Where You Least Expect Them

After a protracted struggle (it actually snowed on St. Patrick’s Day at my house!) Spring seems to be gaining the upper hand around Seattle.  The last few days have been wonderful – and I’ve gone on two long walks with my dogs this week.  Good to be out and about again.  If you go back and look at my posts from last year, you might see that I was quite enthusiastic about the prospects of winter birding.  Unfortunately, it didn’t live up to its promise – not because nature wasn’t cooperating, but because I got wrapped up in other things and let the winter pass without enough observation.  Those “other things” – including an emotionally demanding writing project, ending one business and planning another – were all important.  But I disappointed myself with my unwillingness to brave the cold and dark in search of birds.

Anna's Hummingbird

The one bright spot throughout the winter was my hummingbird feeder.  The Anna’s not only stayed all winter (through snow and storm) but there were more of them here than I’ve ever seen.  One combative little guy staked out our tree and yard as his territory and defended them bravely, but that didn’t stop others from making a run at the feeder whenever they could.

A couple of days ago, I was out on my porch with my roommate and the dogs, enjoying the novelty of sun, when I noticed a hummingbird on the feeder.  It was one of those sights that have become so common I almost passed over it.  But something didn’t seem right.  

My roommate saw it too.  “That doesn’t look like the same hummingbird,” he said.  

This hummingbird – obviously a male – was smaller, and his coloring wasn’t quite right.  I ran inside to get my camera, but by the time I got back he was gone.  I’m pretty sure he was the first Rufous Hummingbird of the new season, back just a little early from his winter in Mexico.  I will be watching for him now, and hoping to get photos.

“Look for surprises among what you take for granted” seems to be the theme so far this year.  There is no more ubiquitous bird in my neighborhood than the Black-Capped Chickadee.  I see them all the time, and as much as I love them, it’s easy sometimes to almost stop seeing them.  When I have the camera, I often think, “One more photo of a chickadee – you have thousands.”  Which is true, I do.  Still, I’ve found surprises hiding among the chickadees before.  A couple of years ago, I found Nuthatches in the chickadee flock in my yard.  So when I started seeing flashes of brown I thought that’s what it must be.

But it wasn’t.

Chestnut-Backed Chickadee

A friend who was visiting watched the feeders with me for a few minutes.  I mentioned the brown interlopers and suggested there might be nuthatches in the flock again.  He wasn’t convinced.

“Those are definitely chickadees,” he said.

Chestnut-Backed Chickadee

He was right.  The next day I started to get photos, and they were definitely chickadees.  Just not Black-Capped Chickadees.  For some reason I had the idea that Chestnut-Backed Chickadees were usually found only in the woods, not around neighborhoods or urban parks.  I was wrong about that.  I asked my naturalist friend and he assured me it was quite common for them to form mixed flocks with Black-Capped cousins in the spring and early summer.  But I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen them in my yard before.  

Pine Siskin

 The same holds true for the Pine Siskins I wrote about in an earlier post.  I’ve seen them around Seattle, but they’ve never been common in my neighborhood – until this year, when they’re everywhere.  Change, it would seem, is in the air.

Pine Siskins

So, encouraged by the new discoveries, I spent a little more time on the deck this past week, and snapped a lot of photos.  I found some familiar, but entertaining fellows – like this puffed up House Sparrow, and a much shier Song Sparrow.  But once again, it was a case of finding the unexpected among the most familiar.  When I looked through my sparrow photos, I found this.

Do you know who this is?

I had to get help with this ID, but if you said “Gold-Crowned Sparrow”, you’re right.  It’s a juvenile, born last year and almost ready to molt into his full adult plumage.  There’s no chance at all that I would have spotted him with my naked eye.  

So far this year, I’ve added four species to the yard list (Gold-Crowned Sparrow, Pine Siskin, Chestnut-Backed Chickadees, and Cooper’s Hawk) and three to my lifetime list (Snow Goose, Chestnut-Backed Chickadees and Gold-Crowned Sparrow).  

Not a bad start at all.

(And I’ll get back to that hawk very soon.) 

 ###

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

(Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

Accepting the Birds that Come

It is currently 39 degrees and sunny in Seattle, but I'm sitting here at my desk in a heavy coat because my dogs want to have access to the front deck.  Sigh.

