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A narrative podcast from two bird lovers (and friends) exploring all things bird.
I'm Hannah, and I'm Cleo, and you're listening to Birds on Birds.
Welcome back to Birds on Birds.
Hi.
Hi, hi, hi.
So, I'm excited to talk about we've got 2 birds again, but I love this. Their friends.
Oh, they're not rivals, sister.
Not rivals.
And there are actually relatives.
In fact, in the Sibley Bird Guide, which we know and love, they are right next to each other on the same damn page.
I love that.
What page is it?
536.
To the back of the book.
For the Sibley Guide to Birds 2nd edition, typically North America, right?
He only does North America.
Oh, okay.
I thought that it said North America on the company for some reason.
But there is another version that's like west and east.
This one is the whole, the whole caboodle.
What is a caboodle?
Kitten caboodle. Looking it up.
Oh shit, it's bad. Kitten, caboodle.
Fuck.
Anyway, there is no caboodle without the kit, really.
Speaking of caboodles, what have you been up to?
Perfect segue.
And first, I just want to mention too, if you're not interested in hearing what we've been up to in our lives, the show notes always has timestamps for when we start talking about birds, so feel free to jump ahead.
But to answer your question, Hannah, my life has been homework, but also Shark Week.
Yeah.
Can we get sued for that?
I don't know.
I would require more people to listen.
I don't think we're good enough for that.
If we get sued that's when we know we've made it.
We did it like one time.
Um, not get sued.
We did the sound.
We got...
We did it one time. One time.
No, I Shark Week.
Yeah.
It's a national holiday in my house and I know that there are some conflicts for people who are conservationist, biologists, scientific researchers around kind of the rhetoric sometimes of Shark Week and how, you know, it's, I do think they try really hard to mix between the what, you know, what sharks are, which at the end of the day is a predator species, an apex predator, depending on, you know, which sharks we're looking at. While also balancing with science and then the attack stories.
I do think they're definitely times where they're pushing the envelope and they're antagonizing the sharks where they don't really need to.
Yes.
100%.
But I still really love it.
And I love learning about sharks.
And there's a lot of conservation elements throughout Shark Week.
A lot of the research is done by actual research in the field.
Yeah.
I think that the argument there would be that there's a lot of cool things about sharks that we can talk about without having to do the whole I survived a shark attack, you know, segment, which I do think is interesting at the end of the day.
And I think for people who are maybe less informed, who still see sharks as the enemy.
It's hard and maybe they only watch those ones and so therefore they don't know how to separate it.
And that's where it becomes like a problem is maybe when people don't know that like the point of shark week, at least the way I see it is to try to demystify sharks and to try to make them seem less scary, but for some people may just like reignite the fear and like the hunting of sharks.
And so I also watched because I'm, you know, I'm not like, uh, what's the word?
I'm not loyal to one or the other.
I love the sharks.
And so I also watched the Nat Geo version, which I believe is Shark Fest.
Okay.
Which I remember last year you had a party for the launch of Shark Week, and it turns out it was for Geo Shark Fest, basically, instead of the Discovery Shark Week.
This just goes to show you that you should double check the Google AI summary because I asked what week Shark Week was and it gave me the prior years Shark Week.
Correct.
And this was last year, so this was like the week.
Anyway.
So I threw my Shark Week party and Shark Week wasn't starting for another week, so I ended up watching a bunch of old Shark Week stuff, which is cool.
Which was really fun.
Yeah.
It was an awesome, fun time.
And it was they're all on HBO.
If you have HBO Max, it's Discovery, so you can get all of it at any time.
So we got to go back and watch some vintage ones, which was fun.
But it was the following week, which is fine.
And so I've been watching it this week.
I've been having a lot of fun Yes.
And then I also watched a documentary about the 1st person, like woman shark researcher and like conservationist.
She is from Australia.
I'm going to look up her name really quick.
The 1st woman conservationist, like...
No, no, sorry.
Sorry, sorry.
Sorry.
I just got I got overly excited.
Nope, apologies.
Valerie Taylor, who's known as the Shark Lady, along with her husband, Ron Taylor.
They, um, like most people, started out as shark hunters.
This is like kind of 70s era, and they kind of were under the impression that you should just go out and kill them and whatever.
But then they became shark conservationists.
And they also worked with Peter, whatever his name is, who did Jaws and Steven Spielberg.
So they did a lot of like the filming and the cage dives and like all the stuff.
There's a documentary on Disney Plus, NatGio, whatever you have that is called Playing with Sharks that is about her.
And it is so fun to watch.
It is so interesting.
She's still alive.
She's much older now.
She's talking about her experience with sharks.
She was one of the 1st people to ever do cage-free filming of sharks.
They both her and her husband, and they were the 1st people to like see sharks as like people that they could like defend.
She also was the 1st person to put shark protections on a specific shark species, which is a gray nurse shark.
And yeah, she just basically devoted her life to conservation after Jaws came out and people started going on a killing frenzy.
Her and her husband dedicated their lives to sharks and saving the sharks.
And but the filming, I mean, it's all vintage film of them like going underwater and them on docks and it's really just fabulous.
So, you know, watch Shark Week or don't watch Shark Week, watch Shark Fest or don't watch Shark Fest, but I do think that that documentary is worth your time playing with sharks.
And shout out to Valerie Taylor.
I mean, what a bad bitch.
What an absolute bad bitch.
She's described as a marine pioneer.
So, I don't know.
I'm just watching her, I was just like, this is the kind of stuff where I'm like, stop doom scrolling. Save a shark.
No, that's awesome. To go from that like villain to hero arc of like, literally being a shark hunter to doing the opposite is a really exciting.
And she was the 1st woman who was even in like shark hunting too.
Like, she wasn't considered as like a pioneer in all senses of truly.
She was like one of the 1st women who was like doing any of this and really had to prove her spot as all the 1st women in these spaces did.
And yeah, it was just really inspiring and heartbreaking at times.
So like, you know, trigger warning for sure there's like dead sharks.
There's a lot of like really hard things to watch if you have a hard time with that kind of thing, which sometimes I do too, but I think it's important that we don't look away.
But I really, I really just think that she's an incredible person and the way she talks about her husband too, he passed away is just like really sweet.
