The 'look at what I did today' thread

[Sailor]

My neighbour, a crack shot who knows a lot about these things, reckons that the pigeon population increase is due to namby-pamby, middle-class parents not letting their kids have air rifles and BB guns.

On the other hand, perhaps birds in general are becoming more used to being around humans.

[wurlycorner]

Thats a question for @Donald

Good luck rustling him up

FWIW though... I reckon it's diet. Humans leaving lots of fatty crap around for them to eat, resulting in lots of slimy crap coming out the back end.

[Sailor]

Today I spent £79 on the Teg ....






... and bought half an hour's labour and a new MoT.

[Donald]

I washed 4 large lumps of pigeon doodoo off the car today.

The car had been parked next to our garage - a favourite take-off pad for the flying rats. My microfibre-in-hand musings came up with two questions:

1. Why has evolution led pigeons to develop more voluminous bowels than they used to have?
2. Is it necessary for them to jettison some surplus weight to take off?

Bastards!

Thats a question for @donald

1. On a technical (but highly important) note, evolution is a consequence of selective pressure, rather than a reaction i.e. it was somehow a benefit to have a larger bowel so those birds proliferated and those without a larger bowel died out, thus removing their genes from the pool. A great example of this getting mixed up is people thinking giraffes evolved longer necks to reach food that's higher up. RE pigeons, I would guess that those that had larger bowels could eat more food in one sitting, which would maximise on efficiency and reduce time searching for food (meaning they are vulnerable to predation for a shorter time). Evolution takes place over longer time scales, certainly longer than the time in which modern humans have been interacting with pigeons. The exception is microevolution, e.g. antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Still not reactive, but can happen within a few generations in some instances, which could be a matter of hours (e.g. E. coli has a generation time of ~20 minutes). I'm not up on evolution stuff and I'm sure you knew what I said anyway, just a phrasing error

2. Not necessary but most likely habitual (e.g. leaving a toxic substance behind for a potential incoming predator) and a result of their physical layout. Consider the two images:




The digestive system is quite different to ours, no large intestine, a fairly short small intestine. Birds have a high metabolic rate so jobby pretty regularly too. In the bottom picture you can also see the synsacrum, which aligns with the intestine/cloaca. So a fused spinal section on one side of these organs + the surrounding musculature = involuntary shitting under tension.


Happy to help.

[Vtecmec]

If you didn't sketch those diagrams yourself, I'm disappointed........

[nitin_s1]

Been busy celebrating Halloween, Diwali and New Year (Hindu one)

[wurlycorner]

Today I had a good chat to this bloke



He's taken over renting the workshop behind my barn. Had a good old natter. He raced an Anglia for 15 seasons and only gave up recently. Now he imports classic American cars and makes furniture from classic car/aero parts and rents them and the cars out as props to film companies. Currently in the workshop, he has a Packard ambulance from Edwards air force base and a full race spec Lotus Cortina.
Oh! And like all the best guys... He has also owned and loves Cx's

[wurlycorner]

This thing no less - it's bloody massive!

[Sailor]

Marvellous stuff as always, Donald.

... organs + the surrounding musculature = involuntary shitting under tension.

But when you get to my age, it's relaxation not tension that leads to involuntary etc etc ...

[Sailor]

Oh, and "What I did today" was return from a long weekend looking at bits of Torbay, South Hams and Dartmoor. Good times.