Bird Scobe | Frank Scoblete

The Fastest Things on Wings

Hummingbirds are indeed “the fastest things on wings” and although the peregrine falcon can descend to earth at 200 miles an hour, the hummingbird can fly its body length over and over again far faster than can the peregrine. The hummingbird’s wings can beat at 60 to 80 times a second, and some hummingbirds in South America can beat up to 120 times per second.

Still, hummingbirds living in cities and suburban enclaves—though they are accustomed to human beings, with individuals so friendly they can be fed by hand— these tiny birds, some almost as small as a large bee, some somewhat larger than that, face extraordinary dangers. Among such perils are hitting skyscraper windows, blasting into cars, buses and trucks, getting stuck in air conditioning systems, on fire trucks, hitting objects, products and mannequins in stores, falling to earth in exhaustion (sexual torpor) after mating and even in one case getting hit by a golf ball in mid-air.

“Everybody cries about hummingbirds,” states hummingbird rehabber Terry Masear, author of the fascinating book The Fastest Things on Wings. In her experience, bikers, goths, salespeople, laborers, CEOs, grounds keepers, tree cutters, professional and amateur athletes, along with some ludicrously rich Hollywood actors, directors and producers, all tremble in the light of a hummingbird’s approaching demise. They seek Terry out at all hours of the day and night to get the necessary help for the little bird they wish saved. In a single year she will get close to 5,000 calls!

Terry Masear cares for injured hummingbirds in Los Angeles. During the hummingbird season, late April through the summer months, she will save over a thousand birds with her step-by-step rehabilitation techniques. Sadly some will die. These are not casual deaths as Terry, despite her attempts at being “cold-blooded,” often mourns them. Life is precious, even the tiny life of a hummingbird. A tiny life is still big.

As we are learning now, individual birds within a species are not all alike; just as we humans differ from one another, each hummingbird has his or her own personality. Terry recounts instances where hummingbirds react in radically different ways to her rehabilitation techniques. Some are docile, some inquisitive, and some look to mate—even in rehabilitation. Terry states that male hummingbirds are quite horny. I guess that’s the way of the world when it comes to males.

A small percentage of hummingbirds, again predominantly males, are nasty. She recounts one such monster that attacked almost every bird in her aviary. This beast would nail the other birds with his bill, trample them when they were feeding on the ground, and bully them almost non-stop even in the early evenings when hummingbirds typically grow quiescent. In fact, one of Terry’s rehab friends said that such intensely aggressive hummingbirds—were they human—should be shot! Terry does not waste much of her time with such cruel beasts; she lets them meet their fate rather than risk the lives of the other birds.

The book is fascinating, well written and hard to put down. Masear has done a wonderful job!

Frank’s books are available at Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, e-books and at bookstores.

The Great Horned Owl in Our Backyard!

It was early morning, maybe 5:30, and I was working on an article for this web site when I heard it. “Who! Who!”

My wife the Beautiful AP came into the office. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Who! Who!…Who! Who! Who!”

“Wow, it sounds like an owl,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah,” I agreed. “It does.”

Our office is in the back of the house and it is three-quarters windows. The “who, who” seemed to be coming from the corner of the room nearest to my desk. AP’s desk is in the center of the room; behind her back are the cages of our two parrots that were not yet uncovered from their night’s rest.

“Who! Who!” came the sound again.

“Oh, man,” I said. “Now that is definitely an owl. It sounds like it is right outside this window in front of me.”

“Who! Who!…Who! Who!”

“No, no, it’s to your left on Brendon’s side of the house,” she said gesturing towards our neighbor’ home.

“Who! Who!”

I went around my desk to the window and peeked through the shade. “I don’t see anything in the bushes or on the fence. Nothing on Brendon’s side either.”

We shut off all the lights in the office and both of us scoured the yard.

“Who! Who! Who!”

“Oh, yeah, that damn thing is right here!” I said.

