamsicle. Yeah,
creamsicle is a name one hundred because it's also got
the white mixed in. It's not just as.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah yeah, no, it's it's one hundred percent of creamsicle. Uh,
perfect name. No notes on that this bird is a singular.
It's not that this is a new species. This is
a snowy owl, so this is known. And the the
fact that it looks like it's been stained with a
highlighter or dipped in sauce has been there's been multiple
(05:11):
photographs of it, so it's not like a photoshop hooks
or something of that nature. So it is definitely a
bird that exists who is orange, and we don't really
know why. So it's not like it's not like, oh yes,
oh yes, we know this is this owl has uh
(05:31):
orangeitis that.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
You know, are like a variety of snowy owl that
is orange.
Speaker 1 (05:39):
No, no, no, no no. Researchers are like, no, this
is not this is not normal, and so there have
been a variety of theories as to what is going on. Obviously,
someone could have possibly captured a snowy owl, dyed it
(05:59):
and then release it as a prank, which seems somewhat
unlikely in my opinion. I not I don't put it.
It's not it's not a good prank. It's not that
I don't put it past people. I you know, as
much as I love humanity, we got some stinkers, We
(06:20):
got some stinkers, and we got some perverts. So I
would believe a person would do this. It's that I
think it's that I doubt the person who would want
to die an owl orange would have the capacity to
do it. You know what I mean, like a pigeon,
Sure you can't. You can catch a pigeon. So like
people have caught pigeons and like done weird things to pigeons,
(06:42):
like glued little hats to their heads, which I disapprove of.
Don't do that. If a pigeon wants to wear a hat,
it'll wear a hat.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
You don't. If you glue it will find a hat. Yeah,
they're around enough trash, I'll find a hat.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
And honestly, like pigeon fashion is so far advanced from
human fact, like pigeons who wear bread around their necks
or bagels around their necks. Like, pigeon fashion is beyond us.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Yeah we're not ready for that runway walk.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
No, no, exactly, So leave the pigeons alone. But yeah,
like I would, I would believe this was a prank
if it was a pigeon because people are weird. But
a snowy owl, I don't see how someone would catch it.
I mean it's possible, but it just seems it seems
like an odd thing to do. Uh, it's not done
(07:33):
by researchers, right, because there are like bird conservation projects
and stuff, but there's nothing right.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
There are other ways to tag bird.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
There used to be I think, like a few decades ago,
there used to be some things where they would use
paint to track birds. But that was a long long
time ago. We don't do that anymore. It's banding birds now.
Radios or banding birds no longer using paint to track
migratory birds.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
So that's that's a lot of paints. I would imagine. Yeah,
I would imagine they just like kind of give a
stripe when they did it, not try to.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, they didn't dunk. They didn't dunk the bird into
sort of the that little package of seasoning that comes
in with Kraft.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Mad and cheese. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
So uh yeah, So various researchers have various theories. So
one is by Michigan State University bird coloration expert Kevin McGraw,
who thinks it's possible the owl has a mutation resulting
from environmental factors such as pollution. So that's theory number one,
(08:38):
that this bird is an orange mutant. Huh.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Sad for the reason, but cool turnout like that if
we get more orange owls, that's pretty cool, but you know,
for bad reasons ultimately net zero.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, I don't want the lesson to be let's let's
keep oranging our owls like.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
No, no, it's a net negative for sure, but cool.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
But that's that's a theory, right, that is not there
has been no evidence of that, other than the fact
there's an orange owl going around. Auburn University ornithologist Jeffrey
Hill believes it is not a mutation. He thinks that
it the pattern of coloration seems to be a die
that was applied. But again the question is why and
(09:31):
who and how and what?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah, what I mean? I like I people are weird,
they really are. So I'm being like, this is my bird,
and I want to know it's my bird. But owl
seem hard to.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Like.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
I I've had enough like trouble, trying to trama, housecats, nails.