Long ago, when I was an art student, studying drawing and photography, I learned a valuable lesson:  don't wait for the perfect subject, draw what's in front of you.  It seems like an easy principle to master, but it turns out it's one of those things you have to learn over and over again.

Starling and Sparrow, familiar visitors, in an uncommon mutual pose.

Take birds, for example.  As a birdwatcher, and as a photographer, I am always hoping for the next big, unexpected find.  For some rare (or at least previously unseen) bird to fly onto my yard list, or alight on the bushes at the dog park.  Of course, the definition of "rare" means that it's something which very seldom happens.  So the artist who waits for "rare" subjects -- unless he takes off for Tahiti like Gauguin -- may have a long wait.  (I couldn't come up with Paul Gauguin's name to save my life just now, so I Googled "Tahiti Artist" and it was the first hit -- I love the Internet.)  There are days when I take my camera outside and I think, "Nothing here but more chickadees, Juncos and pigeons.  I have thousands of pictures of them, why do I need more?"

Beautiful rich colors make this Junco stand out.

The answer is, "I don't."   But I need to take more pictures of them.  It's not the end product, it's the process.  That may sound like a cliche, but it's true.  Most basically, because it keeps your skills and your eye sharp -- the way practicing scales keeps a musicians hands limber and ears tuned.  But it's also true for a couple of other reasons (that I know how to articulate).

First, is receptivity.  As an artist -- photographer, writer or birdwatcher -- receptivity is one of the most important traits you can possess.  (Reactivity is another, but I'll write about that some other day.)  You could compare it to the chemical nature of film (remember film?  If you're too young, Google it).  The chemicals on the film are sensitive to light and they react in its presence, creating an image.  Similarly, the artist has to be available to the "light" of the world around him, has to let it in and let it change him.  The inner film develops these images, stores them, and they become the raw material out of with art is created.  Standing on my deck, with my camera, I am at my best when I can cultivate a state of open receptivity.  If I was religious I could phrase it as, "Not my will, but yours be done."  In other words, I will accept what comes. I'll photograph what's in front of me instead of complaining that I don't get anything "new".  Out of that openness comes possibility, the chance for something unexpected and creative to occur.  Without that openness, nothing is possible.

A distinctive mostly white Pigeon surveys the deck.

I love pigeons!

Henry James -- not usually one of my favorite writing mentors, but you really can't escape his influence -- advised us to strive to be someone on whom nothing is lost.  The emphasis on striving (James said, "try" but it's the same point) is important.  It's a goal we can't reach.  Still, it's crucial.  As soon as I begin thinking, "Oh, they're just chickadees, just pigeons, I've seen them a thousand times before," then the doors of my perception are closed.  The world is being lost on me.  The chickadees that I see today may or may not be the actual birds I've seen before -- it's very difficult to tell.  (Actually, sonograms of the songs of individual birds can help you identify whether the particular birds in your yard are the ones you've seen before -- another topic to get into later.)  With pigeons it's a little easier.  I saw four pigeons on my deck yesterday and, because I forced myself for a moment to put down all the things I was worrying about and everything I "should" be doing, I got some really great photos of them.  Two of them I knew and two were really striking, mostly white birds that I'm not sure I've seen before.  I love pigeons, but familiarity can blunt even our greatest passions.  Only openness and receptivity -- being the present moment without any certainties -- can reignite that love.  My pigeons reminded me of that.

Like the Four Stooges having lunch.

And ultimately, the birds that I see today are not the birds that I've seen before -- and I am not the person who saw them.  A photographer knows that from moment to moment the light moves and the image changes.  The photographer changes too.  No amount of clinging to my opinions or preferences will prevent that.  Tomorrow, the birds will be different and I will be different.  The tree will have a few less leaves, the monster dog on the deck beside me will be a little bigger, and the light will keep moving.

And the pigeons will have something new to say.

 ###

 I've been a little busy this month doing NaNoWriMo and other writing related activities.  So far, it's been a pretty good year for writing.  If you're interested, you can check out some of my other work.  Starting with our sister Blog, Books and Beasts.  Also, the Seattle Mariners Blog, Sodo Mojo has been hosting my posts every Sunday morning for a couple of months.  You can check out some of my pieces (and the great baseball analysis of the rest of the site's writers) here. 

Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

Anna's Hummingbird

[Today's post marks something new from Birdland West.  I want, from time to time, to post experiments in fictional technique, short stories or sketches that attempt to bring more of the non-human world into fictional forms.  At this moment, this all experiment and feeling my way forward in the dark.  I hope that readers will offer feedback and ideas in response.]

The hummingbird hung motionless, except for its furious wings, above the feeder.  The red plastic -- a human would have called it red -- glowed like a beacon in the bird's vision, reflecting parts of the spectrum no mammal could see.  Light glinted off the bird's feathers which broke it apart like millions of tiny prisms, throwing flashes of green and red.  (Again, green and red as humans would see them -- with their primate color vision, recently recovered in evolutionary time, and so limited as compared to the bird's).  The hummingbird poised above the feeder.

Almost no one noticed.  The writer -- who lived in the house attached to the yard where the feeder hung -- was uncommonly aware of the sounds of the bird's presence -- the high pitched, fast sound, like a telegraph key -- but the weather was growing cold and the doors and windows of his house were shut.  Besides, he was preoccupied with work (or with the distractions that kept him from working).  And he was thinking about a young woman he had recently become interested in and what seemed like the impossibility that she could be interested in (old, fat, unsuccessful) him.  He didn't hear the hummingbird's approach or sense it hovering over the feeder in the bush at the front of the yard.

Across the street, a woman had just come out of her split-level home, carrying her son in her arms.  He had just turned a year old and was large for his age, with a thick tassel of very dark hair and dark eyes.  His mother looked as if she could barely hold him.  She was from China, but spoke English with only the barest trace of an accent, having lived in Europe for years before the US.  The writer, who was probably old enough to be her father, thought she was beautiful.  Her son was moody, and sometimes when he cried she would bring him across the street to the sidewalk outside the writer's house to look at the writer's dogs -- especially the huge St. Bernard mix puppy who liked to hang out on the front deck in all kinds of weather.  He was oblivious to cold or rain or snow.  Children loved him, with his goofy face and harlequin colors.  He would stand up on his hand legs and put his paws on the rail and the little boy's fussing would turn to laughter.  He would point and laugh.  The funny dog was too big and rambunctious to play with small children though.  Ironically it was the older dog, a female pit bull two thirds the size of the clown dog -- the type of dog that some people crossed the street to avoid -- who was really good with children.  She understood that they were like puppies.

The little girl who lived three houses down also loved the dogs.  She was a few months older than the boy, much smaller, but already walking.  Running.  Her mother -- tall, slim and unselfconsciously lovely -- was always chasing her up and down the sidewalk.  They were a Mormon family, the mother and father had met at Brigham Young University, moved here because of his work, and were renting a house on the block until they could find one of their own to buy.  The little girl was fearless.  She would run down the sidewalk, and back down the stairs into people's yards.  Once, she had started climbing the steps to the writer's deck with the clown-dog, who outweighed her by three times or more -- at the top of the stairs, behind the gate barking.  Whenever she saw the dogs she would point and squeal.  Her mother believed her first word had been "dog".

But today the sky was gray and the mood was drizzly.  The writer's door was closed and the dog's were inside.  The mother, struggling with her son's weight, sighed and headed off down the sidewalk, hoping a little more walking would ease his mood.

She didn't see the hummingbird.

In the cherry tree, which grew in a neighbor's yard but overhung the writer's yard, chickadees were queuing up to take their turn at the brass feeder which swung from one of the lower branches.  They leapt from branch to branch, their sharp black and white markings standing out when they landed in the light.  Chicka-dee-dee.   Chicka-dee-dee. Their call had a wheezy sound and the writer often whistled, absently, a rough approximation of the tune.  Nothing any chickadee would recognize.  The little birds seemed almost fearless, and they would sit on the feeder and look into the eyes of a person standing on the stairs only a few feet away.  They could, with a little patience, have been coaxed into eating out of the writer's hand.  They would even scavenge seed off the boards of the deck while the clown dog lay close by, watching.  They were smart enough not to try that with the older dog.

