Unbeknownst to Me

I’ve occasionally gotten questions as to what to do with a baby bird found outside. It turns out that the University of Minnesota has an excellent guide on what to do with a baby bird. The answer people don’t like to hear is, “Nothing.”

Most birds will be fine, even if they’re temporarily away from their parents. Some will be eaten by predators. It’s sad and no fun to watch (especially if you’re a pet bird owner like me), but it is how the predators stay alive and bird populations are kept to healthy levels. Most of the time the bird will be fine on its own.

The biggest myth is that if you handle it, the parents will smell you on them and reject it. Most birds have terrible senses of smell and will happily accept any baby you return to them–once you go away and leave them alone.

These are wild animals and do best when they keep their distance from large predators–and you count as the largest predator they’ll see. So imagine you fall down and a giant lion came by and started sniffing around you. You’d be scared to death, right? Same for a bird, only it would be like Godzilla instead of a lion, given the size difference.

So if you see a baby bird and there’s an obvious nest, pick it up and put it back. If there isn’t one and it has feathers, let it alone. Above all, don’t mess with it unless you’ve been trained, because as the link above points out, lots of things well-intentioned people do actually kill or seriously injure the bird they’re trying to help.

Wild animals are wild–if you want to help, give to an organization that works to rescue or preserve habitats for endangered wildlife. That will do more than anything else you could do.

Ordinarily, the thought of a World Bank-financed dam sends environmentalists into frothing rage.

However, in Kazakhstan, the Bank is financing dams that are beginning to restore parts of the Aral Sea, which at one point was down to a quarter of its original size.

By the 1990s only a quarter of the Aral Sea was left, but recently using a $68m loan from the World Bank, the Kazakh government built a dam that split the sea into two parts.

[…]

Communities in the area are already feeling the impact. The fishermen are back in their boats, the clouds and the rain have returned and many across this impoverished region say the future no longer looks hopeless.

When you think about the impact of human activities on the environment, remember that the government is often one of the worst causes of environmental devastation. Almost all attempts to turn desert into farmland have been government projects, specifically because no private investor would ever attempt it.

Global warming keeps getting chilly…it snowed in April…in Washington, DC. I know up north this is no big deal, but it’s pretty unusual here.

I’m totally stealing your car.

Irish rated EU’s worst binge drinkers.

Seriously, worse than Poles? Or just not able to hold their liquor?

Two dead clowns.

Click it. You know you want to.

Six dead baby skeletons in a bag behind a hospital in India.

Passing along a note sent to me yesterday from Jason:

I’m sending this message to let you know about something cool that’s going to be happening this Thursday night, and to invite you to be a part of it!

As you may or may not know, today is Charles Darwin’s birthday. To mark the occasion, my friend Randy Olson is going to be having the DC premiere of his new documentary, “Flock of Dodos,” this week — Thursday night, to be precise. “Dodos” is a funny and insightful exploration of the “intelligent design” movement, and the failure of mainstream science to effectively rebut it. Randy’s personal cause is to help scientists communicate their work in plain English to the rest of us, so this isn’t your standard “evolution true, ID false” screed; it challenges both ID advocates (for misleading the public) and evolution advocates (for failing to reach the public effectively). If you’re interested in evolution specifically, or science in general, you will enjoy this movie. I’ve seen it and I believe it deserves a wider audience, which is why I’m letting you know about this opportunity.

Here are a couple of reviews of “Flock of Dodos”, if you want more information:

• New York Times
• NPR

The premiere is happening this Thursday, February 15, at 8:00 PM at the Avalon Theater in DC. Tickets are $12 each, and there will be a Q&A with Randy after the film. This is the only DC showing currently scheduled, so if you’re interested in seeing this film, now’s your chance. Tickets can be purchased at the box office, or via the Avalon web site.

The plural of “person” is “people,” not “persons.”

I don’t care how much you want it to be.

“Impact” is also not a verb, despite how many government bureaucrats have failed to learn the word “affect.” If you mean it in a physical sense, the verb is “hit.”

Deal with it, people.

Check out these South American kids with a thankfully unhansonesque sibling trio doing a tribute to Emerson, Lake & Palmer:

Somebody’s got a copy of In Concert.