I can't imagine trying to die an entire owl.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
I've often thought about how one would go about dying
an entire owl. I've given a lot of thought of it,
about it, a lot of thoughts to it. But I
would imagine be quite difficult. And owls are essentially the
cats of the sky. Yeah they don't, they really do.
They don't want to be dyed. Uh, And so it's
(10:24):
not like. It's not like an eery PoTA where the
owls are just gonna like fly around and deliver you
mail and let you do weird wizard stuff to it.
It's not gonna like that, and it's gonna use its
big clause on you.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yeah. Every time I've seen an owl at like a
zoo or some sort of bird.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Show, bird show isn't the word that you're looking for.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
But all right, yeah, but you know you know bird
with bird Yeah, bird show, bird shop.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
You're right, I apologize, I apologize. It is called bird show.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Bird show. This is bird show.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
Yeah. They do have the vibe of cats of like
gaze upon me, do not come near me?
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yes, but gaze, Yeah, you make gaze. The last theory
is the one that I believe in. This is the
explanation that really does it for me. Uh. A third
bird expert, doctor Scott Whedenschnall. Also he has the best name,
so I gotta go with him. He's the co founder
of Project Snowstorm, a snowy owl research group. He told
(11:35):
The New York Times New York Times is how do
you say that? New York Times is James Krugnall Knolly
New York Times is James Krignolly. The most likely explanation
is that it was the icing fluid at an airport,
since some formulations are that red orange color. Oh, I
(11:56):
think he. I think that's what happens. That feels them
right that like doesn't me.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
That that kind of feels like the Okham's razor. Uh.
The simplest answer is the best. Uh, this alog it's
got spilt on.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Right exactly, Like when I look at this al, I'm like, yeah,
that guy could have gotten blitzed with a diceer sprayer
and uh, also like it there's like kind of it
explains the kind of tied eye pattern, the pattern, right yeah.
And also like there there's like some white feathers above
the orange ones, and it's like, yeah, it could have
(12:33):
also molted some of the other feathers and so that's
why some of them look like pristine and other ones
are sort of like have this color spread on it.
So I think this, I think this guy got blested
with with plane juice. Oh no, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
I mean and that also his his his face in
the in the first one is like, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
I get me, Yeah, he's he's a this this is
a this is a bird that now has a vendetta
against planes, which does worry me. Yeah, yeah, I think
we should be concerned about that.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
We should watch out for this bird. If you're in
if you see creamsicle, you see creamsicle out your window
and you're flying it does it does seem like it
just takes one, you know these days, it just takes one.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Yeah, so yeah, Creamsicle. Creamsicles revenge hopefully won't happen, but yeah,
poor Creamsicle. Also, if you are in the Michigan Lake
here on area, uh, do not snitch on creamsicle. I can't.
I can't emphasize this enough. Don't be a snitch. If
(13:44):
you see creamsicle. Feel free to take a photo marvel
at creamsicles beauty and orange appearance, but do not post
online where you see creamsicle. If you take a photo
and you want to share it online, scrub it of
any I identifying information. Because people do not want this
(14:04):
owl to be harassed. This owl is like a bird celebrity.
It's like it's like bird Scarlet jo It's like bird
Scarlet Johansson. I think I saw recently this post about
like Scarlet Johansson doesn't like to take photos with fans
because she it's like kind of an invasion of her privacy.
And it's like, yeah, that completely makes sense, scargo. I'm
one hundred percent on her side. Like she's probably out
(14:27):
some stalkers, so she doesn't want photos taken. That makes sense.
Creamsicle is the Scarlet Johansson of owls.
Speaker 2 (14:34):
And and yeah it's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, like if you know where she is, No you don't,
No you don't, No you don't.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yeah, I yeah. I feel like owls are very you know, solitary,
and like their silence too. I'm sure they don't want
swarms of people around them. No, no, they aren't knowing them. Yeah,
and oh, you know, it's already been through so much.
