Not a Stovepipe Laggard
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Not a Stovepipe Laggard
Today’s special animal friend is the Chimney Swift, Chaetura pelagica. They are found in the eastern United States during the breeding season and in northwestern South America during the winter. Chimney swifts have a cigar-shaped body about 5 inches long. Their wingspan is about 11 inches. They have tiny legs and are not able to perch on branches or other horizontal surfaces; instead, they cling to a vertical surface. They have spines on their tail feathers that help them attach to walls. Both sexes are dark gray-brown all over, with a lighter patch under the beak.
Before chimney-building people arrived in eastern North America, chimney swifts nested and roosted in hollow trees, sometimes using cavities excavated by woodpeckers. Chimneys are now their favorite sites, including industrial chimneys of plants that are no longer in operation and don’t have heat or smoke to disturb the birds. Chimney swifts are monogamous. Pairs return to the U.S. from their wintering grounds in March to May, depending on latitude. They build small, saucer-shaped nests from twigs and their own saliva and attach them to the vertical wall of a chimney.
They lay 3 to 5 eggs which hatch in about three weeks. In southern habitats, pairs can hatch two clutches per season.
Chimney swifts spend the entire day in the air, feeding on flying insects and spiders. (That is, spiders of the sort that use “silk ballooning” to disperse from their hatching site, like at the end of Charlotte’s Web.) They are among the fastest birds, achieving speeds of 60 mph. They can fly 500 miles during a day and over 1.2 million miles during a year. They hunt at altitudes up to 3,000 feet and can capture 12,000 insects in a day when they are feeding chicks.
Chimney swifts nest individually or in small numbers, but during their fall migration, thousands can roost at night in a single chimney. There are organized groups of Swifties who gather to watch and count them as they trickle into the chimney like a film of smoke run backward.
Chimney swifts are classified as Vulnerable by IUCN. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology suggests that chimney-building by Europeans in North America resulted in a greatly increased chimney swift population, while the decline in chimney use is causing the population to drop. There are also fewer tall, hollow trees, in many areas, than there once were. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state wildlife agencies offer guidance on building swift-friendly chimneys or faux chimneys – there are some of the latter in Mecklenburg County parks – and on swift-proofing your chimney if you would like to avoid avian guests.
Today’s special animal friend is the East African lowland honey bee, Apis mellifera scutellate. After learning about the honey badger and the honeyguide, we naturally wondered who was making the honey, and here’s the answer. A. m. scutellate is a subspecies of the Western or European honey bee, which is believed to have originated in Africa anyway. The African subspecies is slightly smaller than bees found in Europe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4fNyHQsOI0
Many differences between African and European honey bees can be explained by climate. Warmer and more stable temperatures in southern Africa mean that the bees don’t have to devote energy to staying warm. According to melittologists, this allows the African bees to produce honey more quickly and in greater volume than European bees do. They are also generally more active, responding to threats more quickly and with more workers, and a swarm can easily relocate itself in search of better habitat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vodfHmHNE_s
As we learned yesterday, several African groups have a culture of honey-hunting in cooperation with honeyguide birds. One of these groups is the Hadza, a hunter-gatherer tribe of Tanzania. Linguists believe the Hadza language is an isolate, which suggests that this non-Bantu people experienced thousands of years of largely untouched life. Their oral history supports a residence of, perhaps, 20,000 years in their territory near the Olduvai gorge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb_gwGsjoNM
Back to the bees, whose ability to fly is considered kind of anomalous. There are very complex discussions about the energy needs of flight vs. temperature vs. reproduction, but one point is that East African bees eat warmer, less viscous nectar because it can be gathered more quickly, allowing them to just do everything faster. They can see the temperature of flowers and choose the ones they can process more rapidly. Another trait of African bees is to collect more pollen than nectar, which seems to allow them to accelerate their life cycle.