“I’m going out with my camera and binoculars. I might be able to get a good picture,” she said, scurrying to grab her gear. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”

“I remember that owl in the tree about 15 years ago,” I said. “But that was really far away. This thing is right here.” I pointed to the windows.

The Great Horned Owl is an apex predator, a large creature that can even scare hawks. It’s not a creature you want to have hunting you.

AP went outside and I kept looking out the office windows. In about 15 minutes she came back. “Nothing,” she said, disappointed. “I couldn’t even hear it.”

“Really?” I asked. “It cooed a few times while you were out there.”

“I didn’t hear a thing,” she said, perplexed.

We didn’t solve the mystery right then. But when we came back from the pool (we swim most mornings) we heard the owl again.

“We’re never going to find that thing,” I shouted from the kitchen.

“We don’t have to,” she said from the office. “Listen!”

And the owl gave a double hoot, loud like crazy. It sounded as if it were in the house.

“Come in here!” AP called to me.

I came in.

“It’s right there.” She pointed to my computer.

“Huh?”

“It’s the live cam that Paul gave us,” she laughed.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” I said.

Paul is one of the members of the South Shore Audubon Society. He runs a monthly book discussion group and often recommends books, videos and websites.

He recommended a Cornell University web site (https://explore.org/livecams/).

The site has all manner of birds and animals with live web cams. I usually keep mine at the Great Horned Owl and check this creature and her babies out every morning. The site was up but the screen was minimized. So when mama owl hooted, well, it sounded as if she were hooting outside our windows.

No live sighting, no great photograph to add to my wife’s portfolio, but one mystery solved.

Frank Scoblete’s latest books are I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps, Confessions of a Wayward Catholic and I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack. Available from Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.

Mother Nature is Nuts!

Mother Nature is nuts! I hate to offend nature lovers and those whose religious zeal makes them worship earth, known as Gaea, as if it were alive. Sorry, no, you have misplaced your trust. As I just said and repeat, “Mother Nature is nuts!”

As many of my readers know, my wife, the Beautiful AP, and I have become birders. I enjoy going into the wilderness (meaning a local park with cement paths where I can’t get lost) in order to pause in wonder at those beautiful birds, flapping their wings, sitting on branches, mating, hunting and (marvelous!) taking to the air.

Give me a power and it would be the ability to fly. Up there is a whole different world of wind whipping through my wings. Mother Nature’s blind evolution has worked wonders. Or has it?

At first glance it might seem so but then you realize the following creatures that are called “birds”: the Ostrich, the Emu, the Cassowary, the Rhea, the Kiwi and the pungent Penguin are all scientifically classified as class: aves; genus: grounded. None of them can fly! What kind of bird is that? Might as well call an elephant a bird since it can’t fly either.

To make matters worse, our distraught Mother Nature has created 900 different species of bats that can fly! What the hell? Scientifically, bats are class: mammals; genus: disgusting rodents. Why allow them to take to the air when those “flightless birds” are wandering around on the ground?

I am disappointed. Birds should not be allowed not to fly; it is a sin of immense proportions. Do you hear that, Mother Nature?

But, sadly, flightless birds aren’t Mother Nature’s only screw-up. Take whales and dolphins and porpoises; they are mammals that never leave the water. Class: mammals; genus: wet. What the hell?

This has caused me distress in front of my grandchildren.

“And the biggest animal in the world is the blue whale. No animal ever was this big. It lives in the ocean.” I said to my lovely granddaughter.

“In the ocean?” she asked, puzzled.

“Yes, it lives in the ocean,” I repeated.

“Isn’t that supposed to be a fish?” said my quizzical grandson.

“Uh, ah, ye, um,” I stammered.

Thanks, Mother Nature! I look like an idiot in front of my grandchildren.

Oscar Hammerstein II blew off science class and then wrote the lyrics, “Fish got to swim, birds got to fly,” I’m with you, Oscar! I don’t want my world to have rodents that fly, birds that don’t, and mammals that never walk the earth. That is not a sane world. Mother Nature has proven herself to be nuts!