It was so exciting to see an orange owl and
(15:04):
then I was like, oh, yeah, it got hit with plane.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
The good news that the good news is that the
sort of Michigan Wildlife Conservation group has said that the
owl appears to be in good health. So great, Creamsicle
seems fine. I keep saying the owl. We don't actually
know the owl sex Uh, I'm calling her her because
(15:27):
she's beautiful, but could could easily be a meal. But yeah,
so it's doesn't probably not, probably does not care. It's like,
is that mouse? Is that tasty mouse? No, don't care.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Yeah, so that's its priority.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Taste mouse, kill the mouse. No, all right, creamsicle seems
to be doing fine.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
That's good.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Probably got pribe, got blasted with the plain juice.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah. Oh, it's got a cool as as long as
it's healthy. It's got a cool it's got a cool die.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
It's gotta it's got you know, try something out. It's
got cool vibes. We saw her across the room and
we thought you had cool vibes. So but keep it
across the room. Don't harass this owl.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
Yeah, don't stry anymore playing juice on owls. That seems
not good.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
That's right. The airport, the local, the Michigan Airport refused
to comment on the story.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
So they're like, yeah, yeah, we know.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
Owl owl Tinder just dropped, bridget. I know you're like,
if you're worried about owls finding love, worry no longer.
Owl tinder is here, thank god. So Western burrowing owls
are literally the cutest owl in existence.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
They are those are are those? Well? No, not Western?
I was thinking of the hoot owls from the Carl
Hyason book. They were in Florida. Those are those are
that's deep Florida. Lord, that's a he's a Florida author. Okay,
there was a whole book called in a movie called
Hoot about burrowing owls.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah, well, burrowing owls are all gonna be cute though,
no matter where they are. These ones are Western burrowing
owls found in California, and they are adorable. They are
terrestrial owls, which means that I mean they can fly,
but they burrow. They spend their time in burrows. They
most spend most of their time on the ground hunting,
(17:18):
and they are I think the cutest owl in existence.
Sometimes they lie on their tom tums just to like
get that, like sunbathe. They're small owls. They're brown with
these big yellow eyes. They only weigh about five ounces.
They're truly a handheld owl.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Yeah, they're little, tiny birds.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
They're owl many and they're super cute. They have this
perpetual look of either shock, deep a fence, or plane stupidity.
Usually there's like a trio of them staring at the camera.
One of them looks angry, one of them looks shocked,
and the other one looks deeply stupid. I don't know
how they always manage to get the three three owls
(18:00):
in a band. Yeah formation I I will have pictures
of it in the show notes. But I highly recommend
just googling burrowing owls. They're very silly. Anyways, these little
dumb dumbs need our help finding love. Uh. This is
an article in Geo by Kate Ferby, which is the
(18:22):
perfect name name to be writing about the burrowing owls, which, yeah,
they are ferbie like they are ferbies, they're real furbies.
So apparently these owls are Their populations have been declining
in the San Francisco Bay Area, and one of the
problems with population decline, especially when it comes to urbanization
(18:45):
or suburbanization suburban crawl, is that you are kind of
making these genetic bottlenecks, and so genetic diversity goes down
in the overall health of the species declines. So owl
conservationists have created uh basically owl Love Island. So they
it's a it's a camp for owls where they go
(19:07):
as juveniles and it's to like they check on their health.
They ban them. They do like genetic tests and blood
tests and then like for the winter period because a
lot of the juveniles are it's still the population in
this area is still somewhat fragile. So they keep the
juveniles there over winter in this big bird sanctuary so
that they're they're grow up nice and healthy. And then
(19:31):
they play uh like match maker for these birds.