So that's what I've been up to.
I've been learning about sharks.
There's also a random orca episode this time as well.
Where they do sharks versus Orca, and I think it's like great white sharks.
They don't have like necessarily footage for this.
It's just kind of pitting one against the other in like the brute strength of like a shark versus like orca's size and also pod hunting mentality and how one begets the other and all that stuff.
So anyway, it's quite interesting.
I was like, it does feel like you guys really just wanted to talk about orcas and you made it connect to sharks, but I don't care because I'm still having fun.
So all that is to say that, um, I still think it's really interesting, but I also take some of the stunts that they do with a bit of a grain of salt because I do know that on some level there is a, there's always a chance that they're putting people at risk for the sake of television and that could spark a backlash that is ultimately bad for the sharks.
Yes.
And I think it's important to recognize that while still saying that, like, I am an avid consumer of shark content and shark week.
Yeah.
I think it's good to hold both of those lines.
Yeah, I've gotten recently really obsessed with the 7 gill shark.
Oh, like these and basking sharks.
I love the, that's the one with a huge mouth, right?
The giant mouths and they're really long.
Like, huge. The huge mouth.
And they're known as gentle giants and I've gotten really into those.
And that's my other qualm with Shark Week.
If I had one other Kwama Shark Week, it's that there's so many cool, interesting sharks.
And I know that great whites and bull sharks and tiger sharks make incredible footage.
And in fact, I don't remember seeing anything about tiger sharks this year, interestingly enough, so I'm not sure what's up with that.
But I would love to see more of the like silly shark species.
Or maybe silly, not the right word, but I want to hear more about the Greenland shark.
I want to hear more about the Southern gill.
I want to hear more about the basking sharks.
I want to have a whole.. Yes exactly.
Did it a special on the Saw Shark?
Or like it was part of a special?
The alien sharks this year was for the USA episode and they did a little bit about Saw Sharks.
And they had a small bit, I believe, about basking sharks in there as well.
But all that is to say that, like, there's a lot of really cool or the thresher shark.
Like, I would love to see just like more on the sharks that are not necessarily like your big box. Big box office sharks.
Because I think there is a lot of really interesting information to learn.
The indie sharks.
Exactly.
Don't get me wrong.
I love a great white special and I am endlessly fascinated.
And like they did a really cool makeo one this year where they're looking for the biggest makeo ever.
And they, I think they do that like almost every year they find a new one, but it was pretty intense and pretty cool.
And Makos are terrified.
They're so fast and they eat so much.
So, yeah, I was having a lot of fun with that.
I still think Shark Week is a lot of fun, but I do think it's important that people are informed because some of the rhetoric in Shark Week, it is conservation focused, but it is mixed in with things that are like kind of inciting fear in order to create a vibe.
So I just know that I have the luxury of being someone who is obsessed with sharks enough and has been for a long enough time that I'm well informed.
Yeah.
Whereas a lot of people just still see them as like demons of the sea.
Which is really problematic because I can't remember the exact statistic, but it's like we kill like a 1000000 sharks every minute or something. Ridiculous.
So that's all I've been up to, though.
And if you have HBO Max and you are just now hearing about this. 5 weeks later because they didn't do as much of a promo this year.
You could still watch it.
Go find it.
What about you?
What have you been up to?
Well, fun thing about me?
I learned about Shark Week being like a real thing on my 2nd date with my husband because he spent roughly an hour talking about Shark Week and how he was obsessed with Shark Week and all this stuff.
And I was like, oh, this guy's like a good one.
I mean, we already had a great 1st date.
That's the 2nd date, but I was like pretty smitten after he spent so long talking about how much he loves sharks.
And it's just so funny because it's my 2 like Florida born people in my life.
We're both obsessed with it.
Chris and they're both such shark nerds.
You kind of have to be.
It's really cute.
Florida has so many shark attacks because there's so many people in the water and the waters are so like perfect for larger sharks.
So that just like by like ratio.
You're more likely to have more shark attacks.
So you're just more aware as someone who's born in Florida than probably most other places.
Maybe Australia is probably up there as well.
Or like the coast of South Africa, I feel like.
Totally.
And there are other places in the world where shark attacks happen, but there are like hot spots for sure.
And a lot of that has to do with amount of people in the water and the type of water that attracts the shark, right?
So all that is to say, I don't know how you don't get obsessed with it.
If you're an animal person.
Yeah, which...
Because they're just almost became a vet. And so did you.
Oh, God, yeah.
Isn't that just, it's like one of the 5 jobs that you know when you're a kid.
Well, that's true.
But also doctor, cop, firefighter.
It's easy to eliminate one of those, like, vet, if you were kind of neutral on animals, but when I meet both of neutral on animals, I'm like, love animals.
What do you mean?
I know.
It's a red flag for sure.
Offense to those of you who don't like animals?
Plague on your house.
A plague on both you, house and your car.
What have I been up to besides also watching Stark Week?
Because again, as I mentioned, husband, one of the recent books I read, that was a really fun time and really wild, is called Mothman is my boyfriend.
And it's the 1st in a series called Cryptid Creek.
It's literally 10 different short stories about someone falling in love with these different cryptids.
So there's like an episode where it's a Bigfoot.
There's an episode where it's like a mothman, obviously, hence the title.
So just wanted to throw that out there.
Also one of the main characters who's a non-crypted.
So this is like a mixed society that's like hidden from the world and only certain good people are let in because we know they won't judge and et cetera, et cetera.
It's also very like LGBTQ coded.
There's a lot of like non-binary people and or cryptids.
And we're usually put in the same category.
It's a whole thing.
One of the main characters who's a human is named Cleo and falls in love with a Jersey Devil.
So...
I told Stuart about that and he said it tracks too.
Does he feel like he could be a Jersey devil?
We didn't get that far.
We mostly just got to the point where he was like, yeah, that makes sense.
We should probably pick what cryptid we would be someday.
Thatd be fun.
Well, you can definitely do that.
Or bird mythological.
Oh, both definitely that.
And me and the Jersey Devil will invite you all to the wedding.
Um, and I'll let you know what we're looking for, but we...
But you have to be accepting of cryptids and LGBTQ plus.
