Birds Evolution talk

A white-throated kingfisher sits perched on a tree in Chennai, India.

The white-throated kingfisher is found all over the Southern part of Asia, from Turkey to the Philippines. It has four subspecies, with the one in the photograph most likely being H. c. fusca. I saw this bird perched in the trees, apparently trying to eat some small creature (probably either a lizard or a fish.) However, tree shots of birds are very hard to get, so the picture only shows the body of the bird and the beak as well.

Kingfishers are often thought of as small waterbirds that hunt fish, but this is far from the truth. Most kingfishers are hunters of many small creatures, including lizards, small mammals, and even some small birds! The White-throated Kingfisher is a predator of several small birds, including sparrows and munias (a kind of tropical Old World bird that resemble sparrows).

The Kingfishers used to be grouped all as one family: the Alcedinidae. However, now they are split into three families – the Alcedinidae (river kingfishers), Halcyonidae (tree kingfishers, the family the White-throated kingfisher belongs to), and Cerylidae (water kingfishers). The Alcedinidae includes the smaller species which mainly eat insects and small fish. The Halcyonidae is medium-sized, and these kingfishers are called tree kingfishers because they are most often found in dense tropical woodland or forest close to a body of water. The last group, the Cerylidae, includes the giant kingfishers, which prey on large aquatic and semi-aquatic animals, like crabs and frogs.

I met Sunil Uncle in Chicago and asked him if he had seen a Frigatebird near the Great Lakes. He said “If I see it, I will eat it.” Then he told me how he had eaten the Last Puffin in Iceland. He said “Even if it was the last puffin, I still would eat it. (He told me Puffins taste like Chicken). Too bad that he happened to eat the last Puffin in Iceland. Had he not, I would have been able to take photos of the Puffins with their vibrant beaks stuffing fish into their mouths voraciously. (Good part is, that Puffins still exist throughout the Northern Hemisphere.) Clearly, I think all the Birds of the World should be frightened.

A Reply I posted on October 14 (approximate), 2013:

Now I have not been blogging on the computer lately because I got a violent concussion (and I still have violent headaches). I read about the Puffins on an awesome website from Iceland. I feel jealous that the children of Iceland save the baby Puffins (and then also, remember they eat the parents. I wonder if they eat the eggs to?) Finally now I get to at least blog about something. Also, I really want to be a researcher and go to Surtsey island, or the second-youngest island, which formed in 1963. Now I know that there are about 8 to 10 million Puffins in Iceland. Phew!

With a striking red head and a brown breast, this bird is common in most of North America. It generally likes to come and hang out at bird feeders, where it politely picks at seed and drinks a couple of sips of water, dipping its beak into the water. (In my backyard, they are the only birds that drink water, and they do that a lot, since its the month of July, and it’s the middle of summertime.) Lately, though, they have no been drinking much water. I think that they found a new backyard to feed in.

Below: A House Finch looks down from a structure in Mclellan Ranch Park, CA.

It was the summer of 2013, and my grandfather had been visiting from India, and one day, while I was playing on the swings at school, he went inside the bathroom. That was when we found this small colony of Swallows in their nest. My grandfather has photos and shots of all 4 chicks in the same photo. These amazing birds dart across the sky like little jets filled with vibrant colors, and make medium-sized nests. The Barn Swallow is the national bird of Austria and Estonia, but it has a range that extends into North America as well. As this bird’s name suggests, it likes to live in barns, where most of the time, it builds its nests. The female raises her chicks up slowly, teaching them all the steps of life, and so the chicks are born from helpless to smart. A young swallow is then taught how to fly, and when that is done, it leaves the nest forever. When we came back the next day to see the nest, it was gone. The Swallows were flying around everywhere, and were lost. I was guessing that someone might have thought it was a wasp nest, and broke it. Or else someone wanted to show it off. The baby swallows were very tiny, so they could be vulnerable to Owls and other dangerous predators in the open.

Below: A young Barn Swallow chick looks out of its nest and into the world.

The Peregrine Falcon is the fastest of all birds. It catches and eats prey like mice and rats, but its diet will also extend into small harmless birds, like Quails and Sparrows. This fearsome bird of prey is visible throughout most of the Northern skies, and has quite an appetite to match.

A Peregrine Falcon sits high up on a bristly Conifer Tree in Point Lobos, near Carmel, CA.

Hummingbirds are some of the smallest birds in the world. These birds live on nectar and a little honey and are the pollinators of the bird world. Hummingbirds can also fly backward and sometimes even hover. Yet the largest Hummingbird is only the size of of a bee or bigger, but not very big.

Below: An Anna’s Hummingbird quietly feeds from a flower while hovering in Mclellan Ranch Park, CA.

The Black-Crowned Night Heron lives almost everywhere in the USA, From the Great Lakes to Hawaii. This heron feeds on a diet of fish, and the occasional frog or newt. In the Great Lakes, it does not exactly live but stays there for the summer. This heron is one of the smaller herons, weighing 25 lbs.

Below: In Hawaii’s forested floodplains, the Black-Crowned Night Heron, along with a few other birds, like Ibis, live on fish and amphibians, spearing them up with their sharp beaks.

In much of Western North America, the California Quail thrives. In Quails, the male is always told apart from the female because of their small top knot, which protrudes from the top. These are one of the 5 or so Quail Species that live in the USA.

These are two Quails (but one is from Nevada, while the other is from California.) The bottom Quail is a Gambel’s Quail, and the other one is a  California Quail.

The Turkey bird is one of the most famous birds. The Wild Turkey itself is one of the turkey species which dominates much of the East, south, and parts of the West, like California. Despite their gentle looks, the wild turkey is so dangerous it will chase away any intruder, even if it is a human, a bird of prey, or an another male turkey. If scared, they will run away from danger at quite high speeds.

Photo: A female Wild Turkey walks in a patch of grass near some forested Hills in Rancho San Antonio Park, CA.