Suddenly, a young grey squirrel raced up the trunk and out along one of the branches.  Chickadees, startled by the sudden movement, dived upwards into the air.  The squirrel leapt heavily off the swaying branch and landed on the rail of the porch, where seed had been scattered (by the writer) for the pigeons and other birds, like the Juncos who preferred to eat off the ground or rail instead of a feeder.  Just as often, though, it was the squirrels who ate it, or one of the rats that lived in burrows underneath the fence.

Inside the house, the clown-dog, whose hearing was acute, jumped on the couch beneath the window and bayed.  The blinds were down, so he couldn't see out, but his eyesight was not so good anyway.  His ears never failed.  The older dog's head bobbed up out of sleep at the sound of the baying.  She jumped up on the couch beside him.  Even with her front feet on the back of the couch, standing nearly erect, she wasn't as tall as the clown dog sitting on his rump.  Her three short, hoarse barks counterpointed his bay.

On the rail, the squirrel pivoted, changed directions almost as if he had turned himself inside out.  His busy tail sprang upward and he reversed his leap, catching the thin branch -- which dipped precariously under his weight -- and hugging it with all four paws.  He flowed rapidly along the branch and down the trunk, disappearing into the neighbor's yard.

After a moment the dogs fell silent, but the clown-dog kept his ears cocked.  Somewhere down the block, the little boy was crying.

The hummingbird, all but unseen, alighted on the perch of the feeder and drank.

###

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

I have also begun writing regular Sunday morning posts for SoDo Mojo, a Seattle Mariner's blog.  Check out my most recent post, Change of Season.

 Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

Where to from Here?

It's been about six months since I started this blog -- it seems so much longer.  Spring (which never really got on its feet this year) was just "heating up" back then.  There were Flickers and Starlings on my suet feeder, the hummingbirds had braved the snows in my yard, and the rats were foraging under the fence.  Six months later the rats are still there, the Starlings are re-forming their winter flocks after the breeding season (there were two in my backyard this morning making such an incredible variety of sounds it seemed like a huge mixed flock), and the hummingbirds are coming back.  Most people have hummingbirds in the summer who leave in the fall.  Around here, it's been different.  The hummingbirds left for the summer (because there were so many other food sources, I guess) and now that the weather has begun to cool a little and most of the flowers are gone, they're coming back.  This past week I've seen almost constant hummingbird activity.  They're so vocal (a lot of hummingbird sounds are not actually vocal, they're made by wings and tail) I can hear them from inside the house.  There have been at least two here regularly, a young female and an older female.  I'm on the lookout for more.

Zeke's first day home.

When I started the blog I did it for a number of reasons -- the most important of which are spelled out on my "About" page.  It was pretty dark time in my life, I had gone through the deaths of my mother and my canine companion Roscoe, and through it all it was bird watching and observing wildlife that really got me through.  Since I started, some things have changed-- for instance, my "puppy" Zeke now weighs close to 120 pounds -- and some things haven't.  Bird watching is still very important to me.

Zeke today.

It's been a pretty good year for my writing in general.  Both this blog and its companion, Books and Beasts, have been pretty well received.  I had an article about Roscoe published by Whole Life Times.  I've done a couple of guest posts for 10000 Birds. (Consider the Chickadee and Crazy Flickers). I may soon be doing a regular post for SodoMojo, a blog which covers the Seattle Mariners.  And my Klout Score (if anyone can explain to me how that thing really works, I'd love to hear it) is hovering somewhere around 47, give or take.  Not bad, all things considered.  It's a far cry from making a living as a writer, but I'm having fun.

Meanwhile, I keep thinking about what I want to do with these blogs.  Between them, they take up a fair amount of my time now, and I want to keep them as fresh an interesting to the readers as I can.  Without losing what's good about them so far -- I have some ideas that I am hoping to try out in the months to come.

The first of these involves my puppy Zeke.  I will soon be doing a review for Books and Beasts of Mary R. Burch's book Citizen Canine, about training for the Canine Good Citizen test.  Following that review, Zeke and I are going to undertake a regular training regimen with the goal of his passing the test at next year's Paws Walk.  And my intention is to document that training here -- with regular updates, and even videos of his progress.  I'll tell you a lot more about it in the near future, but if you think this would be an interesting addition to this blog, I'd love to hear from you.  (And if you don't, I'll still be glad for the feedback.)