Yeah.
So don't.. Your hate at the door.
Yeah.
And expect a card in the mail for RSVP.
So...
Well, I am stoked that we're getting another 2 fur. And that we're not in rivalry anymore.
We're in friendship.
And I honestly don't know that I know of any birds that are in friendship.
Well, and friend might be too much.
Okay.
I'll let you I'll let you explain I'm more like acquaintances that.. Don't hate each other. Yeah they don't have any sort of animosity.
Perfect.
Well tell me more.
Okay.
I am talking about 2 birds who also have similar names, which might be part of the reason that they are relatives who are literally on the same page of the bird guide.
But one is the Lark Sparrow.
And the other is the lark bunting.
Oh, which you've heard about before because I've been on my soapbox about state birds, but I actually have to eat some crow. Which I also think is actually, now that I say eat some crow.
It's like an expression, but now I'm like, well, fuck, that's a weird thing to say on a bird podcast.
That's an expression.
I've never heard anybody say eat crow as any crow is a well-known English idiom that means having to admit you were completely wrong after taking a stronger arrogant position. Which I find myself eating crow a lot because I'm really opinionated and then I learned that I had missed in some key facts and I'm very quick to address my opinion.
I also eating crow a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But I do sayings are like, I need to eat a piece of humble pie or I need to swallow my pie.
Hum pride, I've heard.
Swallow my pride.
Ive heard. Eat a crow.
Definitely not.
Eating crow, not eating a crow.
Okay.
I'm going to eat some humble pie.
Yeah, because I don't want to eat crows.
I like them and I want them to give me presents and be my friend.
That's totally fair. Think that's great.
Thanks for teaching me something new.
I love to use phrases that I'm like, albatross around your neck, you know?
And I'm like, have Cleo be like, what?
I don't know.
Please explain.
Unfortunately, these are the names that they'll be going by Lark Sparrow and Lark Bunting because they don't actually, either of them have any sort of fun, cute nicknames.
Could we just call them L bunting and El Sparrow?
We can't.
For ease.
Anti-Lark podcast.
We...
What a lot.
Isn't that a saying?
What a lark.
What a lark.
It is.
So this time instead of doing like a feature of one bird and then a feature of the next, which is what we've done with the rivalries because we're showing showcasing their different skill sets and how they would compete against each other, et cetera, et cetera.
This one I'm just going to do a comparison throughout.
So I'll just be sharing stuff about the Lark sparrow and then stuff about the Lark bunting and doing side by side.
Okay, great.
So the scientific name for the Lark Sparrow is Cond Estes or Condistes Grammacus?
Sure.
I believe you I hope people have fun listening to us.
I will do these scientific names.
I'm sure someone's yelling at like, it can be system boxes.
More like, that was actually really close.
I think you only heard it.
No, I don't have it pulled up either.
I just made that up based on the sounds I remember you saying.
It was good. You.
Um, The Lark Bunting is Calamo Spiza melanocoris.
Calamos pizza.
Yes, you know it.
I know.
You know what?
I love it.
As usual.
You're gonna be really blown away by this.
Both of them are sparrow sized.
That does make sense.
They are both types of sparrows check.
But it is kind of an interesting thing for buntings because you might assume a bunting would be a different type of bird, but a bunting is just a type of sparrow.
So.
Oh, unclear.
I actually was going to ask that.
Unclear why there is a distinction between the two, but they are in the same section.
So both of them are part of the Ember Eisen Sparrows.
Ember is the day is the family.
Okay.
But it includes a lot of genuses, including the fact that even though the Lark sparrow and the Lark bunting are related, they are not in the same genus.
Okay.
So ground dwelling, brownish, little sparrow.
Okay.
For size.
Like I said, they're both sparrow sized as far as the Merlin IT is concerned. Which is shocking.
Their length is almost identical.
So the lark sparrow is actually a little bit longer.
They have a longer tail.
Okay.
So they start at about 6 inches, 15 to 18 centimeters, whereas the lark bunting, again, it's very a minor difference, but it's 5.5 inches to 7 inches, so 14 to 18 centimeters.
So, and that's again mostly because of their tail being shorter for the bunting.
Okay.
The weight is typically about one ounce for the sparrow.
So it's lighter weight, which is 24 to 33 grams.
Um, and then about one. 5 ounces for the bunting.
So even though they're a little shorter tip to tip, they are a little heftier by a little heftier.
I mean several grams.
So it's not significant.
The wingspan for larksparrow is 11 inches, and the wingspan for the lark bunting is 10 to 11 inches.
So again, almost identical.
Now we get into the part where there's some distinguishing features.
So as far as their plumage, for a lark sparrow, both sexes look alike.
They do have a very cute.
It is described in all about birds as a harlequin face pattern.
I had to Google this because I was like, the fuck is that?
For the Lark Sparrow.
Yes.
Okay.
The Harlequin Patterns is referring to like basically like a jester outfit is where it originates.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But now it's like spread to like interior decorating and stuff.
So it's basically like a diamond pattern or like a pattern where there's like alternating stripes. Think so.
I mean, I'm looking at it.
Yeah, I can see it.
And this is the whole reason I even decided to do this episode, besides my soapbox that I originally was on and needing to eat humble pie after looking into it, was that Chris, he's been doing, like, starting to play around with wildlife photography, including birds, which is so fun.
And he took this incredible, like, the best picture he's taken honestly so far is of a Lark Sparrow.
Oh my god.
That's beautiful.
I know.
So I'm excited to post it.
He's been offended that I've been using other photographers photos for our other birds.
But he hasn't taken other pictures of the other birds.
Listen, you know, details.
Fair enough.
It is kind of, even if you like look at the Sibley drawing, it's interesting, it is mostly like a stripy pattern that's like alternating.
The other defining thing about harlequin patterns is that it's not just the diamond shape, but the contrast.
It's heavily contrasted.
So you're going to see like a red and a green or more commonly you would see like a black and white diamond pattern.
Yeah, but with the lark sparrow, you can actually see the little diamond on their cheek a little bit.
Yeah, you totally can.
There's like a little brown diamond between these like little deeper striped looking things.
