Low Tide: Young and the Nestless Update

Aviculturist Ashley is back to update us on the latest shenanigans of the Aquarium's bird residents in a series we like to call "The Young and the Nestless".

This is a "Low Tide" episode! It's more relaxed, shorter, and maybe even a little sillier than normal. Enjoy!

Episode Transcript

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Hi, I'm Erin Lundy. And I'm Madeline Walden, and this is Aquarium of the Pod Civic. A podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Pacific, Southern California's largest aquarium.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Join us as we learn alongside the experts in animal care, conservation, and more.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Welcome back to Aquarium of the Pod Civic. It is an emergency episode today. We have a huge update on the young and the nestless coming. Season two. Season two. Season two update by our first reoccurring guest on the podcast. We're joined by aviculturist Ashley Loper. Hi, Ashley.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Hi, happy to be back.

SPEAKER_02 0:38

Thank you for joining us. We heard you had some scoop.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

All right, I'm back with some hot new gossip. What's the tea? So the tea right now is happening mostly in our Alcid colony, which if you don't know what an Alcid is, that is our diving bird area. So that's a family of birds that includes puffins, pigeon gillamots, myrrhs, auklets, uh, all of those diving birds you would see in the northern hemisphere. So here our tea concerns the horde puffins this season. So it is currently our breeding season for them. Um and they are all kind of establishing where they are going to be nesting. So if you've never looked at our habitat, there's actually little tunnels that lead back into our nest boxes there, and they all have little boxes. There is more than enough for everybody. However, one of our puffins has decided she wants to nest in this weird, awkward little cave. It is not what I would pick. I mean, I guess it's fine. She is sitting there, but it's like this tiny little hole in the side of the exhibit, and it's meant, I think, to control some sort of plumbing. There is like an at there's a pipe in there. There's like an open and shut-off valve, but she has been there a couple seasons now, and that is her place.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

This is it. It's location, location, location.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

The side of the exhibit is a hot location. There are plenty of open, I'm gonna call them real nest, but she has refused to have every single day.

SPEAKER_02 1:58

Why would you say this cave is perfect?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Yeah, I guess so. It could fit one bird, and it is her. So which which bird is this? That would be Daisy, the horned puffin.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Daisy, what are you doing? So does Daisy have a mate? Daisy does not have a mate, so I guess she just needs a single home for one. This little thing works fine. I was picturing one of those very like industrial style lofts that people live in with like the hose valve in the middle, and she's like, honestly, I just designed around it.

SPEAKER_00 2:22

She's very industrial and it's optional. She very diligently collects nesting material. We give them like fake little plants and stuff for herself. So it's very homey in there. You know, she's doing her best with it. But where things kind of the plot intensifies here is that I started seeing another puffin hanging out in that spot. So I'd come in in the morning and I see a head poking out of there, and I assume it's a daisy. And then the bird came out and it was not Daisy. Um so it was another puffin named Hef. Now, Hef does have a mate. And they have a burrow together, a very nice burrow. They are a very established pair. Um, so I was like, well, it's probably just house hunting. You know, they're like checking their options. This one's already furnished. I mean, so I'm gonna read all this messy material. So I'm sure he's house hunting, and this will kind of die down once his mate lays her egg. They're established, they're gonna go in there, they're gonna leave Daisy alone, it won't be a problem. They have now laid their egg. And guess who I saw in there? Last week, as Hef, who is sitting in Daisy's burrow, and Daisy's hanging out outside of it.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

I don't see Daisy in all this, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

She just watches. Whoa, she's blodding. Very confused by it, but she's not like aggressive or rude about it. She's like, I guess. But then it got me wondering, and this is purely gossip at this point. This is purely bird gossip. This is me spreading rumors. Puff and gossip.

