Culture, Cheating and Corruption: views from Dan Ariely

OMSI has an event called "Science Pub" in the Portland metropolitan area and other places in Oregon. In Hillsboro, this event is held once a month. This past Monday, the speaker was a professor of psychology and behavioural economics called Dan Ariely . He is famous as the author of books on human behaviour that would be deemed as "irrational" by economists. Dressed in a ferrari-red jacket and matching red shoes, he gave a fantastic and engaging talk to a packed audience at the Venetian Theater in downtown Hillsboro. 

Among the things he talked about was how people cheat across different cultures. He first asked the members of the audience to raise hands if they were from outside the USA. There was a smattering of foreign people in the audience, and I was one of them, and we raised our hands. He asked the audience to keep their hand raised if we felt that people in our country cheated more than US Americans. It was not a surprise that most, if not all people in the audience who had previously raised their hand,  kept their hand raised.

Next, he described a study done in a laboratory setting ( I don't remember if it was his group which did the study or if he was talking about research done by some other group), where people were given a number of mathematical problems to solve. None of the problems were too difficult. The test was designed so that no could get all the answers done in the short amount of time allocated to solve the problem. After the test, the test-takers were asked to shred their answer-sheet in a paper-shredder so that no one would really know how they had done (or so they thought!). The test-takers had to simply report the number of questions they had solved and would get paid for each answer solved correctly.

In reality, the experimenters were using a special shredder that only shred the margins of the paper, and kept the central portion intact- allowing the tallying of the actual number of problems solved with that reported by the test-taker. On average it was found that people inflated their scores from 4 to 6, and that 60-75% of people cheated. This held across many different countries where this test was administered-Israel, USA, Italy, China, Turkey, Colombia, Portugal, Germany!

Dan Ariely's explanation for this is that in an abstract situation people cheat in roughly the same manner across different cultures, and feel good about it. But then how does one explain the differences one sees when travelling in different places or the differences in corruption index for different countries?

According to him, cheating depends on the cultural context. He had the audience in splits with the mention that for the French, infidelity is not a moral question. In a similar vein, Japanese are thought to be paragons of self-control- a behaviour which is seen when they are standing in line, but in a Japanese bar, they do not exhibit the self-control and indulge in behaviour that would shock people from most other countries. The cultural aspects of the situation overrides the behaviour that would be expected from the person in an abstract setting.

I learnt a lot from his lecture, and will possibly blog about other areas covered by him in a different blog entry. I am grateful to my friend who told me about the lecture. If you are really interested in his works, you can read the books mentioned below.



Dan Ariely: wikipedia link: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Ariely)
OMSI Science Pub: https://www.omsi.edu/sciencepubhillsboro/01272014

Books written by Dan Ariely:

-Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions. 
-The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home

-The Honest Truth about Dishonesty

Los Autos de Guatemala

Los Guatemaltecos celebran la Independencia del país el 15 de Septiembre, 2012 en San Pedro de La Laguna, Lago Atitlán, Guatemala.

Soy de la India y he visto este tipo de autos desde mi niñez. Cuando llegué a Guatemala por primera vez estuve sorprendido porque vi los mismos autos en Guatemala. En Guatemala se llaman "Tuk-tuk", pero en la India los llamamos "Auto-rickshaw" o "Auto" en corto.

Cada persona de la India tiene bastantes memorias de estos autos. Cuando tenía más o menos diez años yo iba a la parada del bus en un auto con cuatro muchachas. Cuando estaba en la ciudad de Ranchi mi familia tomaba los autos para ir a la estación de trenes. En mi universidad los tomaba para ir a la estación de tren y para ir a los cines con mis amigos. En la India los autos forman una gran parte de la vida así como el agua para los peces y nosotros no pensamos en la existencia de los autos en la vida cotidiana.