Well, and when you look at them head on, it really gives you the full picture of the striping and the harlequin effect. And you can find that on just a basic Google image search, just scroll down just a little bit.
And when it's looking directly at you, it has this almost like, it's almost like a flower like pattern of the negative space.
Yes.
And then from the side, you've got flower petals, yeah. Almost circusy.
Yes.
Harlequin y, gestry vibe.
It's really pretty They're really pretty.
They're really, really pretty considering they are like a brown and white sparrow.
Right.
They are very, very pretty and cute.
So after their little harlequin black, brown, white face pattern, you have a predominantly white belly with a very cute little brown spot, like on the center of the chest.
Almost like they like got a stain on their shirt kind of thing.
It does.
And then their wings are, I would say, chestnutty, brown, tan, black, white mix.
Yeah, in their wings.
It's definitely more just like a brown chest, not in the face.
It's more rufousy, reddish.
Yes.
That's real.
That's 100% real.
So that's their description.
And then the cool thing about them is, again, they have the longer tail.
So when they are flying, they kind of fan out their tail and they have these nice white tips at the end of their tail, which are cute.
Then when we look at the Lark bunting, they, they, the LB are very different.
Yes.
So the 2 sexes do not look alike in breeding season.
In non-breeding season, the male still looks different than the female, but looks a lot more similar.
The other reason that I'm talking about them, besides that we saw them both at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal on the same day, is that if you look at the female lark bunting, if you don't look at some of the distinguishing features, you could almost say they look a little like the lark sparrow.
The females and the non-breeding for sure.
I can see.
Because there is some striping below the beak.
And stuff like that.
But then they have streaking on their chest.
Like there's definitely, you can obviously distinguish them if you did a side by side.
If you if you had only heard them being described and then one flew in front of you, you may confuse one for the other until you saw a new for sure, which was which.
And then it would be really easy, but I could definitely see how they could get mixed up.
Yep.
Except for in breeding season, in which case, not at all.
No.
The males and breeding season are completely different.
You would never, ever mix the 2 up.
They do look kind of magpie shaped. But shorter and more compact.
Yes, yes.
So magpies are honestly like one of the bigger birds.
Like, they're even bigger than a crow.
They're not as big as a raven, but they're large, and especially because of their long tail that we've talked about.
The Lark bunting from a brief glance could be confused for a magpie because.. The male breeding colors are a velvety black body, including the head, and the B. I know.
Like, it's just I agree.
I just never heard that.
So it's like all black head.
Their beak even turns darker black and then they have all black body.
Chest is black.
Everything's black except for this very, very bright white mark on their wing and then a little bit of like some wing feather tips that seem white.
So when they're flying, there's some of that, and they have some tips on their tail that are white as well.
It's teeny tiny tips on the tail, though.
It's very tiny.
The littlest. Like they accidentally drooped it in a puddle.
Yes, yes.
From one angle, you might even mix them up from like with like a starling.
Like from a distance because it just looks like a black shape.
Then you see the very contrasty white side of the wing and you're like, oh, whoa, is that a magpie, and then it's too small.
So that's why it's an interesting bird that a lot of people have probably seen, maybe not a lot, but people have probably seen it and misidentified it often.
Yeah, I could see why they would too, if it was in non-breeding season because it is another one of those kind of like little brown birds when they're, when they're not, and it is Colorado State Bird.
I do like their little teeny tiny beak.
They have a very short, stubby beak.
Their beak is not that much shorter than the lark sparrow, but it is a little bit shorter and a little more wide.
It's cute.
Yeah, just a little more circular and cute.
I mean, I think all this family has a lot of really cute little birds that you probably see all around all the time.
Definitely.
For their sound, the sparrow is a jumbled, melodic mix of churs, buzzes, and trills, alternating with like buzzy notes where it gets that like almost like staticky sound where it sounds like almost 2 birds at once.
Yes.
And then kind of alternates between that and like sweeter little warbles.
Because these are songbirds, sparrows in general have songs.
They have songs in their heart.
They have songs in their heart.
It's just part of it.
So I'm going to play the sparrow lark sparrow sounds here.
Beep, beep, beep, beep.
And then, the Lark bunting has two distinct flight songs.
So that's cool.
They have a phrased main song that varies in pigeon speed, given while skylarking.
So, hence part of the reason they're called lark bunting, is they rise up to like 7 or 8 meters and then they glide down while they're singing.
What?
Love that.
Yeah.
It's very whimsical.
Very whimsical.
So that's light songs that they do.
I can't help myself, but all I can think of is this is my flight. My life.
Oh my gosh.
They're coming down.
Flight song, to be clear, not life, fight song.
I don't know the apparently I don't know the real world of this song.
This is my life song.
That's kind of.. House sparrows act.
Yeah, I mean.
I don't know why my brain works like that, but it can't be stopped.
I'm so sorry I love it.
Okay, perfect.
For their breeding range, the Lark Sparrow is in the West and the Great Plain.
So that's why we're a perfect, perfect location, because we are right on that border.
Like especially where I saw them, Rocky Mountain Arsenal, it's in the eastern part of Denver.
So, you're getting closer to Kansas, which would be part of the Great Plains.
We're not that much closer to Canada.
Listen to me when I tell you, when I moved to the house I live in, people were joking about me living in Kansas now.
I will say that half of Colorado is deceptively flat.
Yeah.
Well, and that leads me to stuff later.
Okay.
Great.
I can't wait to hear that.
Deceptively flat.
Deceptively Spoiler alert.
It's true.
When you when I had to drive here from Florida to Colorado.
I remember Kansas through halfway through Colorado was the most boring part of the drive because it's just flat, flat, flat, nothing, nothing.
Well, and just samy.
Same, same, same.
There's a beauty, but not when you're driving.
And there's also a beast.
Exactly.
So they really like prairies, grasslands, pastures, potentially, um, with scattered shrubs, they do sometimes go to orchards or like fields that are like fallow, so like unused fields for fallow?
Yeah, it's like when you're farming, you'll like switch to a different area of your acreage, so you like rest the soil of one area.
It's called a fallow feel.
I don't know.
Okay.
I'm not a farmer.
Um, no?
I didn't meet 7 years ago on the farm.
Then, for the lark bunting, they are exclusively great plains, grasslands and like some sort of sagebrush component is needed for them.
