In case you didn’t know, MacGyver was a superhero type TV series from 1985 to 1992 starring Richard Dean Anderson. As the series unfolded, Angus “Mac” MacGyver became a wonderfully rich character, a great example of what a well-rounded character looks like on the page as well. Here, to help you flesh out your protagonist are things you need to know—or at least consider. Your readers will love you for it.
Name: A character needs a full name, and (in my opinion) should have a reason to have been named that. Family name? Parent’s favorite from history or fiction?
Personality: MacGyver was portrayed as a non-violent problem solver who always carried a Swiss Army knife and refused to carry a gun. When the plot called for physical violence, his acts were always in self-defense and he strove to subdue or disable rather than kill. He is pretty much the opposite of macho, having a sensitive nature and showing it. He (appropriately) showed grief, pain, fright, guilt, depression and self-blame.
Social awareness: MacGyver was passionate about social causes, with a particular affinity for things related to children and protecting the environment. At some point, he became vegetarian. What is your character’s attitude toward such things as social justice, global warming, etc.?
Intelligence: MacGyver had a genius-level IQ and had a college education in both physics and chemistry.
Skills: MacGyver could speak six languages—plus he could communicate using American Sign Language, Morse code, and International maritime signal flags. He skied and had mastered outdoor survival skills. He possessed superb engineering and applied physics knowledge. Besides his Swiss Army knife, MacGyver usually carried duct tape, an ID card, a Timex Camper watch, strike-anywhere matches, paperclips, chewing gum, and a flashlight—plus whatever was in his Jeep or pickup truck. Thus, he was able to save a man’s life using a paperclip, a wrench, and shoelaces.
His hobbies included dice hockey, racing, guitar, and painting. Although suffering from acrophobia (fear of heights) he managed mountain/rock climbing, hang gliding, parachuting, etc.
What skills and/or specialized knowledge can your character draw on? Think education, past job experiences and military service as well as hobbies and sports.
Biography: MacGyver’s biography—which I believe was fleshed out as the series progressed—accounted for all of his special skills, fears, and taboos, from the outdoor survival skills taught by Mrs. Fogarty, his Cub Scout Den Mother, to a fatal accidental shooting that led him to eschew guns. Advice to writers: as soon as you give your character a skill, fear, etc., jot down—if only for your own use—how and when it was acquired.
[Source: EW]
In 2016 the series was revived starring Lucas Till as a younger Mac MacGyver. Supposedly this is the equivalent of a “prequel.” Thus, this Mac functioned between the original’s birth (January 23, 1951) and the beginning of the original series. And therein lies the rub. This “younger” MacGyver carries through with major characteristics, including intelligence, preference for non-lethal methods, and the ability to use his Swiss Army knife plus anything in his environment to accomplish his mission. In addition, he’s an accomplished field medic and uses modern crime scene techniques—in which he might just have been ahead of his time. But DNA sequencing procedures? That I couldn’t quite accept.
Last advice to writers: Should you ever want to write a prequel, be aware of what your character couldn’t have known or experienced at the time.
And just in case you want some MacGyver type skills for your character, check out these books.
Last night I heard interviews with lawyers who recently visited the immigrant detention centers along the U.S./Mexico border. The conditions they reported were deplorable—inhumane, even. But what i want to focus on here is their observations that the border agents trying to do their jobs are massively stressed. So why do they stay there, doing what they’re doing?
This seems an appropriate time to remind writers that human motivation—and thus characters’ motivations—are complex things. What sort of SOB would do such things?
You can find stories all over the internet of people increasingly being treated inhumanely while trying to enter the U.S.—preschoolers being handcuffed, weeping mothers and young children separated for hours at a time, people held for twenty hours without food… Sometimes such stories suggest that it’s because of the things Pres. Trump says and does. His supporters are likely to reply, “No way in hell would he order such things! These are the acts of a few sick individuals.”
As writers, we don’t need to prove or disprove either of these causes. As writers, we know that almost anyone is capable of almost any act if the motivation is sufficient. What we may not have considered is just how easily ordinary people can be led to do extraordinary things.
In 1963 Stanley Milgram first published his research on obedience to authority figures. The beginning of his research (1961) was with the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. He started with the question, “Could it be that Eichmann and his accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders?”