SPEAKER_02 3:41

This is puff and gossip the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 3:43

I feel like I have two options here, which is Hef is either just having like a man cave bachelor pad moment away from the nest, and he's chosen that. Or option two is he has a little girlfriend on the side.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

He's at her like little apartment. He's visiting.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

His current real wife is like at home on the and who is his mate? Sorry. His mate is another horn puffin named Bruiser. Named Bruiser. So bruiser and hefer and hef on the rocks, potentially. Maybe, but then okay, here's where it gets even weirder. This morning, bruiser was in the weird nest and Hef was on the egg. So I don't know what is happening anymore. This is thrilling. They're so much fun. They're one of my favorites. So I'm happy to talk puffins anytime.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

It's crazy to me how the social dynamic of these birds is so, in some ways, very human. You know, you're like, hey, this is my apartment. I've got this cute little studio, and then this like older gent just kind of is like, you know what? You're cute. You have a house, so I'm gonna be around it. And that's just it's uh they're very progressive as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

It's a progressive habitat.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

I mean they can be. And then there's like any of the birds, you'll get some of the occasional shake-ups where they're like, actually, I am gonna go see what the neighbor's doing over there.

SPEAKER_01 4:54

So are puffins a type of animal that tends to mate for life and they have the same pair over like the course of year after year? Or do they choose other ways?

SPEAKER_00 5:03

In general, they mate for life. So I have worked with pairs before that were together 20 plus years. Cute. So they can be incredibly faithful, but just like with any pair, sometimes things don't work out and they will repair with a different individual. They're a little less faithful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:16

So they're monogamous.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

I feel like they mate for life in the way humans may mate for life, where sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes you meet a cute girl who lives on the side.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Got her own apartment and living enough on the east side. Maybe so.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

Now, on the flip side, we do have some very cute, well-established pairs. Um, my favorite at the moment is our pair of tufted puffins. So we have Monty and Naya, and they are both like senior citizens. They're both considered geriatric for puffins. They're in their 20s. Um, but they are so cute together. So you might have seen Naya posted on social media.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Yeah, with that beautiful picture you touched. That was a great photo.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

Uh, but she's quite a princess. So Monty pampers her, like he's always grooming her, they're always laying together, and he's just like preening her tufts and preening her little back feathers. And not once have I ever seen her preen a back. So she's a queen.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

It's a relationship to strive to. Yeah, he takes such good care of her.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

She's a princess. She deserves it.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

But I love them. They're very cute. We have some very old animals in our alsid exhibit. And I think people, you know, they I don't think people often look at Alcids or Puffins and realize they can live as long as they do. But it's crazy to be like, yeah, we have a couple puffins in their 20s, and we actually have quite a few that are most of them.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

I would say most of the animals in that habitat are considered geriatric. It's crazy at this point. That's like a little retirement community in there.

SPEAKER_02 6:32

So if you visited the aquarium before, the habitat we're talking about is in Northern Pacific. It is called diving birds. What other animals live in there? Because it's not just puffins, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

It's not just puffins. So we do have, like I said, that whole family of birds is called Alcids. So within that family, we have uh ocklets, we have a crested ocklet in there. At the moment, he's very cute. So he's one you might walk by and he's got this crazy little like elvis hairdo going on with his feathers. Uh kind of hangs out like almost like a quail on top of his little head. So that's a crested ocklet. Uh and then we also have pigeon guillamots in there who, depending on the season, can look drastically different. Right now, everybody's in breeding plumage, so it's very pretty. They're all these really striking, like black birds with white shoulder patches. Uh, but then if you come in the off-season when they're not breeding, they're gray and white and salt and peppery looking. Uh so it's a pretty dramatic change that they go through. But all of those birds are related to puffins, uh, but they're all quite different. So it's a very diverse family.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

There's one pigeon guillotomot that looks different than the other pigeon gillamots, and in the cutest possible way.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Oh my gosh, I know exactly who you're talking about. Who am I referring to? That is Pepper. So all of the other pigeon gillamots are black and they have a little black beak, and Pepper has a bright orange beak. She's got a little genetic mutation, or she doesn't have melanin in like her beak and her toenails, so you get that orange color, and she's got clear toenails. So she definitely stands up. She got the clear one. One time somebody sent a picture to our like group chat that we have with just a picture of a bird's foot, and they said, Who can name this animal? And I saw it was the clear toenails I chose from this one picture. I thought it was Pepper. Oh my gosh. And I got I still get made fun of when people send me an animal foot picture. What animal is this? It was one time you got.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Also, you're probably right every time they text you. Like you're studying.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