Speaker 2 (19:37):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
But they they do it by finding like the least
in bread match for them. So one of the problems
when you have a declining population is if the birds
mate with someone like their cousin, it's not great. Yeah,
So they're trying, they're trying to get these birds to stop,
uh stop doing incests, some doing in so they they
(20:00):
find they find a bird that's like very genetically distant
from the other bird, pair them up. And when they're
like when they are in adults and they are released
from bird love camp. Uh they uh just it's like
you will ask like, okay, how do you like have
birds get married? What do you mean like these you're
(20:21):
matching these birds like they're birds.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
What do you do?
Speaker 1 (20:25):
Yeah, you throw both of them in a hole.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
So yeah, that will do it.
Speaker 1 (20:32):
That'll do. So they they find burrows for these birds
because they they they like like they either make them
or find the burrow and they will take them the pair.
The match set that there's like you are this is this?
This match pair is the most genetically diverse birds. They're
the least related. You're not cousins, so congratulations. They stick
(20:52):
them in the hole, and the birds are like cool
with it, Like they they're just like okay, because again
at this point, the yeah, hey you're you live in
hole too.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
We have so much in common. Yeah, what else do
you need? This?
Speaker 1 (21:09):
Nice?
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
The you're the bird of my dreams. You're also in home.
I'm in hole. You're in hole.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
It's a nice hole. You want to stay in this hole?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Fore, yeah, let's just stay in hole together. So like
it seems to work because again because it's like uh
it is they're out in wild, in the wild at
this point, they can do whatever they want. But they're
pretty happy usually with this match. And they're not always
like one hundred percent monogamous, but they tend to be
like they might have like some breeding seasons where they
(21:38):
go and they like kind of get a hall pass.
They explore and explore a little bit. It's like an
open marriage. But like they they they.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
In hole for so long a hole Yeah, it's like
it's like like I met someone.
Speaker 1 (21:55):
I met someone today who also lives in hole. Right, crazy, right,
So yeah, they seem to be happy with the matches,
and apparently this is working like surprisingly well. By diversifying
their DNA. They this has resulted in their telomeres doubling
(22:17):
in length, which is really good news for the owl population. Again,
telomeres are sort of like, it's like this, on the
end of your your DNA, you have like this strand
of proteins that don't necessarily do anything, but it's kind
of like you know how I get on the end
of your zipper. You have that like long metal thingy
(22:37):
that like stops the zipper from just like coming off.
That's what a telomere is. Essentially, It's like a strand
of proteins that prevents the the things that like run
around run along the DNA, copying the DNA called like enzymes,
from basically messing up once it gets to the end
(22:59):
of it. And so the shorter the telomere, the more
uh basically the shorter the lifespan of the organism, because
then you start getting more more and more airs, chance
of cancer, chance of airs that is uh, incompatible with
staying alive and so longer telomeres are generally good for
an animal and uh so yeah, by this this bird
(23:21):
love Island is creating healthier birds by increasing the bird diversity.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Hey, it's working. Love Island never works. I love that.
It feels like summer camp for birds. Like it is.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I went to like a sleepway camp that was like
that felt like this of like find find your nice
little jewish boy. I went to what this owl camp is?
Speaker 1 (23:55):
I went to a science camp and uh it was, uh,
you know, nerds are very horny, so famous, surprisingly surprisingly
horny nerds. I was in the I was in the
computer science group, and uh yeah, like the I would say,
(24:15):
probably the probably the horniest group and the least likely
to do anything about it.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah. Yeah, they're the computer They're not quite on the
scale of band nerds. Yes, on the horny scale of.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
But band nerds like get pretty freaky with it.
Speaker 2 (24:37):
I feel like, yeah, yeah they're theater nerds are band
nerds on the other end, all those spit belts.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Anyways, Yes, I'm glad they're finding love owl tender is
working working really well for these burrowing owls, which is
it's great news.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
So just drop them in a hole with another owl,
and that rarely work.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
You just drop in. You just drop them in a
hole with another owl.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Which you know, if only love were that easy.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Only maybe maybe it could be, is what I'm saying.