The short answer is “Yes.” A very high proportion of people would fully obey the instructions, even if reluctantly, even if the acts ran counter to their own consciences.
The basic paradigm was that the subject thought he was the teacher, assisting the experimenter by delivering electric shocks to a learner whenever the learner gave a wrong answer. With each wrong answer, the apparent shock level was increased, finally to a point where the shocks—if real—would have been fatal. In the initial experiment, 65% of subjects gave the maximum shock level at least three times.
The important thing to remember is that the experimenter had no real authority over the subject delivering the shocks. The experimenter wasn’t a parent, a supervisor, a friend, a lover. The subject was not physically restrained from leaving. You can read all about it, in detail, in his 1974 book.
Variations on the original experiment revealed that a less official looking setting decreased obedience slightly. When the teacher was physically closer to the learner, the level of compliance decreased—but even when the teacher had to physically hold the supposed learner’s hand on what was supposed to be a shock plate, 30% completed the experiment. When the experimenter was physically farther away, compliance decreased. For example, when the experimenter gave instructions over the phone, compliance dropped to 21%. There was no significant difference in results when all women were used.
To write convincingly about obedience, it’s important to note that the people were greatly stressed by what they were doing. They objected verbally, questioned the experimenter, and reported high levels of distress when debriefed.
So, can we conclude that someone is telling people to get rough with those trying to enter the United States? NO!
Enter Philip Zimbardo. In 1971 he conducted The Stanford Prison Experiment. It was specifically intended to investigate issues of the relationships between prisoners and guards. Did the behaviors of prisoners and guards reflect inherent personality differences between the two groups?
Volunteers for a two-week prison experiment were screened and those with criminal backgrounds, psychological impairment, or medical problems were excluded. The research team chose 24 men they deemed most psychologically stable and healthy. Participants were paid $15 per day (the equivalent of $92.91 in 2018).
The subjects were randomly divided into prisoners and guards.
The guards were instructed not to physically harm the prisoners or withhold food or drink, but Zimbardo emphasized that “…in this situation we’ll have all the power and they will have none.” Guards were told to call prisoners by their assigned numbers rather than their names. But otherwise, guards improvised their roles. Prisoners were given no instructions.
On the second day the three prisoners in one cell rioted, blocked the door with their beds, tore off their caps, and refused to come out or obey the guards. Guards from other shifts agreed to work overtime to quell the riot and eventually they attacked the prisoners with fire extinguishers (while not being supervised by research staff).
The experiment was terminated after only 6 days. By then, about a third of the guards had exhibited “genuine sadistic tendencies”; prisoners were emotionally traumatized and five of them had to be removed from the experiment early. You can read about this experiment in any social psychology textbook. Online you can also view video clips.
Arguably, the most important outcome of the study is that the behavior of two equivalent groups diverged dramatically after one was labeled “guards” and the other was labeled “prisoners.”
To answer the initial question of what sadistic SOB would do such a thing:the perfectly ordinary, likable, friend, colleague, or neighbor.
As a writer, keep that in mind as you create characters behaving badly.
My family of origin traveled to visit relatives in nearby states–and I loved it! Similar as some aspects were to home, I reveled in the new. I wanted to travel more even before I ever did! Today I received a travel catalog, and spent some time drooling. And then I decided to share with you some of the quotes on people, places, and travel that I found in that catalog.
Each quote is short. Think about it.
BOTTOM LINE: Consider what you—and your characters—think, feel, want, and remember about travel.
In 2015 I posted a blog titled Quirking Your Characters. The opening paragraph ends, “My advice is to choose a quirky interest that will allow you to illuminate various aspects of your character’s character.” I then developed an extended example using an interest in Eastern box turtles. Well, it’s time to think again! Start with the question, “Is there something quirky that I’d like to know more about?” The point here is that if it’s part of your character’s character, you’ll be spending a lot time with this quirk.
Quirks can be very focused OR whole categories, expanding outward.
[Source: Walmart]
As an example of a focused quirk, imagine your character grew up poor and the entire family brushed their teeth with baking soda rather than toothpaste, and as a result, as an adult s/he uses baking soda for everything, from cleaning cutting boards to relieving acid indigestion. (One of my personal favorites is that damp baking soda gently removes tarnish from silver.)