A. m. scutellate is threatened in its far southern range by the Cape honey bee, A. m. capensis. Complicated genetic stuff allows the Cape honey bee to infiltrate scutellate colonies and take over, mucking everything up until the original colony have all died.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weq2BixujRI
East African honey bees were introduced to Brazil. They have spread northward, hybridizing with some other species. Readers my age may remember periodic flurries of media about Africanized or “killer bees.” Bee afraid! Bee very afraid!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7kKqgPEGs
Today's China experience involved going to the Hubei Corps Hospital of CAPF Medical Orthopaedic Beauty Speciality. Don't ask me what the name means; I don't know. It used to be called the Hubei Armed Police Hospital. The Armed Police are a branch of the PLA. It's the hospital where military and armed police go for care. There are lots of levels of police in China, most not armed, like England's Bobbies. The Armed Police are, uh...armed. They look like tactical squad guys. It's also where TCM and acupuncture is performed on folks that need Orthopaedic care. I'm old friends with Dr. Xu, my sinus is acting up, and he informed me he might be able to help.
The hospital is NOT where laowai, especially AMERICAN laowai, are expected. Lotta young PLA in camo gear, old guys still wearing their olive green overcoats with the ear flap commie hats sporting the red star....that sort of thing. Entering the lobby, all eyes turned, the usual expressionless stare of Chinese, but that is strange because Chinese have long developed the perfect peripheral vision stare because to be seen actually staring at someone breaks the 4th wall. Chinese are embarrassed if they see you catching them looking. I smiled and a small wave, it broke the ice. Folks acknowledged the wave, even the folks in camo gear. I was Dr. Xu's "guest", which made everyone extremely curious.
The usual tea and brief relationship mending after a long absence, I was shown to a curtained cubicle, in moments I was a pin cushion of needles in my hands, arms, legs and feet. Apparently, the problem isn't really in my sinus, it's the universal life force, Qi, that is disrupted because I was "too healthy" and therefore my system was running hot, manifested in a problem sinus. I don't ask questions, I nod and put the universal "I understand" look on my face and nodded approval.
Afterward, I took Dr. Xu, his assistants, and training students to lunch. Shown to a private room, very common in Chinese restaurants, and the obligatory 5 minutes of everyone jockeying position insisting that I take the seat of honor (always that seat furthest from and facing the door), we got down to a pretty good dinner, and eventually, extremely polite and timid "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure, of course. What?"
"We've heard that sometimes there is discrimination against Asians and Chinese in America. Is that true?"
"Yes, it is rare and isolated, but there have been instances of discrimination and sometimes physical assault. I am very embarrassed and sorry to tell you this is true."
Nodded silent acknowledgement.
"Show us your Chinese speaking."
Gesturing with a toast toward the two young women, I say "Ni hen piaoliang!" (You are very beautiful!) Wild excited laughter and tittering, covering their mouths... Can you imagine saying that in current America? It'd devolve in a second to Andrea Dworkin level verbal thrashing.
"We have heard that some Americans leave their air conditioning on, even when they are not in the house. Is this true?"
"Yes, most Americans leave the air conditioning on nonstop. All day, even if they aren't home. Some people leave the air conditioning on just for their pet dog."
Mildly wide eyed stare acknowledgement with a "wow" kind of facial expression.
"What about lights? Do Americans leave their lights on when they leave a room?"
"Yes, very common, although many people do turn off their lights."
"We see advertisements where people are driving boats around and they don't appear to be fishing. Do Americans just drive boats for entertainment?"
"Yes, boating is a major sporting activity. People just drive around drinking and having a good time."
"DRINKING AND DRIVING A BOAT?!?" The amazement was palpable.
"Yes, it is very common. Lots of drinking when boating." (It's true.)
"Don't the police arrest them?"
"It is very rare for there to even be police on the water. Even when they are present, they do not usually bother boaters unless someone is causing real trouble."
Amazed stares.
Finally...real timid... "What about Trump? Do like Donald Trump?"
"No, he's an idiot."
Big explosive laughs, camaraderie.
9 people, major good lunch, 8 dishes, hot coca cola with ginger for drinks... $80.
I'm going back, 3 times a week.