Dinosaurs in My Yard

For a number of years I have been aware that birds are descendants of dinosaurs.  What I didn't realize until lately is that birds are actually dinosaurs.  To try to convince you I would have to use terms like paleontologist, phylogeny, maniraptoran, dromaeosaur, theropod, ceolurosaurs, endothermic metabolism and so on. I'll spare you all that.  I must say though that many scientists do not agree that birds descended from dinosaurs so by default do not believe that they are dinosaurs. So understanding that a lot  of very smart people agree that birds are dinosaurs, a lot more smart people do not believe that, you can then decide for yourself based on this or other information. Having done little or no research, I just enjoy the idea that the birds in my back yard are dinosaurs.

Carl Sagan said that "we are all made of starstuff."  Actually, in 1973  he said, "The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff." When I read that over forty years ago I was captivated  and thrilled by that idea. I may not have been rich and famous, but who cares, I came from the stars! At the time I had no concept of how the interior of stars had anything to do with me. Now after years of reading Omni Magazine and many articles and books on the subject, I'm beginning to grasp how it happened. In a nutshell, the pressure and heat of the Big Bang created all the elements in the universe. Over billions and billions of years stars created in  the Big Bang expanded into humongous red giants, collapsed into neutron stars and exploded into supernovae.  In those explosions  entire solar systems were born including this one where we live. As planets were formed, such as Planet Earth,  those metals became a part of the planets' cores and surfaces. When life eventually created us, the stuff of stars was under our feet and in our DNA. So again, even if I don't understand it, I can choose to believe it. I can celebrate it.

I have been feeding wild birds for over 30 years.  I just started again after a break of nearly a year because I had conceded the war to the squirrels. When I start hating on squirrels, inevitably there are those who come to their defense. "Squirrels are God's creatures, too." "Why don't you just feed the squirrels?"  "I enjoy watching the squirrels as much as I enjoy watching the birds." Technically, squirrels are rodents and I consider them to be very smart rats with bushy tails. Rats are God's creatures too, but I don't wan't them in my yard and on my feeder. As a young boy I hunted squirrels with my father's 12 gauge shotgun.  "Hunt" is a relative word since there wasn't much sport to it. It was just a "big bang" and a dead squirrel.  I did give the deceased to a friend who cooked them and ate them. So it wasn't entirely inhumane.

My feeder is one in a series of "squirrel-proof" feeders. The others were "squirrel-proof" for a day or two. This one has been relatively "squirrel-proof" for about four months. The only problem is that it is to some extent "bird-proof" too.  The smaller birds like chickadees, bluebirds and finches have no trouble managing the small cage. But it has become necessary for me to throw generous amounts of feed on the ground for the thrushes, cardinals, blue jays and dove.

One of the most interesting things I read about birds and dinosaurs is that in the order of the animal kingdom, A T-rex shares more DNA with a pelican than it did with a triceratop. I will say though that if evolution ever works backwards, my descendants won't  be feeding the T-rex.  However, I'm quite sure the T-rex will have another opinion about that.