If you were to take up baking soda, you can find online list of 36 uses on the Arm & Hammer website to 51 Fantastic Uses For Baking Soda by Care2 Healthy Living.
A similar example of a focused quirk can be built around lemons. Lemons can do all sort of things, from disinfecting surfaces to seasoning foods. Online, you can find 17 household uses for lemons (to save money on cleaning products) to 34 reasons to load up on lemons from Reader’s Digest.
Indeed, virtually anything can be a focused quirk. What about collecting Santa and Mrs. Claus salt and pepper shakers? Choose your item or behavior for a focused quirk and google it directly.
Reader’s Digest has “authored” several books with this title and they can be used by anyone who wants to find either a focused or a categorical quirk. For example, the table of contents includes both an item index, alphabetical from address labels to zucchini, suitable for focused quirks. But in addition, there are topics such as Less Toxic and More Earth-Friendly Items that are suitable for what I’m calling category quirks. Here again, the quirk options are infinite.
As far as quirks go, a goal of avoiding as much housework as possible is an old—and humorous—one. The I Hate to Housekeep book was copyrighted in 1962! (Full disclosure: I love Peg Bracken!) But the global, category quirks could be anything from attendance to germs to recycling in all its forms.
Bottom line: To close with another quote from my earlier blog: “Get beyond fiddling with hair or popping gum and choose a rich quirk for your character.”
Didn’t know lettuce is a member of the daisy family? Lots of people don’t. And there is much else that is surprising about this enormous plant family. But even so, so what? Well, I got interested, and when I’m interested, I explore and write. Butwhy read this blog? Because writers can bring plants into their work in any number of ways.
as a character’s hobby
as a character’s work
as a reflection of a character’s character or personality
as a reflection of a character’s aesthetic taste (or lack thereof)
as factoids characters can drop into conversation to amaze and astound
[Source: Plantopedia]
The big picture. Technically, the daisy family—also commonly known as the sunflower or aster family—is the Asteraceae family. It’s huge.
13 subfamilies
1,911 genera
32,913 named species
for size, it’s rivaled only by orchids. Which is larger is unknown.
mostly annual or perennial herbs, it also includes shrubs, vines, and trees
this family grows worldwide, except Antarctica and the extreme Arctic
Many daisies are known primarily as food. Dandelions head this section for a reason. They were introduced into the New World by European immigrants who ate the greens—but now are more often considered a weed than a food.
Besides lettuce, important food crops include endive, chicory, artichokes, sunflowers, and safflower.
Daisy species are used as culinary seasoning: tarragon, salsify, and stevia, for example.
“Daisies” such as camomile are used for herbal teas. Also included here are pot marigold, and echinacea, which is used in medicinal teas. In fact, many species are used as traditional anti-parasitic medicine.
Species such as ragweed cause allergic reactions such as so-called hay fever. Other varieties cause contact dermatitis—as many who work with flowers can testify.
[Source: Midwest Living]
Many of us think of daisies first as flowers, but many varieties are important for the flower industry. Besides dahlia, think Gerbera daisies, calendula, zinnia, chrysanthemum, and many others.
And, BTW, chrysanthemum as well as several less familiar species have useful insecticidal properties.
[Source: Garden Design]
Marigolds serve important industrial purposes. It is used in commercial poultry feeds, and it’s oils are used in colas and in the cigarette industry.
Several varieties of daisies are copious nectar producers and are thus important for beekeepers. These include sunflowers, knapweed, and some species of goldenrod. Goldenrod in particular has a high protein pollen which helps honey bees winter over.
Bottom line: just imagine all the ways a little knowledge of the daisy family might season your writing!
On Saturday I attended a great launch party for Deadly Southern Charm. Since then, I’ve mulled over what made that event such a success. Yes, there were refreshments, but that was just the icing on the cake, so to speak.
Before the main event. This book is an anthology, with stories by eighteen authors, so there was lots of online hype leading up to the event itself: Facebook, Twitter, etc. In this case, the authors did guest blogs as well. One way and another, invite anyone and everyone you know! The book’s contributors were actively engaged in this, and most were present to celebrate their success.
This launch was held at Libby Mill Library—just the right venue: not too big and cavernous, not cramped, with plenty of free parking. Libraries seem an obvious place for book launches, but depending on the book and author(s), it could be a school, bookstore, rented space, or private home.