They can range from South Central Canada, where it's more of that great plane situation, but to Northern Texas, New Mexico.
But they are very common in eastern Colorado.
They're mating habits.
The Larksparrow is monogamous for one breeding season.
The male does a hopping, crouching courtship dance for up to 5 minutes.
Whoa, around and crouching down. A lot.
They spread their tail to show off their white tips, which we talked about already being a little more prominent on the sparrow, and they droop their wings like a strutting turkey, if you've ever seen a turkey doing their strut.
They kind of do this weird wing droop wing titan thing.
Cleo's nodding and be like, yeah, of course.
Yeah.
Wing Titan thing.
Yeah.
100%.
And, um, they offer females a small little twig just before they start their little mating dance.
I love that.
A little twig?
It's like they're giving like a little bouquet of flowers and they're like, here's some of my moves.
I love that.
Then, um, at times, if there's like rivalry between 2 males for one female, they will potentially do like a little skirmish, midair.
So like they'll like fight in the air for a second.
Like that dragon, aerial displays.
Yeah, with the with the hummingbirds.
I mean, a lot of birds will do that.
But it's less common than you'd think, but also more common than you do.
It does feel that way.
It feels like both at the same time.
I blame that one movie, Owls.
What was it called?
Owls, the one where all the owls are.
I don't think I ever saw the movie.
Drunk?
No, it's like an animated movie and it's a bunch of owls and they have to like fly somewhere, but I remember it being a war movie.
Owls.
And flying in war.
I'm upset.
I've never seen this in the movie.
Also, could be.
Legend of the Guardians.
Oh, I remember those books.
I didn't know they made a movie.
Yeah, they do a bunch of aerial fight and large scale war sequences.
By rival factions of owls.
Okay, so I was right.
I thought it was like making something up, but...
We will.
Not should.
Maybe we will.
Maybe two-parter.
We will cover this later.
Two parter.
Legend the Guardians, and then some owl.
Owl.
One of the main characters, probably.
Whichever one I decide.
For Lark Buntings, they are mostly monogamous, but sometimes they, males will take multiple mates, known as polygamy.
We've seen it a lot.
In populations with more males than females, unmated males, sometimes act as nest helpers.
They feed the chicks that aren't their own and like kind of keep track of like a little intern or something.
I don't know.
They don't have a couple, so they're just out here helping.
Just running around.
I mean, at least they're helping and they're not like brooding.
Yeah, true.
Could be worse.
Don't you dare brood.
Make yourself useful.
Come on.
Larksparrows, ground, do ground nests in a shallow depression that's already present, usually, and then a cup nest at times in like low trees and shrubs.
But they don't go very high.
So it's like typically like only like 5 feet up at the most.
Oh, okay.
A real shrub dweller.
Yes, exactly.
Sometimes they'll reuse old nests that they find of like similar size species.
Um, so, like kingbirds.
We have a lot of Western kingbirds in Rocky Mountain Arsenal this time of year and they're very similar size, a little bigger, so they can take their old nest.
Oh, the kingbirds are a little bigger.
That's interesting.
Just a little bit.
Okay.
They do clutches of 3 to 6 eggs.
For the buntings, they have ground nests hidden in tall grass, typically at the base of a shrub or a cactus even, but they don't do like bare open ground, but they don't do any sort of high up.
Like they won't even go the like 5 feet max of the lark sparrows.
They're going to be closer to the ground.
It is built by the female.
They have a same size clutch, basically, of 3 to 5 eggs instead of 3 to 6.
Their incubation period is 11 to 13 days and chicks fledge in 9 to 12 days, which is 15 days.
This feels nuts.
Yeah.
The whole thing feels really fast.
So I can understand why they might have more mates because it sounds like they could have more clutch.
Well, and I feel like a lot of what we find with these smaller birds is that they do seem to reproduce faster and more often.
Yeah.
And I wonder...
Yeah, it's like it must be like part survival and also part like prey because if you think about like hawks, peregrines, let's say.
They feed on other birds.
A lot of other birds of prey feed on other birds.
And so it's kind of like the bunnies of the ecosystem, you know, where it's like you got to kind of keep it up so that you can be a part of the food chain.
Right.
Exactly.
Crazy.
Quite easy.
Larksparrow diet is insects and seeds.
They eat more insects in the summer, which makes sense.
They're more available, and they really like grasshoppers.
They eat more seeds in the winter.
They're actually cited as a very common natural pest control for farmland where grasshoppers become a problem.
So rather than using pesticides and destroying the environment and being a bad person, you could just try and let your large sparrows go wild and free and naturally control the population of grasshoppers.
Also, just fucking get over it.
Like, the bugs get to be outside.
Yep, that's where they go.
Yep.
We are the ones taking up their space.
And bugs are fucking important.
They are.
And if you keep trying to kill them for no fucking reason, just because it makes you uncomfortable, I'm coming for you.
Yeah.
Well, it's destroying so many outside.
We're not actually helping ourselves at all even.
No.
And for Lark Buntings.
The also eat mostly insects in the summer, but they're, they don't have any like favorites, like grasshoppers, beetles, caterpillars, et cetera.
They shift towards seeds and grain in the winter as well.
They can survive drought without drinking water by getting moisture from the insects they eat.
So that's cool.
There's a lot of things that animals do to get water that we do not.
We have to like just drink the water.
No that's true.
But, like, squirrels can get water from, like, the shrubs they eat and shit.
Yeah, there's lots of ways.
One of the lizards I was considering getting a Euromastics, they're desert dwelling lizards, and they get all of their water from like the fruit they eat that you don't give them bowls of water because that can actually be bad for them.
So that's fairly common.
Yeah.
Um, they do actually face a diet related threat, which I kind of did a little spoiler with our lark sparrow, pesticides, will kill them because they will eat the grasshoppers who are killed by the pesticides, and then they will die of poisoning, or some other related disease that they've picked up because of this pesticide.
That's stop doing.
Exactly what we're talking about in the DDT Peregrine Falcon episode.
It's like your your actions have consequences that ripple much farther than your your pretty yard.
Because then the Lark bunting's body gets eaten or a live Lark bunting.