Maybe maybe it could possibly be. Uh, that's what I
feel like. I went through with my my husband, like
we went through the pandemic together, and so it was
kind of like we were dropped in a hole together,
and it really I turned to him, I'm like, wait,
you're in hole too. We have so much in common.
(25:28):
I'm in hole, You're in hole.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
I'm in Yeah. I think my boyfriend and I came
out of the other side of the pandemic being like, oh,
we can be alone together for for three years in
not going outside. All right, this works, Yeah, this works,
It works works good. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
So that's a that's that's it's it's a good dating strategy. Yeah, invite,
invite the person that you like to a hole.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
So also, and also when you're this cute.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
Yeah, it's a little baby. Fun fact about baby burrowing owls.
They can hiss like a rattlesnake to ward off present.
So they just like a little angry.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Yeah, they're little. I feel like they don't have Yeah,
I feel like they don't have a lot of other defenses.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
One of their defenses is stomping snakes. Like if a
snake tries to get in the row to like get
the babies, they stomp on them.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Yeah. Yeah, they do. Got those sharp cloths they do.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Yeah, they're feisty. They're like little tiny kittens of the
of the the out the bird kittens, bird kiddies. Indeed,
last owl story. So, northern spotted owls are at the
center of a power struggle with the Trump administration. Weird, right,
(26:46):
resist didn't think I was gonna drop politics in this episode,
did Boom? Gotcha?
Speaker 2 (26:52):
Welcome to their resistance, Welcome to the owls.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Yeah, so, I you know, like this is not usually
a political podcast, but honest, like it has become completely
unavoidable because of all the stuff happening visa the environment.
Uh yeah, so yeah, it's everywhere.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Anyways, so Trump has invoked a god Squad panel, which
sounds great. H So this is basically it is a
panel that relates to the Endangered Species Act. It is
a group of high level officials who are trying to
override the Endangered Species Act like a bunch of Captain
(27:38):
Planet villains. Wow, yeah, sou So. The Endangered Species Act
includes a provision that allows for some of it to
be overridden if it is in the public interest. So
this means like, well, so it's supposed to be only
applied in very very specific, very rare circumstances. It is
(27:59):
that has rarely ever happened. Like once it happened because
there needed to be a dam on a body of
water and in order and that threatened the whooping crane.
So in order to do the dam, they had to
do all of these extra protections for the whooping crane
or to make up for the fact that they were
doing this dam. But they needed the dam for either
(28:23):
I don't know for yeah, for water water, thank you,
bridget that's the word I was looking for. Uh. And
so it's really not meant to be used very often,
but obviously uh in this case, like like the interpretation
of like in the public interest seems to be now
like Trump and his rich friends and like wat to
it exactly, and like the the the villains from Captain Planet,
(28:47):
whom I forget like doctor pollution or whatever.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, but it just doesn't like the look of it anymore.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Yeah, so uh the basically, yeah, so it should it
should not, it should not. This God Squad is called
the God Squad because the ideas like they have the
god h yeah, yeah, they have the power of life, death,
the blah blah blah, Jurassic Park, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
So cool, not ominous at all onto the significance of
the northern spotted owls.
Speaker 1 (29:18):
These little guys have this brown coloration and white spots
with cute, perpetually grumpy white eyebrow markings.
Speaker 2 (29:26):
Most owls do look grumpy, these ones. They are not surprised.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
These ones have the added benefit of having like like
sort of eyebrows, which make them increase the grumpiness. I'm
dropping this owl into the document right now.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Oh that's a grumpy Every animal should have distinctive eyebrows. Yes,
it makes them so readable. Yes, he looks grumpy, he
looks angry.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
He's very grumpy and angry. And what I like about
that is he's basically going no, you don't to do
yeah to the God squad that's trying to Yeah. So yeah.