Door prizes, while not strictly necessary, added to the party atmosphere. If I am recalling correctly, all of the giveaways were books, mostly by the authors who contributed to the anthology. The prizes were handled by Frances Aylor, president of the Central Virginia Chapter of Sisters in Crime. As it happened, my name was the first one drawn, and I came away with a mystery by Lisa Scottoline that I’m greatly looking forward to reading.
Actually, for me, the meat of the event was the prepared remarks. In this case, it wasn’t the author(s) saying a bit about the work—although that’s a classic program. It was a panel of three experienced, successful writers examining the length of the work as it relates to publication.
Left to right: Lynn Cahoon focused on novellas and shorter novels; Barb Goffman discussed short stories; and Mary Burton addressed issues of longer novels. They provided lots of insights and shared experiences, everything from creating series characters to whether one needs an agent to how productive one must be to earn a living as a writer. Cahoon and Goffman contributed to the anthology and Burton is a co-editor.
The panel was well organized. Kris Kisska, program chair for SinC/CVA, moderated, presenting each panelist with questions appropriate to the area she was presenting. Between the great questions and the thorough answers, there were few questions left for the audience to ask! She also recognized and thanked everyone who worked behind the scenes to make the event such a success.
There were plenty of books availablefor purchase. Fountain Bookstore is an indie here in Richmond that’s well-known for supporting local writers. They handled book sales at the launch. The most in-demand book was, of course, Deadly Southern Charm, but they also had other books by SinC members.
Last but not least, signing tables were set up around the periphery of the room so that all the contributors present could comfortably participate.
Bottom line: there you have it, a model for a successful launch party!
And if you want more options, including on-line book launch, just Google it.
Original cover of 1984 [Creative Commons]June 8 marks the celebration of the 70th anniversary of 1984 by George Orwell, published in 1949. It will be a day to celebrate this classic novel, its impact over the last several decades, and the important lessons it teaches us.
Originally titled Nineteen Eighty-Four, the novel now goes by its more popularized title, 1984. For those who were not assigned this book to read in school:
Among the seminal texts of the 20th century, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rare work that grows more haunting as its futuristic purgatory becomes more real. Published in 1949, the book offers political satirist George Orwell’s nightmarish vision of a totalitarian, bureaucratic world and one poor stiff’s attempt to find individuality. The brilliance of the novel is Orwell’s prescience of modern life—the ubiquity of television, the distortion of the language—and his ability to construct such a thorough version of hell. Required reading for students since it was published, it ranks among the most terrifying novels ever written. [Goodreads]
In the novel, Great Britain (called “Airstrip One”) has become a province of a superstate named Oceania, which is ruled by “the Party,” who employ Thought Police to persecute independent thinking. The Party’s leader is Big Brother, who may not even exist. The protagonist of the novel, Winston Smith, is a Party member. Although Smith is an outwardly diligent and skillful worker, he secretly hates the Party and dreams of rebellion against Big Brother.
A still from the 1956 film [Source: Bustle]Since 1984 has been published, it has introduced several words, terms, and concepts into the English language, such as:
Since its publication, 1984 has won numerous awards, been translated into at least 65 different languages, and has been listed as one of the most important historical novels in history by such organizations as Time magazine, Modern Library, and the BBC.
During my nature writing class, I started looking more closely at plants and animals—mostly animals, at least in the beginning. It’s only to be expected, I guess, given that animals are animate. They do things, and seem to have personalities. They often communicate vocally. But the factoid above eventually led me to explore plants a bit more. In the lists below, I’ve italicized those facts that might be of particular interest to mystery and other writers.
[Creative Commons]
The Big Picture: A few facts to put plants in perspective
Over 300,000 plant species have been identified so far
Plants are the only organisms that make their own food in a process called photosynthesis. They turn carbon dioxide into food while cleaning the air.
More than 20% of the world’s oxygen supply is produced by the Amazon Rainforest.
Bad news: 80% of the earth’s original forests have been cleared or destroyed.
Only 10% of the world’s plant-rich areas are protected.
Of the plant species that have been studied, 68% are in danger of going extinct.
More than half of all plant species are native to just one country.