And it gets eaten by a hawk, a falcon, whatever.
And then that goes into the ecosystem and it destroys all of the different levels of, yeah.
The peregrine falcon dies and then the turkey vulture eats, the carry-on, and then it's just a never-ending cycle.
So stop it.
Yeah.
And honestly, your fruit was a little spot on it.
Get over it.
Yeah, and if you have a garden, just try to plant native things and try to be and look for ways that you can not use pesticides.
Like, there are other, there's so many ways to do.
There's so many ways.
And honestly, like, sometimes you just have to suffer through like the consequences of natural environments, if you have a garden, like, and just deal with it. Is part of having a garden is inviting these friends.
Yep.
So, unless it's an invasive species.
But there are also things you can do about that that are not pesticides.
Because it is important to control invasive species and to be aware of those.
Yeah.
But there are things you can do that are not pesticides about that.
Right.
So, period.
For the Lark Sparrow, their conservation status is low concern.
They have had regional declines, especially in the East, where, again, they're being impacted by different environmental concerns.
Unfortunately, the lark bunting is listed by all about birds as a common bird in steep decline.
Oh no.
The IUCN lists it as least concern overall, but with a steadily shrinking population driven mainly by loss and degradation of natural grasslands, which we did learn from our lovely bird bander, that grasslands are actually the ecosystem in the most danger.
Yeah, because all the development.
So that could be farmland, but it could be a house.
Buildings, parking lots, retail spaces, everything.
All of that.
It's grasslands that 1st get destroyed and then wetlands.
Because it's the easiest to develop on.
Right.
And I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I will throw out there that the recent rollbacks on the Endangered Species Act as well as lands being opened up that were protected for natural resource mining.
Including our friends, our neighbors, Utah, has gotten seriously fucked by some of the national monuments that have been. Is.
It like genuinely gives me goosebumps when I think about how much loss we're going to see in our lifetime of natural habitat in species, especially under this current administration.
Fuck you, Donald Trump.
I'm not even going to be.
I'm not even going to be conspicuous about it and be like, this administration.
No.
Fuck all of you right now and fuck all of you who are not protecting these lands.
And the blowback will be severe and it will happen because climate change is real.
And we already see it.
We already see it significance of fact.
It's all your fucking fault.
Yep.
And that's where I'll get off my soapbox, but just know I'm way more pissed than that even.
Very pissed.
We're angry.
But really, I, like, I get like, I start to feel it in my eyeballs where I'm like, if someone was in front of me right now trying to tell me that that wasn't a big deal, I might hit them.
Like, I can feel it in my in my bones. That I'm vibrating with anger.
It's too much The oceans, the, yeah, I can't, I can't get into it or I start getting really, really, really upset.
It's...
I can see it where I'm like, I can see that I'm pissed off.
And it's not funny.
It's only funny because we're doing this right now and I'm trying to get away from my angry feelings, but it's really like I'm being deadass.
The most serious thing you could possibly say is like, I'm deadass.
I'm deadass.
So anyway, fuck that.
Fuck that. Will be trying to find ways to contribute positively.
But the last thing I'll say about these 2 birds in our side-by-side comparison is their little fun facts.
So for the Lark Sparrow, they have the oldest recorded bird was a male that was at least 9 years, 11 months old.
So basically 10, which is old for like the size.
They're very small bird.
That's awesome.
Okay, so for the Lark bunting, the 1937 Dust Bowl had an observer in Kansas that noted that Lark Buntings actually increased and nested successfully while other wildlife vanished.
So they can adapt to extreme environmental situations, but that was the last one.
No, that was the like bunting.
Oh, interesting.
The 1937 Dust Bowl.
So really quick before you moved to pop culture or whatever your questions might be, I was looking up photos, as I usually do while you're telling me these stories because I like to be, you know, visually in the know as we're doing this.
And we don't usually, I don't know when this started, but recently we stopped telling each other what we were going to do before we did it.
We used to talk to each other.
And then it became like a, I've got a surprise for you, which I love.
I think it's been a lot of fun.
So it doesn't bother me at all, but I rarely am prepared.
So I like looking up these pictures.
So I was going through the lark bunting.
And if you scroll down enough. Which I did, apparently.
There's this picture where it just says like Colorado and then there's a like a banner and it's like a, it almost looks like a oil pastels drawing of a thing.
So I click on it and it says Patty Clancy.
And I'm like, ooh, Patty Clancy, tell me more.
Like maybe she's like a famous person for bird art or something.
And then I look her up and it says Patty Clancy, putting fine art to good use since 2015.
And it's basically just her entire works is all like birth, month, birds, birth, month, things.
And then you can buy different sets of things so you can buy like kitchen towels with your birth month birds and your birth month flowers, but you can also do the state birds collection of kitchen towels that she's drawn all these for.
And since both of us are September.
I just wanted to let you know, it says September Hawk.
No distinction of what hawk?
Wow, there's a lot of hawks.
So that's good to know.
And then the state birds one is very fun, and there is a picture of her that's pretty iconic with her meditating in front of all of her bird towels at a display.
She seems to be wearing flip-flops and a bathrobe, and it just says 50 ways to be proud of your roots.
And so I just wanted to shout out Patty Clancy because she seems like a cool broad and she has the Lark bunting towel for Colorado.
And for a lot of others.
And I remembered you saying there was a 2nd state that had Lark Bunting as their, no, Colorado's is unique.
Okay, cool.
Because I was trying to look it up and I only found Colorado.
So I just misremembered that.
No, you didn't misremember. Was wrong.
Oh, okay.
That's part of my humble pie.
Oh, okay, I see.
So if you're interested in some state bird, birth month, birth month flower, towels, coasters, basically putting fine art to good use.
Patty Clancy, and that's Patty with an eye.
Ah, that is a good distinction.
And that's what I just wanted to mention.
Thank you so much You're so well Shout out to Patty.
Shout out to Patty.
And my friend, Patty.
But that's petty with a Y.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Very big distinction.
Yeah, it's important.
Okay.
So this is actually a perfect segue into my last segment. Which is the Colorado State Bird story.
Why did we pick the Lark bunting?
Because I had a whole spiel about how it wasn't a unique state bird and no state birds were unique and.
