The 5 Most Polarizing Birds in North America

Рет қаралды 4,059

5 ай бұрын

Birds and birding can be surprisingly polarizing, and these 5 birds are normally on the top of the list when it comes to controversial conversations in the avian world. What are your thoughts on these birds? Let us know in the comments below!
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European Starling in cover image and slide by N. Lewis (Public Domain, edited)
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Пікірлер: 39

@carolshannon6449 5 ай бұрын

What an interesting video. I once had a "pet" starling, ones that had been rescued and could not be released into the wild. They were quirky, intelligent little birds, and quick to learn to mimic everything. Once I turned around to respond to one of my cats. who was loudly whining about dinner, only to find it was not my cat - who had a very distinctive voice - it was the starling. Another time I was feeding some parakeets on the other side of the room, and the starling started yelling "Hello! Hello! HellOOOOoooo!" I guess he thought the "waitress" was serving the wrong birds. Lastly, I still remember one wild starling who used to sit on the clothes line outside my house, running through his morning repertoire of bird songs - those of starlings, hawks, stellar jays, robins, chickadees and gross beaks. I do hope that hunting of sandhill cranes is not permitted. The danger of whooping cranes being shot in their place is too strong.

@Groovygoats 5 ай бұрын

I had to giggle a little at this…my parents were lifelong farmers and ‘bird people.’ Not like people that intentionally went out with binoculars to spot a rare species, but they just paid a lot of attention to their surroundings and knew a lot about the birds native to their location. They DID do things to attract certain birds to their farm. Especially Purple Martins. My dad upgraded all of his old stationary metal bird boxes to gourds. He and Mom had all kinds of bird feeders. Mom was especially fond of hummingbirds and planted flowers she didn’t particularly like because ‘the hummingbirds loved them.’ But I giggled at this video for two reasons: 1. Starlings. Omg! My dad hated these bird with a passion. He was a gentle man, never met an animal he didn’t get along with , was never a big hunter (only in lean times to feed his family) and even had a hard time putting down a cow when necessity called for it, but he had ZERO issue shooting at any Starling trying to invade his bird boxes or beloved gourds! Oh, I can hear him cussing those damn birds! 2. At first I was shocked that Canadian Geese didn’t make the list, but giggled to myself because they are not ‘polarizing’ …because everyone seems to agree they are awful! lol! I don’t think I have ever met a single person that has anything but pure, unwavering dislike of the Canadian Goose. I work at a mid-large medical center in a mid-size Midwest city. We have two pairs that return to nest…one pair on a roof area directly above the entrance to the ER, the other directly outside of the entrance to common procedures (dialysis, oncology, etc). So every year, they get aggressive and there are typically multiple unprovoked attacks on people just trying to enter the building. It’s always bonkers, but according to facility manager, the only thing they can legally do is break any eggs that are laid. But it’s apparently the illegal to capture and relocate the geese. One of the directors of the medical center added to this discussion that she lived in a housing addition surrounding a large retention pond which had been overrun by Canadian Geese. After several residents (including children) were injured, the HOA wanted to cull the flock. Apparently the only ‘legal’ way to do so was to ‘rent’ alligators (NOT native to upper Midwest!) and allow the alligators to attack the geese. Sorry…got a little off topic… but a good giggle at the memory of my Dad cursing the Starlings AND the yearly Canadian Goose drama! lol!

@AllAmericanPlaneSpotter-iw4wm 5 ай бұрын

My grandpa loves birds but hates Cormorants because he loves fishing too and thinks they hunt all the fish down. I keep telling him that they aren't that bad

@gregvworld 5 ай бұрын

I love Great-tailed Grackles, but anyone living in TX would agree they have a spot on this list.

@stormwatcher59 5 ай бұрын

I was surprised to learn House Sparrows have a dark side...always thought they were cute

@trueaco 5 ай бұрын

Excellent script writing in this episode!

@megangumkowski3181 5 ай бұрын

Individual starlings don't bother me. The problem is, they are never alone 😂

@Pandacalifornia 5 ай бұрын

I feel like Barred Owls/Spotted Owls fit here. Ik Barred Owls are hated because they compete with Spotted Owls, but also Spotted Owls are kind of hated because of logging restrictions created to protect them.