Although the earth has more than 80,000 species of edible plants, humans use only around 2000 different plants as food. Indeed, 90% of the foods humans eat come from just 30 plants
Nutrition doesn’t factor into the choice of plants chosen for mass production.
Some 70,000 plant species are used for medicine, both traditional medicine and modern pharmaceuticals. Only 1% of rainforest plants have been studied for medicinal potential.
Plant species are going extinct about 5,000X faster than they would without human intervention.
More than 85% of plant life is found in the ocean.
Ginkgo trees [Source: South Carolina LIving Magazine]
Trees
Trees are the longest-living organisms on earth.
Ginkgo biloba is one of the oldest living tree species, dating back to 250 million ears ago. The Dawn redwood dates back 150 million years.
The world’s oldest-growing tree is a bristlecone pine.
Dendrochronology is the science of dating a tree’s age b its rings.
The world’s tallest-growing tree is the coastal redwood, which is mostly along the Pacific Coast of California.
A notch in a tree will remain the same distance from the ground as the tree grows.
Tree resin, when fossilized, becomes amber—sometimes containing bits of plant or animal
Quinine—one of the most important drugs out there—is obtained from the dried bark of an evergreen tree native to South America.
Oak trees don’t produce acorns till they are 50 years old.
Lightning strikes oak trees more than any other variety.
The African Baobab tree can store 1,000 to 120,000 liters of water in its trunk.
Evaporation from a large oak or beech tree is from 10 to 25 gallons in 24 hours.
Brazil is named after a tree.
The average-sized tree can provide enough wood to make 170,000 pencils.
The first type of aspirin, painkiller and fever reducer, came from the bark of a willow tree.
Baseball bats are made from hickory while cricket bats are from willow.
[Source: Fluwel]
Flowers
During the 1600s, tulips in Holland were worth more than gold.
In 1634, a collector paid 1,000 pounds of cheese, four oxen, eight pigs, 12 sheep, a bed, and a suit of clothes for single bulb of the Viceroy tulip.
Tulips can continue to grow as much as an inch a day after being cut.
Some 600 species of plants are carnivorous. For example, the Venus Flytrap ingests various small insects.
One carnivorous plant in the Philippines can devour a full-grown rat alive.
Torenia, a shade-loving annual, is called a wishbone flower because they have tiny wishbone-shaped stamens.
Poinsettias were brought to the U.S. from Mexico in 1825 by the first U.S. minister to Mexico, Joel Poinsett.
The largest unbranched flower in the world is the titan arum, which can reach 15 feet tall. It’s common name is corpse flower because in bloom, it smells like rotting meat. The smell atracts flies for pollination.
All parts of the flowering shrub oleander are poisonous. Eating leaves can cause gastrointestinal, cardiac, and central nervous system problems and possibly death.
Iris means “rainbow” in Greek, and Iris is the goddess of the rainbow in mythology. Wormwood (artemesia) was named for the goddess Artemis. Milkweed (Asclepias) was named for the god Asclepius, and Hebe after the Greek goddess Hebe.
May l is the festival of the lily-of-the-valley. People give bouquets of them to each other, wishing them health and happiness.
Snapdragon flowers resemble dragons, and if you squeeze the sides, the dragon’s mouth will appear to open and close.
Each head of a sunflower is composed of hundreds of tiny flowers which ripen to become the seeds. Ditto for daisies, yarrow, goldenrod, asters, coreopsis, and bachelor’s buttons.
No species of wild plant produces a flower or blossom that is absolutely black, and so far, none has been developed artificially
Peaches, pears, apricots, quinces, strawberries, cherries, almonds, and apples are members of the rose family.
Asparagus is a member of the lily family, which also includes onions, leeks, and garlic.
Vegetables and Fruits
Tomato juice is the official state drink of Ohio.
The tomato family includes tobacco, peppers, eggplant, and deadly nightshade
From a botanical standpoint, avocados, pumpkins, cucumbers, and tomatoes are fruits rather than vegetables. Avocados have more calories than any other fruit, 167 per hundred grams.
Rhubarb, on the other hand, is a vegetable.
Strawberries have about 200 seeds. It’s the only fruit that carries its seeds on the outside.
