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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
For WW: I guess piciform must be a subclssification of passerine.
piciform
adj.
of, or having the nature of, an order (Piciformes) of birds, including woodpeckers and toucans
, having two front and two hind toes for clinging to vertical surfaces
e.g. flickers I saw a site that said when eggs were removed right after they were laid,
a female flicker laid over seventy eggs! I have seen flickers feeding on insects in bark of
trees with coarse bark, because they were able to grip bark. They also seem pathetically
stupid. I saw from my office window a flicker laboriously excavate cavity where dead
branch had fallen off an elm. No sooner had she finished it, when along came a pair of
starlings and evicted her. But crime does not always pay. The starlings had only just
moved in, when along came a pair of squirrels looking for a nesting site. The female starling
was able to threaten to peck their eyes out, but the squirrels double-teamed her, and got
her so upset she left the nest to try to peck at one, whereupon other squirrel, which was
hiding in back of nest opening, immediately popped into the hole, and when starling came
back, she was greeted by ostentatiously gnashing squirrel incisors. Flickers were common
when I was a boy, but now their numbers are way down.
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
In reply to:
e.g. flickers I saw a site that said when eggs were removed right after they were laid,
a female flicker laid over seventy eggs!
What's the time frame here?
Just an aside:
My Aunt Jewel has a lot of bluebird boxes on her farm. One spring she cleaned out the boxes to ready them for the new nests. She came upon one box and removed a nest that she thought she'd already removed the previous year. Well, she was wrong. That poor Mama bluebird arrived at the box, and she was about ready to pop with the egg inside her. Seeing that her nest was gone, she just sat herself down on the floor of the box and laid the egg on the floor. Jewel really felt bad about her decision.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear WW: you remnd me of Rube Goldberg invention to increase number of eggs laid
by hens. When an egg is laid, a trap door opens, and egg rolls down out of sight. The
hen turns around, and seeing no egg, lays another. Ad infinitum.
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