The Bird Can 39;t Fly 2007

[Nicandro Aaronson]

Butwhat were they doing in London in January? During the winter, they usually live in the middle of India, and in the summer they live in Kazakhstan or Mongolia. If you look at a map of the Earth, you can see the barrier between Kazakhstan and India is the Himalayan Mountain Range, the tallest in the world. Every year, millions of bar-headed geese migrate over the Himalayas and have been doing so for millions of years. They have been seen flying at 28,000 feet. They have flown over Mount Everest! How do they do that?

How did birds get such great lungs? They inherited them from dinosaurs. Birds are dinosaurs! When I was growing up in the 1940s, there was a category in biology called Aves, which meant birds. But scientists have now folded Aves into a category called Dinosauria, and those dinosauria, like pigeons and seagulls and geese, are flying all around us today. If you want to know what a dinosaur probably tasted like, eat some chicken!

So, dinosaurs had this super-efficient lung system, and they successfully strode the Earth as the dominant species, starting around 250 million years ago to about 65 million years ago, when a huge asteroid crashed into Mexico and most of them went extinct. Except for birds. But why did dinosaurs have this super lung system in the first place?

To answer that, we have to go way back, to when plants came out of the ocean onto land, about 450 million years ago. Earlier than that, plant life lived only in the ocean: The surface of the Earth was a desert.

So for many tens of millions of years, plants on land had to be happy sticking like moss to the surfaces of rocks. But they clearly resented this, and decided to form a committee to request an exemption from Mr. R&D.

PC: We want to do what we did in the ocean, which is absorb lots of sunlight, and the best way to do that is to have a long stalk, and then to have branches with leaves at the end of the branches and maximize our potential to absorb sunlight.

Eventually another tree would die and fall on top of the first, and then the same thing would happen again, and another and another, and it kept going like this for hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions of years. In the end, over 100 million years of dead trees and ferns and undigested lignin were deposited under the surface of the Earth. We call the time when most of this happened the Carboniferous (carbon-making) age.

But thanks to this Isaac Newton of a mushroom spore, they realized what they had to do. They had to give off a special chemical enzyme that dissolves the lignin and breaks it up into smaller pieces externally. And so they invented dry rot.

The decay process pulls oxygen out of the atmosphere and binds it to the hydrocarbons, releasing carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O) as a result. This is what happens when wood burns (very rapid oxidation), when we digest food (moderate oxidation), and when organic material decays (slow oxidation).

And, 5 million years later, which is the time it took to design this very complicated thing, Mr. R&D came up with a lung system with both an entry point and an exit point, with hollow bones and air-sacs to temporarily store oxygenated air. It was super-efficient compared to any previous lung system and made the best use of the limited oxygen. The animals that received this gift from Mr. R&D were the dinosaurs.

What can we do now about this problem? First, all of us need to recognize this really is a problem, and hope to convince people in powerful positions to do something about it. The difficult thing is that most old folks grew up thinking that oil, coal, and gas were great, and it is hard to teach old dogs new tricks. You are young and you can see the situation more clearly than older people can.

There are many good alternatives now to burning fossilized hydrocarbons. Windmills. Solar panels. Tidal power. Even some kinds of safe nuclear power like thorium reactors. Scientists are also working on inventions that can pull excess carbon dioxide right out of the atmosphere and turn it into limestone (to build things with: The Egyptian pyramids are made of limestone) or even turn it into fuel. But these inventions need to be scaled up quickly. They are sort of like where rockets were in the 1920s. But in 40 years men had ridden rockets to the moon!

Few things are more heartbreaking than encountering an injured, sick, or orphaned bird (adult or chick) or other wild animal. It is in our human nature to want to help, but how do we make sure we do more good than harm? Follow these important guidelines.

Adult songbirds can become injured and sick for a multitude of reasons. The most common reasons include getting attacked by house cats, being hit by cars, window strikes, bacterial and viral illnesses contracted at bird feeders, and many more.

