Introduced

so before i start talking about introduced species: school's out! i can go bird watching without feeling guilty for not doing homework! yahoo!

pardon the double negative.

i haven't actually gone bird watching yet this summer for extended periods of time; i tried to go to a wetlands, but i fell out of a tree into a stream and couldn't explore as much as i would have liked. wet socks are really uncomfortable! other than that, it's been sitting on the porch with binoculars.

[if anyone wants to go bird lookin' with me someday, just let me know? here are some of the cool guys i've seen:

...and more! it's really exciting seeing birds in action.]

but on to the topic at hand-- introduced species!

the term "introduced species" isn't used exclusively with birds. an introduced species is just a species that has [for whatever reason] been taken from its native habitat and placed in a non-native habitat. introduced species generally get a pretty bad rap: you've got your asian lady beetles, your zebra mussels, your kudzu...

these examples are known as invasive introduced species, and probably do deserve the poor connotation that comes with the "introduced species" label. asian lady beetles and kudzu were both introduced in north america to fix certain biotic problems, but what ended up happening is they did a little too well in their introduced environments and "took over," as it were.

the introduction of zebra mussels was an accident, whoops!

that shopping cart is covered in a colony of zebra mussels. they're apparently native to eastern europe, but someone [not naming names] [mostly because i don't know who] didn't czech their boat before coming into north america after boating abroad. i guess these mussels were attached, and as it turns out, they love it here! so now they're out-competing native species in lacustrine ecosystems.

like i say, whoops!

introduced bird species in north america are not hard to come by-- in fact, on a day to day basis, introduced species are what i see most often. one example of this is the house sparrow. if i had a quarter for every time i saw a house sparrow, i could probably get unlimited sandwiches for myself and five of my closest friends!

another example of an introduced avian species: the european starling

the european starling's history in the united states is actually kind of cool. well, kind of cool and kind of pretentious. in the late 1800s, a group called the American Acclimatization Society thought it a good idea to introduce every species of bird ever referenced in the published works of shakespeare. considering his proliferousness [that's probably a word?], its not surprising they ended up introducing over six hundred species to the united states. the starling was one of them. introduced in new york from 1890-1891, the european starling could be found almost anywhere in the contiguous united states by 1950. holy smokes!

here's a map of relative densities of where starlings are found presently:

remember when i talked about ecological niches? [http://bird-log.blogspot.com/2009/12/finches_29.html]

well, invasive introduced species [like starlings] fit into native species' niches really well. as it turns out, they fit into a lot of different species' niches because they're just so gall dern robust!

bird watchers especially hate this, because starlings out-compete better looking native birds like kestrels and flycatchers.

my dad got free return address stickers with vermillion flycatchers [pictured] on them from the audubon society. me not recieving those is a perfect example of ageism. don't they know that being an AARP member does not automatically make you a birder?!? i should have gotten those!

so jealous.

anyway!

one might think that introduced species are a totally bad thing, but i don't necessarily agree. globalization and the world becoming flatter has increased the spread of native species to non-native environments, and humans are notorious for messing around with what animals go where. with all the technology those damn neighbor kids have for transporting goods [like animals], the introduction and subsequent "take over" of certain robust species is preeeeetty much inevitable.

i don't like that native species are getting out-competed. i do, however, see that it's nature acting naturally under unnatural human-created conditions. take from that what you will.

i mean, it's really all about the competition:

[looks like the kestrel came out on top that time]

finches

i went to the garden/pet store today with my sister to get a tank for her new fish, Dog. i let her get the fish stuff while i looked at the birds. there was a cockateil, two lovebirds, about seven parakeets, and some finches.

the finches at the store were called society finches [see above]. aptly named, as they were white, black, and beige. very sophis.

finches are songbirds in the order passeriformes that typically eat seeds, nuts, and insects. daily activities include foraging and flitting around looking cute. they can be found pretty much all over the world, and i would guess this is because seeds can be found pretty much all over the world. a common finch you have probably seen is the house finch:

careful, don't confuse it with the purple finch! i did that once, how embarrassing for me. ornithologists can be so stuck up sometimes.

that's a map showing house finch radiation throughout the years in the US. i wonder if there is a west-coast subspecies and an east-coast subspecies?

though finches can be found all over the globe, the most famous ones are those of the galapagos.

the galapagos finches are really famous because of ole chuck darwin. he dropped in for a visit to the islands and observed that there were many different species of finches, each fulfilling a different ecological niche.

i guess darwin pondered on this genetic diversity really hard and came to some important conclusions or something.

les pensées d'ole chuck bring us to the concept of "adaptive radiation."

what? you want me to explain adaptive radiation for you? well, i can sure take a crack at it!

essentially, every animal wants to survive and reproduce. and in an ideal world, every animal would. BUT! they can't. it's all about resources; there is simply not enough food or space in the world for the indeterminate growth of all populations.

[laws 2 live by: energy cannot be created or destroyed, and hey neither can mass because e=mc squared, babe. errthing's limited]

in order to solve the competition-for-resources problem, some animals have dominance hierarchies, some animals are territorial...

and some animals evolve to fit different ecological niches. this is the case of the galapagos finches.

[niche: (ecology) the status of an organism within its environment and community (affecting its survival as a species). thanks, webster online!]

a couple of million years ago, there was one species of finch on the galapagos. to avoid competition for food, morphological changes [like bill shape, size] favored by different finch diet plans were selected for.

if i'm not eating the same type of nut that you are, we don't have a problem with each other, competition avoided, no need for fighting, everyone's happy. capish?

remind me not to say capish.

anyway, what i'm TRYING to say here is that there is a positive correlation between niche specificity and survival rate. it doesn't even have to be related to food; there are birds that have successfully speciated so that one species prefers to nest in the tops of trees, another in the middley bits, and yet another in the bottom branches. neat!

so, back to finches. like most everything, i can narrow it down, but i can never choose my absolute favorites. here are the battles between finches i have in my head. i may or may not lose sleep over them.

1. european goldfinch VS. american goldfinch

i mean, the american goldfinch is really, really cute. it flies by taking a couple of flaps [whilst chirping] and then putting its wings by its side, falling a little, and repeating the process. plus, its the state bird of iowa.

on the other hand, there's the european goldfinch, which is more severe looking. its got great coloring and patterns on the wings. i would make a joke about it being european, but i don't know enough about general european trends to feel okay with doing that. uh...euro! baguette! renaissance?

the other battle is the battle of the grosbeak finches.

2. evening grosbeak VS. rosebreasted grosbeak

i just love grosbeaks. these guys are both native to iowa-- the evening in the winter and the rose-breasted in the summer. "gros" means fat in french, that probably has something to do with the naming. i haven't seen either in real life yet, and i anxiously await the day[s] when i do see them. i may or may not have a heart attack when i see one or both. ow!

which finch wins your heart over?