I sent Ashley once a picture that was probably three pixels big of uh some sort of bird of prey. And I was like, what is this? She's like, it's a Cooper's hawk.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

And I was like, that is my brother's favorite game. He loves to send me terrible bird pictures and see if I could find out what they are. And you will. I'm undefeated so far.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Listeners want to send the aquarium some just random bird pictures.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Let me just give you Ashley's number.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

It's redacted. Redacted bleep. I think it's a really worthwhile game.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

I think we should just start sending any sort of animal foot to Ashley and then we'll I think actually that would be a very fun video, is if we sit you down and we show you we're doing it.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

Ashley is actually an avid birder and she knows quite a bit about different species.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

She does so much. She was just, she just starred in our pelican release video with the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center. And it was great. You did awesome. How's that?

SPEAKER_00 9:02

That was really awesome. I have never gotten to work with pelicans before, but it's certainly a species that I have a lot of love for. Like I have brown pelicans back in Louisiana where I'm from, and then we have them here in California. So it's a bird I grew up seeing, and that means a lot to me. So being able to help them when there was a time of crisis and help our neighbors at Wetlands and Wildlife was really awesome. And I really saw those birds at their worst when they were first coming in. Um, and I got to see them at their best when they were being released into the wild. So I really got the full spectrum of experience. And it was cool to feel like I was making a difference in our local bird community.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

The question I have for you that is entirely unscientific, but I think is a question I get asked a lot. What does the like flappy guy on a pelican? You don't like their their throat. What does that feel like?

SPEAKER_00 9:47

It's so weird. I feel like it feels exactly what you would imagine that it feels like. It's just this weird smooth skin. Does it feel like if you pinch your elbow skin? I feel like it's softer than that. Like it's it's really like soft and it feels so thin. Like when you're handling the pelicans, I was like, oh my gosh, I hope I don't like tear. And that's like a very common injury you see with pelicans too, is they go after like fishing gear or something. And that pouch tears surprisingly easy with some of that sharp gear. So it's it's very fragile. Fragile next skin.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Well, yeah, I was talking to you when we were at the release and at the Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center. They seem so delicate, like their beaks seem so delicate. But then I was watching them just fly open mouth into each other.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Like they are not totally fine.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

They're they're funny animals.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

Yeah, it's weird. Birds are like sturdy and delicate at the same time, where you're like, okay, I have to hold you a certain way, and this feels scary. But I, if you if I don't, you're gonna hurt yourself. If they hold you too tight, that could also hurt you. It's a very fine balance.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Steve, oh one thing that I learned about pelicans, about how to handle them, is when you are holding them and restraining them, obviously the beak part is the body part that can hurt you, but if you hold their beak closed, they actually can't breathe. Oh. Um, their nostrils or the nails that you see do not function as well as you think they function. And so you have to hold their mouth slightly open or else they can't breathe. And I was like, that is the funny. Like, why can't you?

SPEAKER_00 11:09

You've got such a giant mouth just holding it shut.

SPEAKER_01 11:12

That's all it did. You can't breathe anymore.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

Yeah, that seems like a design flaw. Yeah, millions of years of evolution, and that's the worst we got.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

So there's weird animals, and all the animals. I think a fun game would be like, what does this feel like on different animals?

SPEAKER_00 11:28

I don't feel like that translates well to an audio spare.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

We have gotten really good at being very descriptive and what things feel like, such as an octopus feels like a wet gummy bear, and everyone's like, I know exactly what that feels like. You have told me that a sea lion feels like a wet horse, which is very accurate, actually. Not touch a wet horse or a gummy bear for that matter, but what is the weirdest part feeling part of an animal?