If you find an injured bird, carefully put it in a cardboard box with a lid or a towel over the top, and place in a cool, safe place. Birds go into shock very easily when injured, and often die from the shock. If a bird has hit a window and is still alive, it may just need a little time to regain its senses, then may be able to fly away.

Do not try to force feed or give water to the bird. Take the bird outside and open the box every fifteen minutues to see if it is able to fly away. If it is still staying put after a few hours, you can try to find a local wildlife rehabilitator. Click here to locate a Wildlife Rehabilitator by county.

HATCHLINGS & NESTLINGS

Hatchlings and nestlings are very young birds that need to remain in the nest to survive.

Hatchlings are either featherless, have thin down, or have early stages of feather growth. Their eyes are closed for at least the first week or so after they hatch (varies with species). They are not able to make their own body heat and need to be kept warm by the mother bird.

Nestlings have the start of feathers over their bodies, often being fully feathered by 2 weeks of age (varies with species). They have the beginnings of flight feathers on their wings. They are more mobile in the nest but are not yet able to stand, hop, or walk. Sometimes older nestlings may fall out of the nest when they are wiggling around inside or beginning to perch.

If a hatchling or nestling is found on the ground, a licensed Wildlife Rehabilitator should be contacted. While you wait for further instruction, you can create a makeshift nest for the baby bird in a small Tupperware container or a similar round dish, completely lined with layers of toilet paper that prevent the baby from touching the container itself.

When many young birds first fledge and leave the nest, they may still have a little down with short tail and wing feathers. Fledglings, however, are often NOT in need of human's help when found on the ground.

Did you know that many songbird species learn how to fly from the ground? They have left the nest and are able to sit upright, perch, and can hop or even flutter in short bursts. The baby appears to be alone on the ground, but the parent birds remain nearby in the trees and come down regularly to feed the baby, anywhere from several times an hour to every 1 or 2 hours. The baby will often hide itself in the grass or by low bushes for protection. This situation is completely normal for many songbirds and there is likely no need to interfere.

As a state office of the National Audubon Society, our mission is to protect birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow.The National Audubon Society is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization. Our federal tax ID number is 13-1624102.

I had added EB after purchasing my flight. I did receive a receipt/confirmation of the purchase. I thought that the system would then check me in before the 24-hour window automatically, however, I wasn't. I just manually checked in to make sure I was!

This constantly confuses people and I wish Southwest would revise the wording. When you purchase EarlyBird Check-In you are automatically assigned a boarding position 36 hours before departure. You cannot see it yet, but it's assigned. Starting at 24 hours prior to departure you can complete the check-in process. While the process looks exactly the same and doesn't seem any different with EarlyBird Check-In, your boarding position was preassigned and that's the position that appears when you complete the check-in process. This means that you can complete the check-in process 24 hours prior or 24 minutes prior to departure and you will receive the boarding position you were assigned 36 hours prior to departure. Just make sure you check-in no later than 10 minutes prior to departure.

--TheMiddleSeat

Did this or any other comment in the thread answer your question? Please take a moment and click the "Accept as Solution" button on the comments you found most helpful, this will be a big help to any future Community Members who have a similar question!

Also wanted to add you will know that EB was on your ticket by looking at your boarding pass when you check in (starting at the 24 hour mark) it usually says early bird check in on a printed boarding pass as well as on the computer when checking in.

However, you still have to wait until 24 hours or less prior to the flight to "retrieve" your boarding pass. You can do it anytime between 24 hours and up until you arrive at the airport and need it for security, prior to the scheduled departure.

Young fledglings tend to place all their hope in remaining unseen. Two young American Robins I encountered recently remained motionless even when I stuck a camera lens within inches of them, stoically hoping that I would believe that they were statues and go away.

All of that is a lot for a young bird to handle. But there is one thing that can make it all easier: parental care. Parents feed fledglings and show them where to find food on their own; they warn of and even attack predators, and guide fledglings to safe places. An extra week of parental care can halve the mortality rate for fledglings.

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