In nineteen ninety two, the gods, the God Squad, tried
to allow logging despite threats to these Northern spotted owls,
(30:20):
and the government was sued by environmental groups who said
that the decision was based on politics rather than science,
and due to the litigation, the Bureau of Land Management
withdrew the logging request. So the Northern spotted owls, I
just imagine them in the courtroom like going like I
may not be a city city lawyer.
Speaker 2 (30:43):
You know. There is also like something to the markings
around its face that makes it look like a tough,
mean judge, whereas a powdered wig.
Speaker 1 (30:54):
Yes, I want I want these owls to be the
ones leading the process cution at the Hague.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah, yeah, no, they they have like you look at
those eyebrows and they are you're not you don't don't
with me, So I really do. You're not getting away
with it exactly.
Speaker 1 (31:13):
So I really do like these spotted owls as the
symbol of resistance to the attack on environmental protections.
Speaker 2 (31:26):
So yeah, following this owl into battle, for sure?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
I would. I would, Yes, I would follow this owl.
Probably he'd take me to a tree and then up
a kind of nugget of fur and mouse bones, and
I'd be like, yeah, you owl for this precious gift.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I had to dissect one of those.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Yeah, me too, and I like, I asked my teacher
if I could keep all the little mousebone parts and
she was like, yeah, you can. It's not just did
that you do but you can't? Was like, great, put
them in my lunch box. Yeah. My mom was like,
is their mouse bones in your lunchbox?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
You know? Yeah? That's that teacher. How to make a
make a call based on your vibe of like is
she doing this because she's interested.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Or because it was necromancy wants to murder? It was necromancy,
but the educationalency.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Yeah, yeah, the cool kind. So yeah, she had to
make a real vibe decision there on whether you could
keep the mouse bout.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
And she made the right decision. I grew up, Yeah
she did almost normal. So last little story here, Bridget
is about the real life Wild Robot. Did you see
that movie Wild Robot?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
I did? And oh I love that.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
It got me too. I love it so much. I
freaking love the movie. It's so good. It's scientifically questionable.
I don't know what the animals man are at the end.
All the animals get along on the island. I don't
know what they're eating, if not each other.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
But but you know, friendship, the power of friendship.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Friendship. Maybe they have a system where like the old
ones giddy.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I don't know, it's like a donner party, right, or
like I worked it out.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, or like Midsummer Midsummer where the old where the
old the old people get thrown off a cliff, but
in this case the old animals. Anyways, The Wild Robot
was a really adorable movie. I loved it. There's a
real life Wild Robot situation going on. The Chingolo is
(33:39):
a tiny South American sparrow with rusty coloration, uh which
its population is in decline, but which is a problem
because do the habitat loss and population decline, some of
the young chingolos are left without adult birds to tutor them, uh,
to teach them how to sing because younger yes, songbirds
(34:03):
aren't pre programmed with the songs. They actually learn them
from older birds. They're pre programmed with the ability to
learn the songs, but they actually have to learn them.
And so if there's too much habitat loss, not a
high enough population density of birds, they may not learn
the full song. So there's the complexity of this song
(34:24):
is starting to decay, and so researchers and conservationists got
together and created a bird tutor robot, which is basically
like it sounds like it's going to be a cute
like robotic bird, it's.
Speaker 2 (34:39):
More just it's like a speaker.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
It's more of a speaker. But the thing is it's
a fancy speaker because it's not just playing pre recorded
bird songs. They trained a model to learn how the
song used to be based on old recordings, on old notes,
so that they could create a very not just like
a kind of bad recording or something, but to create
(35:04):
a really clear song and one that they can like,
you know, add variations to that that existed in the
older song.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
And uh so they songwriters, okay.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
Ai, songwriters are are saving birds. I mean it is
it is. I think it is a a It's one
of the applications where it's like, this is what we
should be using, yes, exactly, uh a tool. Yes. So
it seems like some of the young birds are learning
from the song robots and have started incorporating the old
(35:43):
complexity of the songs into their song. So it does
seem to be working. And this is happening in the
in Buenos Aires in Peri aira Erolla Park. So just
you know a little bit of a little I like
to I like to judge up the end with a
little bit of good news there.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, that's that's sweet. One technology doing what it is
supposed to do, helping organic species. There we go.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
This is what Yeah, this is what we're supposed to
be doing with technology, but not laying off artists so
that we can have a movie posters with people with
like seventy five teeth, extra fingernails and like a nostril
in their eye.