SPEAKER_00 11:54

Like that you have touched. Any animal that I have touched. Oh, that's so that's a hard question, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:03

The pelican goozle's gotta be one of them. I don't think it's called a goozle. No.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

If you want the real word, it's a guller pouch. Oh, okay. Got it. Don't worry, frogs have guler pouches as well. That's what you're seeing when you see. Frogs and pelicans are basically the same, confirmed.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

I said, We're learning frogs are just like every other animal, truly.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

That's exactly like a frog. It is a guller. It's true. It's true.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Well, it's been an exciting month in Bird World, I guess. You you had the pelican release, we have these new shenanigans with our acids. What about Penguin World? What's going on there?

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Yeah, we need a season one update on all of the couplings and all of the things that were happening last year. Have they been good this year?

SPEAKER_00 12:43

Surprisingly problem-free at the moment. So we did not have a lot of scuffles or anything going on during breeding season. Uh, our pairs were all stable and faithful to one another. Uh, we did have Gats was single last season, and Roxy is also newly single out on the beach. So those two uh were both single and male and female. Roxy took her sweet time deciding to come up and build a nest, but she finally decided to. Uh she moved in with gats. I don't think either one seemed particularly thrilled about it. I think they were just the only option. And uh Roxy is Gats's mom, so it's like he moved back in with mom and was helping. They felt a lot more like roommates than mates, which is preferred. Um, but that was the only, I think, weird thing that we had going on.

SPEAKER_02 13:31

That's pretty big.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Right. To move in with mom again.

SPEAKER_02 13:34

But I will say if they want to make it to season three, we're gonna have to have some more shenanigans. So I've got it.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

We gotta get we're gonna shake up the beach. Um with Gats and Roxy, is I think a lot of people ask, like, can they tell that that's their parents? Do you have any understanding or can you give us insight into whether or not penguins can tell if they're related or not?

SPEAKER_00 13:55

I think initially when they're chicks they can, but kind of as they grow up, I don't really see any parental relationship that I've ever observed going forward once the chicks are like fully fledged and on their own. Like I've seen parents bully their former chicks, like you're on your own, get out. I feel like there's any fondness necessarily there. I think they just treat them like any other penguin. Got it. Poor cats.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

Poor cat. Katz is always the hot single on the beach, like he is always with someone a little bit, and then he has never quite settled down.

SPEAKER_00 14:24

He really hasn't, and he wasn't very helpful. Even when Roxy when Roxy laid eggs, um, he I don't think I saw him sit on the eggs one time. He was like, You're your own mom, those are your kids.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

What's the um the gossip around Kate and Robbie? How are they doing together? The it couple on the beach. They are the it couple and they still got it. They still got it.

SPEAKER_00 14:43

They are still going strong, very cute, very beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Um, I think that there is another subset of birds that has gone through breeding season pretty recently that seems to also have a little bit of gossip surrounding them, and those would be our Avacets.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Ooh, you're right. I didn't think of them initially, but they certainly got a little spicy. Spell, spell, spell. Uh so Avacets in general, when it comes to breeding season, the hormones fire up and they just become incredibly territorial. So a lot of times, if we have them on our shorebird habitat, they will start defending a territory towards us, the keepers, and towards all of the other birds. Uh, and they do get pretty intense and they're yelling at you all the time, and they're kind of just like flying at you, and you're like, oh my goodness. What does it sound like when they yell at you? It's just like a high-pitched, oh man, I'm gonna have to do an abcet impression. I don't know. But it's it's really like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Adorable yelling. It's like kind of little, just like beep chirps, uh, but like very rapidly beep beep chirping at you while flying at you. That's fair. Yeah, they got long legs and a long beak, and it's quite a thing. So this year for our Avicettes, they have been in what we call our upper wetlands area. So that is, I'm gonna say on the bottom floor outside in the aquarium, kind of by shark lagoon. Uh, we have a heron in one section, and then in the upper section is where we had the two Avacets together. Uh, and we were like, okay, this is great. They're gonna be by themselves. There's not gonna be other birds to bully, and they can nest. It's gonna be awesome. Um, but I think in the absence of other birds to bully, they decided when hormones got really high that they were gonna maybe chase each other a little bit. So they were very hot and cold, a little toxic. Uh, so sometimes they would be great together, they'd be building a nest together and then just destroy it. Surprisingly, the female, I I guess, you know, hormones.