@BadgerlandBirding 5 ай бұрын

Since they announced that the government wants to shoot something like 500,000 of them it’s been getting a little heated 😅

@ColleenReske 5 ай бұрын

Please look into the suggested killing of 400,000 barred owls in Oregon to save the spotted owl. This is horrible! I lived in Oregon when people were chaining themselves to the Old Growth trees to prevent loggers from cutting down the trees. They won Old Growth habitat to save the Northern Spotted Owl (1990's). Not only is it horrible to kill the non-native owls, but certainly Northern Spotted Owls will be killed, too.

@BadgerlandBirding 5 ай бұрын

Hey, Colleen! We talked a little bit about it on our Podcast in episode 2 but have thought about dedicating a whole video to it as well. It’s definitely an interesting suggestion for management

@torinkyifh5085 5 ай бұрын

I was about to comment something similar! Thanks for bringing it up! @BadgerlandBirding thanks for talking a bit about it I think a whole video on it is a good idea.

@torinkyifh5085 5 ай бұрын

I think the term "invasive" is not accurate to the Barred Owl's expansion. Is the Limpkin considered invasive because it's diet of apple snails in increasing its range and therefore the Limpkin is too? We don't see anything on that.

@torinkyifh5085 5 ай бұрын

I have so many thoughts on this lol...most hunters can't shoot the accurate species to save their lives. You've seen them, no respect towards wildlife. In Marathon County Wisconsin we had hunters shooting Great Blue Herons with the defense of thinking they were geese 🙄. The body count of swans in central Wisconsin is also way too high from shootings. Antigo's REGI still has Bald Eagles coming in with gun shot wounds. Telling hunters to kill a specific bird species is always a horrible idea.

@user-qw5pm6lr9d 5 ай бұрын

I first heard an ivory-billed woodpecker and recognized its call from the audio. I saw it in a woodlot next to the lake at Johnny Henderson Park in the summer of 2018. The location is not far from the Choctawhatchee River.

@cordeliaalderman391 5 ай бұрын

I’ve disliked starlings ever since I saw one throwing all the nuthatch eggs out of a nest in the cavity of our oak tree. Another disliked species: brown headed cowbirds.

@torinkyifh5085 5 ай бұрын

Damn 15 seconds in and Ryan's hitting us with the deep stuff. Facts! Sometimes this why I really prefer birding alone....

@kimp7160 4 ай бұрын

Starlings are beautiful but their giant flocks can get to genuine pest status. Years ago, there was a flock of many hundreds in my old city that loved to gather outside some apartments that were home to largely working class families and very poor retirees. People who really need their rest! Yet these birds were shrieking late at night and early, early in the morning. It was driving people nuts. I worked and lived relatively near so I saw and heard them frequently. LOUD. So the city hired a man with a trained peregrine falcon and used it to break up the flock. Some were killed but most just scattered and flew away in smaller groups. I watched the falcon out the one day. It was pretty majestic in the way it swooped through the flock. We did have a wild set of falcons in the area so it would have been neater if it had been a natural occurrence. But the papers had warned when the man and his falcon would be out so I knew it was them. At least his falcon got a tasty supper that evening. I felt it was a pretty good compromise to the situation. The people got their peace and the birds mostly survived but in manageable numbers spread over a larger area.

@SuperDaveP270 5 ай бұрын

Some others include Snowy Owls (or owls in general); Piping Plovers; Mute Swans; Mallards, Muscovy, and numerous species of released domestic ducks and geese; other fishing specialists such as egrets/herons; other non-natives such as European Goldfinches or numerous parrots...and another highly contentious subject among the Birding community that is not a bird: feral/free-roaming cats.

@coldspring624 5 ай бұрын

I have hunted and fished all my life and there is no reason to hunt cranes or cull cormorants. I don't care for the sparrow at all and will admit the starlings are giving me grief at the feeders this year.