I was wrong.
Colorado, it's only the only one of all 50 that's Lark Bunting is Colorado, to be clear.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Um, but on April 29th, 1931.
It is when the Colorado State Legislature passed the bill to make the Lark bunting, the state bird, beating out its contenders because there was a whole process to nominate the Lark bunting, which not all states did.
Some states were just like, whatever, this one.
Um, but the contenders, the main contenders, where the Western meadow lark, which is also very common in the Rocky Mountain Arsenal and just in general in Colorado.
It is a common bird.
They're very cute.
The robin.
American Robin.
That one, there's a lot.
There's a lot.
That one would be fair.
And Bluebird, which, to be totally honest, where the fuck is a bluebird in Colorado?
I know that you can see them sometimes.
Sometimes in like the mountains, but not really down here.
Like maybe a Blue Jay or a Stellar Jay, but those are Corbetts.
Those aren't bluebirds.
Right.
They're just blue.
They are cute. Bluebirds are very pretty.
They are blue space birds.
They're not in space.
They're just, there's a space between the blue.
Blue space birds.
That's our next documentary is when we send birds to space.
The 1st one was the grass land.
Blue ones.
Yeah.
It's called no shrubs.
And the 2nd one is...
No shrubs is perfect. You.
Title.
I've been thinking about that the whole time because as soon as you said shrubs, I've been thinking, I don't want no shrubs.
All right, so here's the timeline leading up to the 1931 iconic decision.
So Kentucky was actually the 1st state to announce an official state bird, which they chose the Cardinal in 1926.
By 1931, 13 states had already followed suit and selected a state bird.
That timing does matter because by the time Colorado got around to choosing, several of the obvious picks, like I mentioned earlier, Robin, Meadowlark, Bluebird were already claimed elsewhere, sometimes multiple times.
So, 1927, Roy Langdon, who was a Fort Collins educator and president of the Colorado Audubon Society at the time became the Lark Bunting's chief advocate.
He wanted the planes represented in state symbols on par with the mountains.
So Colorado State Flower is the Columbine, which is technically something that can grow in like suburbs and Denver, but it thrives in mountains.
Really pretty too.
They're gorgeous.
I love them.
And then the blue spruce is the state tree.
Those had already been picked by school children.
So that's the other piece of this is that Roy Langdon was a teacher.
And so he was heavily involved in the discussion with his students, getting them to advocate for more planes representation outside because like Cleo said earlier, and I was like, that's a great segue for later, there's deceptively flat parts of Colorado.
Yes.
About half of our state is very mountainous, very famous for the Rocky Mountains, all the good stuff, lots of skiing, et cetera, et cetera.
But that's really only about half our state.
The other half is very much plains, like pretty indistinguishable from like Nebraska or Kansas.
Like definitely not as much of the rolling hill situation, but less mountains than like, I just know when I'm flying into Colorado from somewhere else. 9 times out of 10.
I'll hear someone on the flight being like, damn, where's the mountains?
Like, what the heck?
Because DIA, our airport, is out in the planes where I live. In the middle of fucking nowhere.
Where Hannah lives.
And it's, I mean, it's just, you, it takes a minute to get to the mountains.
The mountains are a big part of our culture, but sometimes it takes up more space than the actual space of the state.
So fun fact.
That's true.
So they did a poll with school children in Larimer County, which is where Fort Collins is located, and they named 34 different birds, but the obscure log bunting, one with 60% of the vote. Because mostly of Langdon's propaganda with his students. Amazing.
I'm here for that kind of propaganda.
Yeah, positive propaganda.
Yes.
Yes.
Propaganda for good.
Although who gets to decide?
Hard to tell.
But in this situation, propaganda for good.
There was some pushback from Karen Craig.
Oh, the state's superintendent of public instruction ran a rival official ballot that left the Lark bunting off entirely.
The Metal Lark technically won that one with 39%, but 39% is not a winning metric.
No. And you left off a key contender.
Exactly.
And that's fucked.
That's the that's voting rights.
What's the what's the word I'm looking for?
Like a trick coin?
It's like a trick coin.
You know?
There was no winning there.
No winning at all.
Throughout 1928 and 1931, Langdon actually was publishing pamphlets, like 17 reasons why the Lark Bunting should be Colorado State Bird.
And all these different like, bam, literal propaganda pamphlets.
Oh my god, I would love to find one of those.
Zines before there were zines, basically.
Incredible.
About why Lark Buntings. Were something that we needed to see representation for our state because the state symbols were overrepresented with the mountains, and we needed our prairie and agriculture counterparts represented.
So incredible.
Even now, it's like one of the top 6 birds in Colorado.
So like it's not unheard of.
It's still very present.
It's just present in very specific locations.
I think that's lovely.
The real clincher, though, was by 1931, as I mentioned at the top, when we did vote on the Lark bunting officially, or like past the law to make it the official state bird, whatever.
The Meadowlark was already the state bird of 4 other states.
We were only at 13 total states of the 50 states.
And we already had 4 that were the Meadow Lark.
Yeah.
And that's what I was mad about is because I was like, what's with all these like fucking bullshit.
Everybody's the same state bird.
No.
Bunting is actually unique.
And also to run a campaign to be like, I want the same bird as Massachusetts.
Delaware and...
I'm making things up.
I don't have the list I do have the list, but I'm not looking for all of them.
No.
Actually, I could really. A weird stance to take to be like, I want to have the same one as them.
Why?
It's Kansas.
Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, and North Dakota, Oregon, and Wyoming.
That's insane.
Too many. Too many.
So actually, if you count that, that was six.
It was just 4 at the time, right?
Because there was only 13 states.
Oklahoma's is a scissor tail flycatcher, and that's really fun.
Yeah.
Not everyone was thrilled about this final decision.
The Colorado Mountain Club Journal that existed at the time called Trail and Timberline wrote that the bird was unknown to 90% of Colorado citizens and to plenty of legislators who voted for it.
I mean, if you were going to pick a different bird that you wanted something similar, you could have even done the northern or the flicker.
Wait, am I?
No.
Yeah, you think that right?
The northern flicker, the one that has like the little red epaulette or not. Like Kerchet?
Yeah, like I could even see that one coming up against it.