unknown 16:33

I have them.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

We got them. Um, so the female was chasing the male quite a bit and trying to like hit him with her wings to the point she actually started to like hurt her wings a little bit. So we did make the decision to separate them because we saw that going on and we could intervene. I know. So um, that was a lesson that we learned this year is even by themselves, those hormones do not go away. They will direct them at something, and that something can be one another.

SPEAKER_02 16:59

I feel like we need like a stuffed animal in there for them to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

That's what I thought we can get like a decoy avocet to be like, why don't you like a decoy waterfowl?

SPEAKER_01 17:08

You just put a picture of an avocet in there and it just is like punctured over.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah, I feel like you just have to unite them against a common enemy.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Exactly. Exactly. Nothing brings two people together like a common enemy. Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Nothing brings two avocets together like a common stuffed animal. That is so it's so interesting how much birds have this like super involved social dynamic, and then the seasonality really impacts their behavior. Like it is wild because most of the year, totally fine. Totally fine.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

They could be in shorebirds, there's no issues, everybody lives peacefully, but for some reason breeding season kicks in and those different birds, different things going on out there.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

You know who's never involved in the drama? The Griebe.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

You're right. The queen is so the least problematic bird. I also we got a new bird out there recently. New Hoss, right? Single, she's been a fan favorite already and a staff favorite, and that is our white-faced Ibis Gladys. Is her name, which is the greatest little name. Yeah, she's super cute and just like an unproblematic queen. She settled in perfect, she's not like shy towards people. She is very curious and comes anytime you put something new in there. Like we just put new plants, and she was the first to come just like stick her little beak in all the plants and check everything out. So she's a super cool bird. And if you catch her on a sunny day, you really see all of her colors, especially if she's like bathing or spreading her wings or something, and she's a stunning little bird. She's like iridescent. And she was a rescue. So I think she was found here in Long Beach with some pretty significant injuries. Uh, she had some gashes along her back, she had like a broken collarbone. She went through it, she was like a child. Like she was a juvenile little ibis. Uh, but they were able to heal her, they just can't release her because she couldn't fly. So they were able to reach out to us and we had a little home for her. That's so wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

And she she's doing so great, and we all love her a lot. She doesn't create any problems. No, she is so good, so unproblematic. Like the ideal.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Well, you can visit her in our shorebird's habitat. That's next to Raypool. Is that right? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

It's next to penguins in Raypool.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

If you visit off season, you will be confused as to why they are called white-faced ibis because they are totally green and black and iridescent and not at all white-faced.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

It is a weird name where people are like, What's that bird? And you go, Oh, it's a white-faced ibis, and there's no white on its face. I'm like, I didn't name it.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

I'm just messing with beer. Last week I went up there and she does have a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 19:29

She does have a little it's still not what I would say is like the most prominent feature, but there's another very similar looking ibis called the glossy ibis. So I guess that name was taken already. So it's like, oh, this one's face is more white.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Does she just molt twice a year to change color? Or as her new as her feathers kind of grow in, are they like ombre from white?

SPEAKER_00 19:50

So her body feathers will stay pretty much the same. It's just that little bit of white on her face. You'll just see it gradually like transition to being a slightly more dramatic little mask.

unknown 19:58

Cool.