Speaker 2 (36:29):
Bill, yeah, something with something off. Just yeah, teach the
birds music again exactly. Yeah, And I feel like this
is it's like baby Einstein for birds.
Speaker 1 (36:42):
It is.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
They're like, yeah that like reading comprehension is going down
in younger generations, same with birds, but they figured it out.
They're learning again.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
The implication is we could also be teaching these birds
Taylor Swift songs and be able to go to the rainforest.
Ye hear's some good dead poets society.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Right, So yeah, you know, you never you don't have
to listen to someone else hiking with a bluetooth speaker anymore. Yeah,
it's just the bird.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
Yeah, although I guess like if that happens enough, the
birds are gonna start learning whatever is on those awful
bluetooth speakers. Don't do that, folks. Yeah, not only is
it being for other hikers, it's also uh not great
for the birds. They don't it's going to confuse them.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, headphones, we don't want to and you don't not
ever snarr music. All right.
Speaker 1 (37:32):
Before we go, we got to play a quick little game.
This is called Gifts Who Squawk in the Mystery Animals
sound game. Every week we play a mystery animal sound
and you the listener, and you the guests, try to
guess who was making that sound. Last week that sound
hint was this This little baby does not want to
be hung out to dry. All right, Bridget did you
(37:55):
hear those those little plaintive cries?
Speaker 2 (37:59):
Yeah? Yeah, My guess is based off the clue, and
it is some sort of.
Speaker 1 (38:05):
Bat It's a It's a very good guess based on
my clue. But sadly I think I was a little
misleading with it. No, this is the call of an otter.
It's a baby otter. Sometimes baby otters are left by
their mothers to float. Often the mothers will kind of
(38:28):
entangle them with floating kelp so that they don't drift
away and they cry like this so their mothers know
where to find them, so they have it. So if
you ever hear like you're out on a boat out
on sea and then you hear a baby crying, I mean,
it could be a baby if you have one with you,
but it also could be a baby otter.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, oh god, I love otters so much. If I
could just hold one's little hand.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
I know, and they would probably they might, they might
hold your hand back. Uh yeah, so cute. Uh So
onto this week's uh mystery animal sound. Uh the hint
is this. Uh, I don't mean to bring religion into this,
(39:22):
all right, Bridge, you hear that weird sound that was?
Speaker 2 (39:26):
That was a wild one.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
And you got any guesses?
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Uh again, my my guesses will be very basic and
I'm gonna I'm gonna go wail.
Speaker 1 (39:40):
That's a very interesting guess and we will find out
next time on Creature Feature. She's correct, Richard, Thank you
so much for joining me today. Where can we? Where
can the people find you?
Speaker 2 (39:52):
You can find me on Instagram. Sarah and I my
my co host Small Beans Network post chef to our
Instagram bs podcasting and you can also find me personally
there at bridget Underscore Greenberg. Then you'll post what I'm
up to when things happened.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Do check that out. Bridget is delightful in all of
her works. And thank you guys so much for listening.
If if you're enjoying the show and you leave the
rating or review, that always helps me out and I
read all of them. And thanks to the space Cossics
for their super awesome song exce Aluminus Creature features a
production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts like the one you
just heard, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts. Are You Kiss?
(40:32):
For reculous your favorite shows. I'm not your mother, can't
tell you what to do. Don't harass Orange Owls though,
don't do it. Don't do it. See you next Wednesday.
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