The second thing is fiction.  I've written a little here, and a lot more at Books and Beasts, about point of view in fiction, and how incorporating the consciousness of other species might effect that.  I've also been working on that problem more practically in my own fiction, and what I hope to do is share some of that work with my readers from time to time.  I'm thinking of having a semi-regular short fiction post in addition to the regular contents of the blog.  Again, I'd appreciate any thoughts readers have on this idea.

Meanwhile, I'll keep doing what I'm doing, keeping you informed on what's going on with the birds and wildlife in this tiny corner of the world.  I hope it makes interesting reading.

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

 Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

A Busy Day at the Bird Feeders

Yesterday, in the afternoon, the sun came out unexpectedly after a cold, rainy weekend.  The yard was glistening in a way that I usually associate more with spring than late-summer-fading-into-Autumn.  But then, we didn't get much spring in Seattle this year, so I'll take it.

Black-Capped Chickadee with his prize, perched in cherry tree.

Waiting his turn.

I don't know if it was the sunshine, the cooler, crisper temperatures or just a coincidence, but suddenly the yard was alive with birds.  Chickadees, who are always around, were out in force.  They queue up in the cherry tree and wait their turn at the feeder -- it seems to be a chickadee rule that only one bird can use the feeder at time.  Sparrows and finches and Juncos are glad to double up, but chickadees wait their turn.  Usually, the next chickadee waits on the branch above the feeder until the one who is there leaves.  They never take very long, picking out the seed they want and flying back up into the tree with it.  Every once in a while a chickadee approaches the feeder and realizes at the last minute that there's someone already there, then pulls up in a whuff of wings and lands in the tree.  But they never seem to squabble the way sparrows and other birds do.  It's all very orderly and efficient.

I wasn't the only one watching the chickadees yesterday.  Another familiar visitor was out and about.  I'm pretty sure that this is the same young House Finch that I photographed (and blogged about) earlier this summer.   

 

He's looking much more adult now, but he still has a tentative, uncertain air.  I didn't ever see him use the feeder, but he did sit on the chickadees' queue branch and watch them for quite awhile.  It seemed like he was observing their use of the feeder. 

 I also saw another return guest.  This Bewick's Wren was foraging in the Morning Glory vines along the fence.  I haven't seen a BW in months.

 And, the young Anna's Hummingbird that I've seen and reported on a couple of times recently was back.   In fact, I could hear her periodically throughout the day -- a rapid chirp sound like a high-pitched telegraph key -- but it wasn't until late in the afternoon (when the light was fading) that I managed to get some shots of her.

So, counting the crows who were foraging on the sidewalk and the House Sparrow at the feeder -- not counting the Starlings I could hear in the back yard or the pigeons who I didn't see until evening -- that's five species that I counted standing on my deck, without even really trying hard.  None of them were new or unusual, but it was still pretty exciting.

And just to top things off, today I was drawn outside again by the Anna's Hummingbird sound, only to find a totally different bird at the feeder.  This one, as you can see, is quite a bit larger and clearly full grown.

 If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

 Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)

Game Show Pigeons and Ball Playing Dogs

You have to bear with me for a second, but this will get around to birds, I promise.

Timmy, my resident "special needs" pigeon.

Over at Sciencewriter.org (possibly the coolest domain name ever), Davide Castelvecchi, who is a physical sciences and mathematics editor at Scientific American, has been stirring up controversy recently by revisiting what's known as "The Monty Hall Problem".  If you're not familiar with it -- where have you been?  It's been discussed over the years everywhere from hard science magazines to Car Talk.  It's derived from the problem that Monty Hall often presented to contestants on Let's Make A Deal.  You have three curtains.  Behind one of them is a car, and behind each of the other two is a worthless gag gift (like a donkey).  (I know, I know -- who says a donkey is worthless?  But that's not the point of the problem).  You have to pick one of the curtains.  Let's say you choose number One.  After you make your choice, Monty reveals what's behind one of the other curtains, and the one he reveals is always a donkey.  Let's say Monty opens number Two. Then, he offers you a choice.  Do you want to keep the curtain you chose, or do you want to trade?

Monty's problem (not my photo, obviously).

For most of us, our intuitive guess is that it doesn't matter.  We had a one in three chance of picking right the first time and that hasn't changed.  Or, conversely, since there are now two unopened curtains, we have a fifty-fifty chance.  Either way, switching can't increase our odds.