@lukeocasio2784 5 ай бұрын

Thats wild all 5 birds on this list are on my FAVS list. Some people need to stay mad lolololol. But overall great video guys love it!

@timjozwiak2293 5 ай бұрын

I cant say enough On how you guys must go to Crex Meadows in NE Wisconsin.

@K.R.B. 5 ай бұрын

Mute swans, Canada geese, and rock pigeons have also been polarizing. Some people here in southern Ontario were angered to learn that wildlife control officials had been putting mineral (or corn) oil onto the eggs of the non-native mute swans to prevent them hatching, hoping to reduce their population and increase that of the native trumpeter swans. Flocks of rock pigeons and Canada geese leave a lot of their droppings in urban and park areas, causing some to call for culling, while others object to this and even continue to feed them after it's been made illegal in some jurisdictions. The Eastern bluebird recovery campaign never caught on here in Ontario the way it did in the nearby U.S. states. I have never seen one here, though apparently some still show up in rural farm areas. I have never heard of anyone exterminating house sparrows (or starlings) here, probably because laws would prevent the average person from doing so. I assume wildlife control officials would be able to, yet they don't seem to do anything to reduce or eliminate the house sparrows from taking over the purple martin nest box houses in Toronto's High Park. Question: What would happen if all or most house sparrows and European starlings could be eliminated in a region of North America that has them now? Would this just mean fewer birds in urban and suburban locations, or would there be an increase in the populations of native birds replacing them, and if so, which ones? I'm amazed that so many grown adults pay any attention to the Ivory-billed woodpecker nonsense. It's a cryptozoology topic, like bigfoot and Loch Ness monster, etc. It's been a silly subject for a long time. In recent years almost everyone carries around a camera in their pocket, and DNA analysis technology has improved greatly, yet the misguided fervent believers have still somehow failed to find any real evidence?

@kimp7160 4 ай бұрын

My Southern Ontario city used a falcon to break up starling flocks. It wasn't effective at eliminating them, obviously. It was only one falcon. But it broke up the bigger flocks. My regular hiking trails had bluebird nest boxes built everywhere but I had never seen one. But my sister said she thinks she saw one at our parents' new rural property. I now live out west, but a few summers ago I was back and was surprised to only see one gosling among dozens of adult geese by the shores of Lake Ontario. It was horribly abused by the others and its parents were going nuts trying to protect it. I was told about the program to reduce numbers. Honestly, it makes sense but it's so hard to predict how these things will go. You never know when something will happen to make the numbers drop. There is no shortage of them out west. I'm not a serious birder so the ivory-billed woodpecker is baffling. It really is the Loch Ness monster of the hobby. At least some of these older legends have some real creature or phenomenon that inspired the tall tales.

@Beryllahawk 5 ай бұрын

Starlings - I really want to actually see and learn more about them first hand before I make a call on those. My mother haaaaated starlings, but she saw them as pests, more annoying than NYC pigeons, and I never really got her to explain just why. Maybe she got pecked as a child, heh. But I've witnessed house sparrows bullying other creatures - not just other birds, mind you - and while I can see the good side of such a sassy tough bird, I can definitely understand why there's so much concern about them. In both cases though - they're HERE, and so we gotta live with 'em. I've no doubt we could eradicate every starling and house sparrow from North America: humans are real good at mass murder. But the trouble is, if we tried that, we'd very likely have extra casualties, taking out the native birds too. So it seems like a situation where we're just going to have to figure something else out. The cormorants though - why not get 'em to work WITH the fishermen? I seem to recall hearing about a traditional fishing technique that trains cormorants? Or is that a myth? (I do recognize that trying to capture and train cormorants on an industrial scale is probably bad, I'm just wondering.)

@user-hj5tn3pc8e 5 ай бұрын

flocks of House sparrows took over my feeders all summer long

@mattfinin6934 5 ай бұрын

Just waiting for Usidor to chime in

@vistriuss1919 4 ай бұрын

man i cant help but hate house sparrows :( my friend has nesting tree swallows at his house, and hell go out to find bloody messes of the nesting boxes due to the sparrows.