Archaeological evidence indicates that grapes were grown to make win about 8,000 years ago in Mesopotamia (Iraq, today) but the first records of how to make wine were set down by Egyptians about 5,000 years ago.
Pineapples were so named by explorers because they look like pine cones with flesh like an apple.
Pineapples are the only edible member of the bromeliad family of flowering plants. Technically, a pineapple is a berry.
[Source: Etsy]
Potatoes were first cultivated in Peru about 7,000 years ago. Today residents of Peru eat one of more than 4,000 varieties of potatoes with almost every meal.
Tomatoes and potatoes share 92% of their DNA.
Cranberries, Concord grapes, and blueberries are native to North America.
Small pockets of air in cranberries, when fresh, cause them to bounce and float in water. Apples, being 25% air, also float. (I’m not sure how this is reconciled with being 84% water, but that is a mystery to solve later.)
Water makes up 84% of a raw apple, 96% of a raw cucumber and 91% of cabbage..
The difference between nectarines and peaches is the fuzzy skin.
Cutting onions releases sulfuric gasses, bringing tears to the eyes. According to the National Onion Association, chilling the onion and cutting the root end last reduces this problem.
Onions contain a mild antibiotic that fights infections, soothes burns, tames bee stings, and relieves the itch of athletes foot.
Eating lots of onions can make you sleepy because it can act as a sedative.
Banana is the Arabic word for fingers.
A cluster of bananas is known of as a hand and consists of 10-20 bananas which are known as fingers.
Bananas contain a natural chemical that makes people feel happy.
Peanuts are not nuts. They are legumes, related to beans and lentils. They have more protein niacin, folate, and phytosterols than any nut.
Peanuts are used as an ingredient in dynamite.
Arrowroot powder (also known as cassava flour) is a thickening agent valued for being tasteless, colorless, and gluten-free.
Arrowroot is also an antidote for poisoned arrows—so if you are going to be shot with a poisoned arrow, be sure it’s in the kitchen.
One bushel of corn will sweeten more than 400 cans of pop.
Apples, onions, and potatoes actually have the same effect on taste buds. They are differentiated by smell.
[Source: Bonnie Plants]
Herbs and Spices
Rosemary repels mosquitos.
Saffron is harvested from the stigmas of a type of fall-blooming crocus.
Garlic mustard is a member of the mustard family, not garlic. It is highly invasive herb.
Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously.
Vanilla flavoring comes from the pod of an orchid.
Turmeric, rosemary, thyme all can be used to treat dandruff.
Thyme, rosemary, sage, lavender, and marjoram all help relieve cold symptoms and congestion.
Several herbs are traditionally used as abortifacients.
Any good herbal will give guidance on using herbs for home remedies.
Miscellaneous
Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew marijuana (cannabis sativa) on their plantations.
Bamboo—the largest of the grasses—is highly invasive. Some types grow as much as 3 feet a day.
Plants at the bottom of watery areas, such as swamps, can eventually turn into coal.
Caffeine acts as a pesticide in a coffee plant.
There are more than 1000 chemicals in coffee and at least 19 of them are carcinogenic.
Chemicals released by freshly-cut grass is highly effective to relieve stress
England’s Alnwick Garden has The Poison Garden, filled with plants that can kill you.
All teas (black, green, and white) come from the same plant, only the processing makes them different.
The first product to have a barcode was Wrigley’s gum.
So, how closely are we related to plants? Are we really 1/3 daffodil?
No. In actuality, humans and daffodils share 35% of our DNA.
Humans and mustard grass share 15% of their DNA.
Humans and bananas share 50% of DNA.
Humans have 3 billion DNA pairs; the Norway Spruce has nearly 20 billion.
Even onions have more DNA than humans.
Tomatoes have 7000 more genes than humans.
All of the bits and pieces gathered together above are just the tip of the iceberg. Writers, choose a plant—any plant—and work it into your plot, setting, or character traits. You’ll love it!
Today is What You Think Upon Grows Day. It’s a day to remind oneself and others of the power of positive thinking. Studies have shown that there is a major difference in the lives and health of optimists and pessimists.
Positive thinking doesn’t mean that you keep your head in the sand and ignore life’s less pleasant situations. Positive thinking just means that you approach unpleasantness in a more positive and productive way. You think the best is going to happen, not the worst.