SPEAKER_00 19:58

And then it'll slowly like transition back at the end of breeding season to no mask. It's like a little secret identity.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

Are there any other animal species names that you have a problem with because they don't really fit the actual animal?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Oh, there's so many. I'm sure. Especially in birds. You're like, that's what you name it. Like there's a duck called the ring-necked duck. If you look at it, you're gonna be like, Where? Where is the ring? And apparently, if you see it in certain light, you could see kind of the essence of a ring on it.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

If you imagine a ring, you can see it.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Like that, that's what we named it.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Okay. Someone just put a ring on its neck and they're like, it's a ring-necked. Yeah. And then they took it off.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

And then you're like, done. I discovered a new species. Like, some make total sense. Like you'll see a blackbird with a yellow head, you're like, yellow headed blackbird. You're like, that one total winged blackbird. The blackbird with red wings. It's a red-winged blackbird. All right, so I get that. Or one of my favorites is somebody texted one time and they said, There's a bird outside my house, and it sounds like a cat. What is it? And I had to tell them that it's called a cat bird.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

I'm not messing with you about themes or cats.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

It's like this is so for real.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

Like you could Google it. This is a cat bird. That's so funny. Birds are crazy.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Who gets to choose? You know, like who's like, yep, this we need to put you two in charge. I want to choose. I would name the frogs terrible things. Like speckly brown frog, slightly more speckly brown frog. I don't, I actually do have beef with whoever named Mountain Yellow Legged Frogs because the yellow is so inconsistent. Right. Um where they're juveniles, it's that's tan. And I have all weirdly, my main guest complaint is that their legs aren't yellow. Sorry, we'll paint them. Sorry, I didn't know. And it's funny because people would be like, they're not yellow. And I was like, they get a little yellower when they're sometimes, yeah. And there's a couple where it's more, but it's like again, it's like the suggestion of a white-faced ibis is similar to the mountain yellow legged frog. So but California red legged tree frogs, very red legs. So whoever did that. We'll keep you. It is odd, whoever gets to name those things. I learned more about bird today than I ever thought.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

I know it's gonna be just like a little short and sweet episode, but we crammed in a lot of information.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

Anything else exciting going on with these days? What's your favorite bird thing happening right now?

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Uh I think my favorite bird thing happening right now. Bringing it back full circle to the puffins. I love puffin breeding season because they have so many cute little courtshit behaviors that they do. So you'll see a lot of my favorite favorite thing that they do is called billing. So it's where they kind of rub their bills together. And it's very cute. So you'll see pairs do that, but you'll also see them like flap their wings at one another. So you'll see one do it, and then somebody else will be on like the rock below them and they'll open their wings. And it's kind of something they can do. That's the mate back and forth. It can either be between mates or it can be between two that are like subtly beefing with each other. I'm bigger than you. I'm bigger than you. Or it's like it's over. I have the so you'll see that you'll also see them like head toss at each other, so they'll just subtly like toss their head back at one another, or like they'll bill gape and they'll open their mouth and kind of show the inside of their mouths. So if you see the pigeon guillamots, it's actually really cool. It's an all, like I said, all blackbird with white shoulders, but when they open their mouth, it's bright red inside. Cool. And they'll do that as they like call and vocalize or just to one another, they'll open their mouth and you just see that little flash of color. So I just love watching all the different behaviors going on in that habitat this time of year. And everybody looks so beautiful with their breeding plumage. There's so many different colors. The tufted puffins have their glorious, like tufted hairdo going on. They do.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

Yeah, they I was gonna ask if you could tell us a little bit about the difference between the tufted and the horned puffins. Um, I know the tufted, it looks like they have beautiful long eyebrows almost.

SPEAKER_00 23:37

It does. Yeah, it's very stunning. I thought of them as eyebrows. Really? Right to me.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

They look like just like really long eyebrows.

unknown 23:45

It totally does.

SPEAKER_00 23:47

And they are, it looks very hair-like, but those are still feathers. They're just really modified feathers, yeah, that look hair-like. It does look like they have little hairdo's going on. Um, someone got those like eyebrow transplants from the head hair and then they grew them up. Crazy. Again, another transformation is they lose those. Those completely go away in non-breeding season, and they just turn into these weird blackbirds to the point that like I have had people who work here and who know those birds come up to me and go, Did we get a different bird? What is that? And it's kind of break it to them that that is a tufted puffin in not breeding season.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

