Saturday, October 4, 2008

Bird Club

Now I have joined the FONZ bird club and went to my first lecture yesterday. It was on the migratory issues of the American redstart by a gentleman presenting to us his research for his doctorate. He got it down to an hour so was really watered down but unbelievable. It always amazes me how people can get so absorbed in the most intricate of subjects. He basically was putting forth the theory that the colorations of the bird determined the quality of their breeding ground so determined the success of their breeding and the numbers of their offspring. They did this with measurements of the brightness and the amount of orangeness (SP?) of the tail, wings and bib etc. etc. I probably understood about 11% of the presentation but the audience seemed to get it and had very technical questions about his dissertation and his research. If these people are so into the brightness of the color of the feathers on a bird, why haven't we solved cancer yet?