Burke Museum 1

Daily Account/Journal: Burke Museum 1st Visit
April 24, 2012
2:45pm

Today we went to the Burke Museum to hear about birds and the records/specimens at the museum from the Collections Manager, Robert Faucett. It was really cool to go downstairs and see all the behind the scene things that go on inside the museum. I was a bit surprised when we first stopped at a table where two students/people, were working on the hides (?) of mammals, and we could see the actual tissue as they prepared the specimens. I didn’t realize how hands on the processes are to preserve history through specimens. I also didn’t realize there were so many types of specimens. Rob talked about four different kinds of specimens and what they were used for including the steady skin specimen, used to identify things to a particular species, because if we only had the skeletal specimen, we wouldn’t know what coloring went where and so forth. On the other hand, I hadn’t considered before that the skeletal specimen would be used to determine the size of an animal, something the first specimen can’t do because it acts kind of like a sock. Another not so aesthetic yet useful specimen is the tissue specimen, for looking at DNA, protein structures, etc. Last, which I found interesting in later conversation was the spread wing specimen, for learning about plumage patterns for example of the Black Footed Albatross. Rob pointed out that the Albatross has evolved a way of losing its feathers so precisely and in the best possible way according to the energetic cost to replace feathers, as well as the need to still be able to fly and catch fish, in one in a huge number of possibilities. The technicality of this and the details of the way it works fascinate me, He pointed out the difference in feathers on the wing of the bird, and compared this birds “lifestyle” to that of the Canada Goose, which has a dramatically different behavior of losing all its feathers at once because it only has to eat grass, and can stop somewhere where there are no predators until its feathers come back. It makes me wonder though, what are the predators of a Canada Goose, and if they can stop temporarily to regenerate feathers, why don’t they spend their lives moving from island to island, instead of migrating like they do? Or do they migrate for that reason? It seems awfully far to fly, and costly to their fitness, if there isn’t some other benefit, which there must be, but what is it?
I also didn’t know that in order to fly better, birds need more breast muscle and a hollowed skull? (not sure if its skull or wings), and that their heads/(wings) become more hollow as they age. How fast does this happen? Is this why baby birds have more trouble flying, or is it a combination of other things? Is it simply large breast muscle or is it a ratio of that to size of the bird?
It’s amazing how much you can tell from looking at specimens over time and keeping a record of everything you find. I guess the Burke Museum really is an analogy for a library, but it almost seems different to me, because its “books” or resources are being analyzed continually, but maybe I just haven’t had a close-up enough view of a library.
Man, so many interesting things. The other thing I found really interesting was the history of the Townsends and Hermit Warblers. Apparently, the two species are identical through binoculars looking at their DNA, which still doesn’t completely make sense to me, but they are quite different when it comes to coloring, and behavior patterns, and this is causing a shift of population habitat as a system, which is incredible, moving south. Rob talked about how the there is a separation in habitats with the Townsend's Warblers to the north, the Hermit Warblers south, and also a hybrid group in the middle. He asked us to consider what happens if you’re a bird, singing, and another bird comes and attacks you, what do you do? Well you get out of its territory/move, but in this case the only way to go is south because the Townsend's Warblers, the aggressive ones are north, and there is no lodge pole forest in other directions. I asked if there were any birds as aggressive as the Townsend's Warbler and he said no, however, he did say that the Hermit Warblers are nearing the edge of the lodge pole pine forest which is their habitat, which will make for some very interesting studies later. I’m curious what will happen, and thought about the Hawk dove population and (Evolutionary Stable Strategy) ESS, and wondered whether the species will become one and just be a ratio of more aggressive birds to less aggressive ones, or what else could possibly happen, unless the Hermit Warblers go extinct, which I wouldn’t think would happen. It was cool to see the gradient of pure Townsend's to pure Hermit Warbler though and notice their differences in coloring. I wonder what the temperaments of the hybrids are like in comparison. Rob gave me lots of interesting things to think about and I’m interested to hear more on Thursday.

Species list:

Townsend's Warbler (Dendroica townsendi)
Hermit Warbler (Dendroica occidentalis)
Black-footed Albatross (Diomedea nigripes)
Canada Goose (Branta canadensis)

Posted on April 26, 2012 06:43 AM by aclay232