Actually, it might be an individual. Hold on.
I feel like there are a lot of other, I'm just saying, there's a lot of other birds that like are common that are not that are just as stunning.
And I would say the Western Meadowlark has a really similar pattern kind of structure, at least with like where the bib section is to the other one that I just said that somehow is blanking my memory right now.
The northern flicker.
The northern flicker.
Yeah, and I could see that one being put up, but yeah.
Actually, Northern Flicker is one state bird's one state bird.
It is the Alabama state bird.
Oh, yeah, you're totally right.
The yellow hammer.
I never heard it called that.
I've never heard it called.
I wonder if that's a, like a, like a localism.
Yeah.
So basically, the takeaway here is that Colorado didn't pick the Lark bunting because it was like a commonly known bird.
They picked it because it was unique, because no other state had claimed it, and it was backed by a very persistent advocate who ran a multi-year campaign, for this bird to become, like, no, there was, this is like a truly like, it was a, it was an altruistic campaign.
Yes, it was an altruistic campaign.
He did not benefit from this.
He did not get money from this.
He did it because he wanted to have the state represented in a way that was different.
Big bunting.
Can we give him kickbacks?
Perfect.
Oh my gosh.
I wish.
I wish.
The birds aren't giving us anything also.
Just to be clear.
This is not sponsored by birds.
So they don't have any money.
No.
They're just babies.
They don't have any money, many.
So let's talk about the state bird overlap.
So I have a very clear comparison as far as like repeat birds.
So, do you have a guess or do you already know the most common state bird?
I'm so sorry.
I do have it looked like, I pulled the Wikipedia up while we were trying to make you guess.
The, well, based on, it's a long list, but I'm going to say Northern Mockingbird is the most common.
No, but it is in the top three.
Cardinal?
Yes.
Cardinal is 7 states.
To be clear, 32 of our 50 states do not have a unique state bird.
So it's majority.
Yes.
Only 18, including Colorado, claim a bird that nobody else has.
Yes, and the most surprising one, to me, was Utah.
What is it?
Is the California gull.
It's a seagull.
That is wild.
I was like, is it because of salt?
Are you sure?
I was on Wikipedia, so I Googled it just to make sure that that was right.
I don't know.
I think it has something to do with Mormonism, apparently, but I didn't read that far because I didn't care.
Oh, okay.
I saw it and I said, mm, I don't care about that.
But I just wanted to double check that that was correct.
So the Northern Cardinal has seven.
Western Meadowlark is the 2nd most popular.
They have 6 states.
Northern Mockingbird has five.
American Robin has three, which is actually kind of small considering that's probably the most prominent bird in America.
Agreed.
American goldfinch also has three.
Black cap chickadee, which is very common here, has two.
Yep.
Chicken, blue hen.
Um, which I think blue hen is Delaware.
Delaware.
Yeah.
And Rhode Island red is the chicken for Rhode Island, which I love.
But those are kind of distinguished because they're like differentiated by a very specific type of chicken.
So to me, that feels less like an overlap.
I agree.
Eastern Bluebird has two. And Mountain Bluebird has two.
Yep.
So then you can go and look up like the full state-by-state list, like you said, one of the most unique, if not the most unique, is the California goal for Utah.
To be clear, the reason that's weird for those of you who live here is Utah is hella landlocked.
So it's strange that a seagull is their state bird.
I'm not saying they don't fly around there.
I'm just saying that's odd that they would pick a seabird. For that.
I guess, I don't know if they might be considered chorebirds.
We'll have to do a seagull episode at one point, but yeah, it just really surprised me that they did that.
And it has something to do with Mormons.
I'm not interested in looking deeper into that yet.
So if anyone else wants to look, go for it.
Another unique one that I'm like, oh, yeah, that's makes sense.
Is Maryland is the Baltimore Oriole.
Yes.
One of my favorites is the capital of Maryland.
Right.
Classic.
Makes sense.
Um I also love the New Hampshire Purple Finch.
Yeah, like ever heard of a purple thing?
I love it.
That's great.
Is it like a house finch, but more purply?
Is very cute.
Super, super cute.
Um, so yeah, there's definitely, like I said, there's 18 states who have unique ones.
And some of them are very obvious.
Like the California state bird is the California quail.
Makes sense.
But yeah, Pennsylvania never is so as far as like fun facts around state birds.
Pennsylvania never officially adopted a state bird.
They have a ruffed grouse, but it's a state game bird.
Interesting, which several states have game birds, but I don't want to talk about hunting birds.
Sorry.
No, I don't want to either.
Like, I just mentioned, several states have additional bird designations layered on top of the main state bird, so there's state game birds.
Sometimes they're state raptors.
Sometimes there's state ducks.
Um, there's a, uh, Wisconsin has the state symbol of peace, which is their mourning dove.
So that's cool.
Cute.
Um, but yeah, basically.
I'm going to be honest.
A lot of that just sounds like people in government got bored. Like, should we pick another bird?
Should we have another?
Yeah, should we have a state duck?
Someone like me was sitting at the table who didn't want to do whatever I was supposed to do that day and was like, but we could pick our state up.
Instead of talking about this other thing that I don't want to talk about.
Yeah, exactly.
No.
And so that's basically the whole thing.
And so I was wrong and there was actually a ton of reasons and valid efforts that were done in order to make Lark Buntings, the state bird, and I think they're very cute and cool.
And I love lark sparrows as well.
And I did want to shout out one specific piece of, or one source that was really helpful in my research.
Um, it's an article that's actually published in the Denver Public Library, special collections, and archives.
It's called the How the Lark Bunting became Colorado State Bird, and written by Brian K. Trembeth.
So, um, it was written in 2023.
So very current as far as like research then, research now.
But yeah, it really helped me understand like how it became the state bird and all the work that went into it.
That's incredible.
I really love that.
Thank you so much for looking into that and sharing.
That was a lot of fun.
Stop doom scrolling and start.
Stop.
Yeah, stop using pesticides and start a campaign to change your local birds.
Yeah.
Or if you have a repeat.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If you have a repeat, start a campaign, create pamphlets, create zines to advocate for the bird you want.
More print media.
And until next time, stay cool, bird boy.