Positive thinking like this does lead to health benefits, such as:
Increased life span
Lower rates of depression
Lower levels of distress
Greater resistance to the common cold
Better psychological and physical well-being
Better cardiovascular health and reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress
If you consider yourself a negative thinker, it’s a good idea to identify those negative thoughts and begin to reprocess them as positive. For instance, if you think to yourself, “There’s no way this will work,” you can rephrase the thought to say, “I can try to make this work.”
Remember, these thoughts and actions do not go away overnight. It takes time and practice to become a positive thinker. Why not start on What You Think Upon Grows Day? It might be the perfect start to a new, healthier lifestyle.
Keeping a nature diary has spotlighted how often I look for and at birds. Bird feeders just outside my kitchen provide many opportunities as I eat breakfast or lunch. Until now, my focus was mostly on beauty, dominance, and learning the names of the locals.
Now, it seems I have a very narrow window on birds of the world: there are approximately 10,000 different species worldwide! They have a few things in common, however: they have feathers, wings, lay eggs, and are warm-blooded. They are thought to have evolved from theropod dinosaurs. They have hollow bones which help (most of them) to fly. (Kiwis are an exception. They are flightless. And, FYI, they lay the largest eggs relative to their body size.)
About 20% of bird species migrate long distances every year. And birds have the same five senses as humans: sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.
Butamid these commonalities are enormous variations.
Sight: birds use sight for flight, evading predators, and finding food. They are especially good in perceiving motion and detail—2 to 3 times better than humans. Those with more widely positioned eyes have a wider field of vision, including being able to see directly behind themselves. (Think evading predators and evading attacks.) They have an inner eye membrane to help protect their eyes and clean them often. During flight they often spread their wings to protect their eyes, and when attacking they go for the eyes of their adversary. The owl, famously, has to turn its whole head to see.
The ostrich is the largest bird in the world, and they have the largest eyes of any land animal. They are approximately the size of billiard balls, and are actually bigger than their brains. Also, FYI, ostrich eggs are the biggest and they have the fastest maximum running speed (97 kph, just over 60 mph).
But in spite of eye size, other birds (e.g., murres) have been shown to see, and recognize, it’s partner several hundred meters away out at sea.
Compared to mammals, birds have relatively large eyes. In general, bigger eye means better vision. In fact, bird eyes are bigger than they look, because all but the pupil is covered with skin and feathers.
Diurnal birds that become active at dawn have larger eyes than birds that become active later after sunrise. Nocturnal birds (with the exception of kiwis) have relatively larger eyes.
People have three types of photoreceptors in the retina: red, green, and blue. Birds have these AND ultraviolet—which they use to find food as well as partners.
Birds use their right and left eyes for different tasks. Domestic chicks use their left eye to approach their parent. Male black-winged stilts are more likely to direct courtship displays toward females seen with their left eyes. When peregrine falcons hung, they rely mainly on their right eye. New Caledonian crows show individual preferences for one eye or the other when constructing tools or prying prey out of crevices. The stronger the preference for one side is, the better the bird is at problem solving, foraging, etc.
So far it is know that songbirds, ducks, falcons, and gulls can sleep with one eye open. A study of mallard ducks showed that those sleeping in the center of a group were more likely to have both eyes closed, whereas those on the edge were more likely to keep the eye facing outward from the group open.
There is also evidence that birds can sleep on the fly, e.g., swifts and glaucous-winged gulls.
Hearing is the second most important sense. Their ears are located behind and below the eyes and are covered with soft feathers for protection. The ears are funnel shaped to focus sound. Here again, owls are special. Their face plates (facial discs) help direct sound. Surprisingly, so called “ear tufts” of owls and other birds have nothing to do with hearing.
Birds’ hearing is much more acute than humans for sound recognition, though with a smaller frequency range than humans. They are especially sensitive to pitch, tone, and rhythm changes. They use this sense to recognize other individual birds, even in flocks. Birds use different sounds, songs, and calls in different situations to identify predators, mark a territory, or offer to share food. FYI: owls simply devour small prey whole (think insects, mice, etc.) and regurgitate indigestible bits like bones and fur.
[Source: San Diego Zoo]
Bats and oilbirds (and perhaps others I haven’t read about) use echolocation. Bouncing chirps and clicks off solid objects is used to navigate through dark caves.
