Re: Kiddie crap

On 2024-06-09, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:

On Sun, 9 Jun 2024 04:23:40 -0000 (UTC), RonB wrote:
>

White tails and mule deer even move differently.

>
They more or less have different niches too. Helena is east of the Divide
and about the only flowing water is Tenmile Creek. They drink it but I try
not to. Missoula has three rivers, several creeks, and plenty of the
riparian environment whitetails love.
>
The muleys tend to be more aggressive and get to be a real problem in
Helena. The cops periodically cull the herd and give the meat to the food
bank. The whitetails in Missoula seldom get in trouble and mostly are
docile lawn ornaments. I swear they've learned to look both ways before
crossing the street.
>
That's not to say they're not a pain in the ass. Every spring I think
about a garden and realize it will be war all summer. Anybody with a
garden also has at least a six foot fence around it.
>

What's really weird (to me anyhow) is that mule deer are basically the
same size throughout their range, whereas white tails are tiny in
Florida and huge in Canada (get bigger as you go further north). If I
remember right, in Montana white tails and mulies are pretty much the
same size (maybe the mulies are a little bigger). I always considered
white tails "graceful" leapers where mule deer looked like they were on
pogo sticks when they ran.

>
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stotting
>
After Daniel Dennet died in April I read his last book, 'From Bacteria to
Bach and Back'. Of anyone thinks I'm discursive they've never read Dennet.
He spent a few pages on a discussion stotting.  It seems like a bad waste
of energy but works if the wolves look at the guy on pogo sticks and
decide to go for a less energetic meal. It works like the fool hen's
broken wing trick that always sucks dogs in.  I saw a similar ploy a
couple of weeks ago. I was coming down a trail and little sparrow sized
birds would run down the trail in front of me, stopping to let me catch
up, but always staying about ten feet in front. If I charged they'd run
faster but maintain the distance. I assume when i got far enough from the
nest they'd say 'Seeya, sucker' and fly away. The trail had several
switchbacks so I'm not sure if it was the same bird or if they took turns.

"Stotting." Never heard the term, that's interesting.

So the sparrows were doing their variation of the killdeer trick (or a
"fool's hen" trick — unless that's another name for a killdeer). In Texas
when I was leaving from work one evening, crows were picking on a baby
killdeer, so I saved it from them and I couldn't find its parents so I took
it home. I played some killdeer sounds on the computer and that little thing
could do all the sounds already. It was pitiful. I told my wife, I've got to
try to find its mother and went back to work with her and the kids, and
fortunately found the parents. They started "talking" across the parking lot
immediately.

But that's another thing that I don't completely understand. Some birds are
born as absolutely helpless blobs and others, like the killdeer, pop out of
the egg and within minutes (it seems) they're chasing down bugs and acting
exactly like miniature versions of their parents. It's like they don't have
to learn anything except how to grow (or stay away from crows, if they can).

I've always had a soft spot for killdeers — or is it "killdeer?"

--
[Self-centered, Woke] "pride is a life of self-destructive fakery, an
entrapment to a false and self-created matrix of twisted unreality."
"It was pride that changed angels into devils..."     — St. Augustine