I know. It's very dramatic. That molt is subtle and gradual, and then it becomes very obvious. But I love the idea that you just find this blonde eyebrow on the ground. Like one day it's funny.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

I want to know my favorite treasure to find. Yes, please. So the both of the puffin species do it, but it's a little more prominent in the tufted puffins. They get this little sheath on their bill. Uh, it's called a rampatheca. And it like grows in for the breeding season, and it's a little covering on the base of their beak, and that thing will completely like shluff off at the end of breeding season. Like, it just falls off, and you'll find it. Like, I found one on the habitat last year, and I was so excited because I just wanted one. I kept it. Yeah, I wanted one for so long. So it just yeah, totally falls off with the horned puffins, they have it, but it tends to flake off a little bit more. It doesn't always fall off in one pretty piece. But the tufted puffins, that's the whole treasure you get to find. Wow, that's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

That's so cool.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

That is cool.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Is it true that their eggs have sort of a unique shape to them? Is that the puffins or is it some of the other?

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Myrrs are the ones that have the egg that's a little bit more pointed. So puffins will to an extent, but it's not as like pointed, yeah, and elongated. But myrrhs will definitely have kind of more of a cone-shaped egg. And it's because they're cliff nesters. So if something knocks it, the egg's gonna- I know. Why would you lay your egg on the side of a cliff?

SPEAKER_01 25:32

If like the most bread is also perfect.

SPEAKER_00 25:34

That's my child. I'm gonna lay it on a cliff side.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

That is birds though, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Like, yeah. Have you seen a pigeon nest? You mean the one stick that they lay their egg in?

SPEAKER_02 25:44

Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Yeah, but the cool thing is though, if their egg does get bumped, it will kind of just roll in a circle and not off of the cliff because of the weight that it is shaped.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

Do we still have that thing upstairs? We do. Yeah, yeah. There's a display with two types of fake eggs that you can see how well one rolls off a cliff and how not well the other one does. And that's a shape.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Yeah, since puffins nest in burrows, theirs doesn't need to be quite as like cone-shaped, but for the cliff nesting guys, theirs does have usually that little roly. Do do puffins dig their burrows typically? Like, how do they create they can, yeah. So they can dig out burrows, or sometimes they'll just kind of get under like a bush or something and kind of dig it out.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

That would be me as opposed to like everyone else diligently diving it. And like, I'm just gonna bush. This is good.

SPEAKER_02 26:27

I like the cave idea. I like Daisy's plan.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Yeah, or maybe not. I'm not gonna crawl through a tunnel. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_01 26:33

Like, I'm just gonna hop in this little opening and that's good enough. Does her little nest cave preclude you from using that hose?

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Thankfully, it's not a valve we ever have to use or touch. Like, I do not fully know what it goes to. Uh so it doesn't. She, I guess. That's for sure. It's not what I would use, but it sure is what she's doing.

SPEAKER_02 26:53

That's thrilling. We're gonna need to keep stay updated on this.

SPEAKER_01 26:56

This is we're gonna need a picture of the inside of her home, the industrial formula.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

Oh, I gotta put her on blast.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Daisy's like, don't come in here. Well, maybe Hef will be in there. Yeah, we'll find out. Or Bruiser. Bruiser's gonna be scrolling on social media and be like, Hef, why are you and Daisy? Oh the scandal. Honestly, pretty good. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Thank you, Ashley. Thank you for that quick little update. We appreciate it. And we'll talk to you in season three. You gotta come back and give another update. It sounds great. We'll have to catch up on all of the bird tea that happens.

SPEAKER_01 27:29

There is always things happening in bird land. I think that's why I like this as like a comprehensive what is happening with all of our birds right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Tell us. And some of it's so silly, like it's just silly little things that we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

They're birds, it's silly. It's also subtle, and really you would probably only be sensitive to it if you see these birds every single day. Yeah. And you're like, hmm, you're in a weirdness. Yeah, why are you there? That's not where you live. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

Cool, thanks, Ashley. See you next season. See you next season. On Young and the Nest list. We need to make a theme song. We do need a Young and the Nestle theme song.