My only advice is to avoid explaining this anomaly to your grandchildren.

[Read Frank’s new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic. Available on Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

Nature Flipped Me the Bird

I have become somewhat passionate about this birding business. My wife, the Beautiful AP, and I planned on a birding weekend. We planned that just the two of us were going to go to Camman’s Pond Park in Merrick on Saturday morning so AP could take some pictures of White-Hooded Mergansers which are supposed to be plentiful there.

Two days prior we had had a 12-inch snow storm and the park, we presumed, was loaded with snow. But we were going anyway except…

The Beautiful AP got a call from Scuba Steve who owns the pool where we swim and where she teaches swimming, asking her if she could teach classes that day since one of the other swim teachers was out sick. She said yes, leaving me and the White-Hooded Mergansers for another time.

AP has a saying, “No day goes as planned.” Well obviously going to teach swimming disrupted our original plan but even the swim-teaching plan went off the rails. Some tiny tot had diarrhea in the pool and everyone had to leap out.

She came home early. “A kid pooped in the pool,” she said.

“Crap,” I said.

Sunday our South Shore Audubon Society bird walk was to be at the Massapequa Preserve. Joe, our bird-walk leader, went on Saturday to check out the conditions. It was snowy and wet and, yes, icy – and Joe slipped and fell. Plus rain and sleet were predicted. So that walk was cancelled.

No day goes as planned. Often that is because Mother Nature has something else in mind—and this weekend, she clearly flipped me the bird.

Meet the Mrs.

My wife, the Beautiful AP, has taken up photography, specifically photographing birds.

Our birding group was at Mill Pond in Bellmore, New York this past Sunday and AP had a big breakthrough that brought attention and applause from our South Shore Audubon Society.

Now the Beautiful AP is a sociable person and as she has been learning her camera she has shared her ups and downs with everyone in the group and with some people who are just wandering around in the woods. They have given her encouragement as many Audubon members are excellent photographers. She has received valuable tips – from everyone, even those scruffy folks who might be homeless. To be honest, by and large her photos have been (shall we say) disappointing.

A couple of weeks ago, she got one great picture of a Great Horned Owl and one good shot of a Red-Bellied Woodpecker. Everything else was a blur.

I am not quite as sociable as my lovely wife but I do talk to my fellow birders about this, that or the other thing. Since I know little about birds we talk about politics. The Audubon Society is mostly liberal although there are some conservatives and Trump supporters. The liberals are concerned about the environment, while the conservatives are concerned about the liberals.

As AP photographed like a crazy woman, she’d show me some of them.

“What do you think of these?” she asked.

“Where is the bird?”

She hit me in the arm. “Right there,” she pointed.

“I just see fog with some dark lump in there,” I said. She hit me in the arm again. Honesty is sometimes not the best policy with a wife.

But towards the end of the birding day she nailed it! She had a picture of a beautiful Robin and two gorgeous pictures of a duck.

“Wow!” I said. “Now those are beautiful pictures. What kind of duck is that?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It looks different doesn’t it? I’m going to ask the experts if they can identify it.”

She walked a ways down the path to the others of our group. I love the way she walks, so determined, so AP-like.

In a moment I heard, “Wow!” and “It’s a Pintail! Where did you see it?”

The Beautiful AP lead the group of about 15 to where she photographed the Pintail.

“That’s a female Pintail,” confirmed Bill our leader for this tour as he looked at the photo.

“She’ll be known as Mrs. Pintail,” said AP.

Bill saw Mrs. Pintail, pointed her out so everyone could see it. Cameras clicked, video was taken as Bill then explained why it is called Pintail. “You can see that its tail comes to a pin.” It also has quite a long neck.

Since it was February, this duck should have migrated south to winter. But here she was. Rather, here they were: Mrs. Pintail and my Mrs.

[Buy my book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic at amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]