Touch is more important to people than to birds. Even so, birds are very sensitive to changes in air temperature, pressure, and wind speed, changes which are transferred down the feather to nerves in the skin. Some have special feathers around their bills that seem to serve a purpose when feeding.
Mutual preening—which involves manipulating one another’s feathers—is important in courtship for many bird species. On the other hand, they have fewer nerves in their legs and feet, which makes them less sensitive to extreme cold. Shore birds have extremely sensitive touch receptors in their bills, aiding them when feeding through mud, water, etc.
Taste is not well defined in birds. Depending on the species, they have fewer than 50 or as many as 500 taste buds, compared to 9,000-10,000 in humans. Birds can taste sweet, sour, and bitter, and can identify suitable and most nutritious food sources—but this is less important than sight and hearing. For those of us who hope to discourage squirrels and raccoons from a particular food source, birds are impervious to spicy-hot, as in cayenne pepper infused birdseed.
Smell is the least developed bird sense. They have small olfactory centers in their brains. Therefore, some claim this debunks the myth that nesting birds will reject a fledgling that has been handled by humans. In fact, songbirds cannot detect the human scent.
That generality aside, vultures, kiwis, honeyguides, albatrosses, petrels, and shearwaters all use keen senses of smell to locate food, often from treat distances or when the odor is not noticeable to humans.
And now to some interesting (to me) facts about birds.
Hummingbirds can fly backwards. The Bee Hummingbird is the smallest living bird in the world, with a length of just 2 inches. Larger hummingbirds, on average, weigh less than a nickel. The smallest ones weigh closer to a penny
Chickens are the most common species of bird in the world.
Homing pigeons are bred to find their way home from long distances, and have been used as messengers for thousands of years. During WWI and WWII, Pigeons were used in this way, but also for reconnaissance.
Pigeons can learn to play pingpong, among things.
They are excellent at visual signal detection and other similar tasks.
A great tool-making bird is the crow. Not incidentally, they (along with ravens and rooks) have large brains compared to other birds. They mainly make probes out of wood, twigs, or wire to catch or impale larvae. But crows are among the only that create their own tools.
Tool use in other birds is mostly shown in intricate nest building.
Although not making tools, other birds use them. For example, a parrot may use a tool to wedge to crack nuts. Gulls often drop shellfish in front of cars to crack them open.
Although parrots are renowned for being able to talk, ravens in captivity are even better at mimicking human speech, as well as the sounds of car engines revving or toilet flushing. In the wild, they sometimes imitate other animals, such as wolves or foxes as a way to get them to make carcasses bird edible.
Acorn woodpeckers store acorns in holes they drill in trees or other wood items. They have been known to store up to 50,000 acorns (each in its own tiny hole) in a single “granary” tree
While on the water, the black and white coloring of penguins camouflages them both from above and below by blending with the surround.
One bird I especially like is the northern cardinal. It’s one of the most popular birds in the U.S. Indeed, the cardinal is the state bird for seven states: Ohio, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and North Carolina.
Although male cardinals are brighter, females have more elaborate songs. One cardinal may have more than two dozen song variations. Both sexes sing, and sing year round.
Cardinals are territorial—the territory defended against competitors by the male—and are noted for trying to fight their reflections in mirrors, windows, and other reflective surfaces. Cardinals are monogamous while together, and may mate for life.
They eat various seeds, fruits, berries, grains, and insects depending on what’s available.
Another favorite is the bluebird. They can be found throughout North America, including my back yard. Bluebirds, too, are monogamous throughout a breeding season, and may breed together for more than one season. Also like cardinals, they are territorial. The male tends to defend the outer territory while the females defend the nest.
A bluebird can spot caterpillars and insects in tall grass at a distance over 50 yards. They especially like live mealworms.
In my experience, bluebirds tend to come to the feeder in pairs—sometimes more than two pairs at a time. I think of them as family birds.
My backyard aviary is alive with goldfinches, purple finches, titmice, mourning doves, robins, grackles, starlings, house finches, and sometimes mocking birds, hummingbirds, crows or hawks. Right now, I know less about many of these birds. Sufficient unto the morrow.
Bottom line for writers: Nature writing can enhance any genre. Consider bird details for your next story.
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