It turns out though, that isn't true. Statistically you are always better off switching.  In fact it almost doubles your chances. I'm not good with this sort of math so I'll just refer you over to those who are -- and if you want to argue about it (as a lot of people do, judging by the comments section) you can argue with them.  Proving the solution isn't really my point here. (Check it out here.)

The reason this came up again at Scientific American, though, is because of an article they published back in January of this year.  John Allen Paulos, a mathematician at Temple University, noted that pigeons didn't seem to have the same difficulty with the Monty Hall Problem that humans do.  On the contrary, pigeons (being good empiricists, as Paulos says) learn the best strategy after only a few tries.  (You can see the article here.)

A few years ago another scientist -- Tim Pennings, a Professor at Hope College in Michigan -- was playing fetch with his dog, throwing a tennis ball into the water for the dog to retrieve.  The dog, Elvis, would run along the shore and at some point plunge into the water toward the ball.  What Pennings found was that, in most cases, Elvis was choosing a path that closely approximated the optimal path (the path with the shortest travel time) to the ball.  The path can be worked out using fairly complicated calculus equation -- but Elvis seemed to be doing it "in his head" and "on the fly". (Again, I'm not going to try to explain the math -- you can look into it more here if you're interested.)

Precision landings almost every time.

These kind of remarkable abilities are everywhere in nature.  The small songbirds in my yard routinely land on the thin perches of a bird feeder that is swaying in the wind -- and they do so coming from across the yard, setting their trajectory as they approach. Only a couple of times have I ever seen a bird have to pull up and come at it again.  Squirrels leap from the rail of my deck to the cherry tree nearby, and catch the thin branches, which again are often swaying in the wind.  Birds also fly through the cherry tree despite its dense branches and (at this time of year) leaves.  They can fly straight through and out the other side.  Imagine trying to write a computer program to pilot something the size of a chickadee through such a complex space, complicated more by ever changing light conditions, wind turbulence, and so on.  The amount of calculation that it requires is staggering.

The catch looks easy, but try writing a program to do it.

But let's not leave humans out.  Ichiro Suzuki does the same thing nearly every day.  When an outfielder hears the crack of the ball leaving the bat and starts to run, he has time for almost no conscious thought about where it's going or how to get there.  Again, it's a complex mathematical problem solved on the fly -- timing his leap to catch the ball just before it goes over the wall.  And I've seen dogs playing with Frisbees or tennis balls who were as good as any major leaguer.

The greatest ball player I've ever known.

Paulos warns against the mistake of thinking that these abilities reflect some kind of conscious knowledge on the part of animals.  Of course, they don't.  They represent the problem solving ability wired into brains over billions of years of evolution.  (And in the case of dogs -- and to some degree pigeons -- of tens of thousands of years of intense breeding).  Corgis, for instance, are herding dogs, whose job was to keep livestock moving in one direction.  The ability to foresee the movements of a sheep and set your own course to intercept it effectively is not all that different from what Elvis was demonstrating on the beach.  

If you want to drive the unconscious nature of these faculties home, I invite you to walk into a room sometime and ask if anyone there is good at calculus.  When almost everyone predictably says no, toss a tennis ball to one of them.  Almost certainly, they will catch it, and when they do you can show them (with the help of a mathematician friend, if you're like me) the equation that describes what they just did.  We're all better at math than we think.

The furor over the Monty Hall problem does show, however, that for us humans our conscious thinking sometimes gets in the way.  I learned this a long time ago in art school.  One of the reasons why it's so hard for many people to learn to draw is because what we "know" about objects (say the size and form of a table) gets in the way of what we actually see before us.  Most people asked to draw a table will draw an abstract representation of a table instead of the object they see before them, which is skewed by perspective and point of view and really looks nothing like our idealized notion of "table".

 Oh, and I wanted to get back to pigeons.  More on that very soon.

If you like Birdland West, you might also want to check out our sister blog Books and Beasts, which focuses on reviews of books about animals and related topics.

(Many of the original photographs featured on Birdland West are available for sale as art quality prints.  You can check out all of our offerings at http://AlexWashoe.imagekind.com.  If you see an image here that does not show up on our Imagekind site please contact me directly and I'll let you know about availability.)