Monthly Archives: January 2014

Staying Warm

Black-capped chickadee, common raven (photos from Wikimedia Commons and Shutterstock)

On this very cold morning everyone’s working hard to stay warm but some have an easier time than others.  Who loses heat faster, the chickadee or the raven?

Just like us, birds burn calories no matter what they’re doing.  However, birds have higher metabolic rates than mammals and require more calories for everything they do.  Any activity, from sleeping on an empty stomach to a burst of rapid flight, burns more energy than in vertebrates of a similar size.

Small birds have higher metabolic rates than large ones because of the relationship of surface to volume.  Heat dissipates from the surface of an object so the more surface there is, the greater the heat loss.  So, yes, the chickadee loses heat faster than the raven.  That’s why northern animals are often larger-bodied than those who live in warmer climates.  Even among chickadees the black-caps in Maine are noticeably larger than the chickadees in Pittsburgh.

To stay warm the chickadees will look fatter today because they’ll fluff their feathers to raise the loft of their down coats.  They’ll also cover their legs to reduce heat loss and they will eat — a lot! — to replace the calories they’re rapidly burning.

“Eat like a bird?”  Today all birds, and especially the little ones, are chowing down to stay alive.

 

(photo of Carolina chickadee from Wikimedia Commons. photo of raven from Shutterstock. Today’s Tenth Page is inspired by page 150 of Ornithology by Frank B. Gill.)

Beautiful Birds, 2013

What were your favorite birds of 2013?

If you’re from western Pennsylvania or northeastern Ohio, Steve Gosser’s six-minute video of favorites is likely to include a few of your own.

From the very public fight between a red-tailed hawk and a bald eagle to the elusive Virginia rail, Steve photographed all of them within a two-hour drive of Pittsburgh.

Beautiful!

(photos and video by Steve Gosser)

 

Thoughts For A New Year

Kate St. John with Florida Scrub-Jays (photo by Chuck Tague)

1 January 2014

Have you ever heard your own words and learned something new from them?

I’d forgotten about an interview I did five+ years ago (in 2008) on The Allegheny Front until I stumbled upon it last week while writing about the Lower Buffalo Christmas Bird Count.

In the four and a half minute interview I found some useful resolutions for the New Year:

“Go outdoors, look around, look up.  [Outdoors you’ll] get a view of things that are bigger than yourself. …  I find it very calming to see that life goes on despite whatever is going on in my head. Nature is still rolling.”

Click on the photo above or hear to listen.

(photo by Chuck Tague, audio by The Allegheny Front)