El color del auto es el mismo de la pluma de los sombreros de la banda de una escuela que participa en la celebración de la  independencia en San Pedro de la Laguna, Guatemala

Nunca pensaba que yo iba a ver los mismos autos en un lugar lejano a más de diez mil millas de la India. En las primeras noches cuando yo estaba en San Pedro para estudiar español en el otoño del 2012, yo no podía dormir en la noche. Un auto pasaba por las calles- cada dos o cinco minutos, y una parte de mi mente pensaba que yo estaba en la India y otra parte decía que yo estaba en un lugar extranjero. La parte de mi mente que decía que yo estaba en la India, llenó mi mente con las imágenes de la India- los autos en las calles, los sonidos de las calles, una escena cuando yo llegué a la ciudad de Hyderabad con mi abuela y vimos tantos autos amarillos que parecían  grandes insectos en la estación de los trenes, los autos que yo tomaba para ir al “Main Road” en Ranchi. Con estas memorias yo extrañaba la India mucho, y quería regresar para ver los autos de verdad. Me tomó casi dos semanas para olvidar los sonidos de los autos que pasaban por la noche.

Quizás este fenómeno no era una sorpresa, porque según los científicos las sentidos del olfato y del oído primero llegan a la parte de la cabeza reptil, y los humanos responden a estas señales de manera involuntaria.

Un Auto tiene la habilidad para cambiar la direccion en una calle estrecha. Piensa sobre el problema de un coche grande en dar vuelta  aquí. San Pedro la Laguna, Guatemala.

Pero la verdad es que los autos en Guatemala son hechos en la India. Son de la misma marca. El nombre de la marca es "Bajaj", y los Guatemaltecos los importan desde la India. Por esta razón no me sorprende que los sonidos de los autos me parecen los mismos. Los Guatemaltecos importan muchos de sus coches de Los Estados Unidos y de México. Los buses usados en las escuelas en los Estados Unidos se convierten en autobuses para pasajeros. Se pintan de una manera colorida y parecen lindos, pero no hay misterio en esto. Los Estados Unidos es parte del mismo continente. Las leyes de los Estados Unidos no permitirán la construcción de un coche frágil como los autos. Pero para llevar hasta Guatemala los autos de la India necesitan viajar por mucho tiempo en los barcos. Y también lo que es interesante para mi es que el origen de los autos no es de México o de China u otro país en Latinoamerica. Sera posible que solo un país en el mundo manufacture este tipo de transporte?

Este vehículo tiene una maquina pequeña - de 145 cubos centígrados, que absorbe gasolina y no tiene mucho poder- solo 5 kilo watts. Y en un auto pueden caber 7 personas sin problema- tres en frente y cuatro atrás!

Neotenia: esta es la tendencia de retener las características de la infancia hasta la edad adulta. A los humanos y a los animales también les gustan las características de neotenia. Esta es la razón por la cual a los humanos les gustan los coches que parecen lindos como el Beetle de Volkswagen. El Auto también tiene las características de neotenia, los ojos grandes, las ruedas pequeñas y la forma redonda. Una persona piensa que este vehículo no sube las colinas ni  rompe los records de velocidad, pero estos autos tienen más poder de lo que parece. Ellos no tienen ningún problema para subir las colinas- pero con una velocidad lenta!

Los Gemelos!

Otro caso que es interesante, es que nadie quiere tener un “Tuk-tuk” como un auto privado- ni en la India ni en Guatemala. Que piensas que sea la razón?

El uso del Tuk-tuk como medio de transporte:

El auto es un buen coche para usarlo en lugares pequeños y es una forma de transporte que no cuesta mucho. Las personas usan autos para transporte en un lugar donde no hay otro tipo de transporte. Por ejemplo, un bus no puede navegar las calles pequeñas y no llega frecuentemente. Un coche o un taxi cuesta más dinero. Por eso un auto es una solución buena si los niños necesitan ir a la escuela que esta lejos o cuando una persona quiere llevar las verduras desde el campo hasta al mercado o un turista quiere viajar en la ciudad.

Cuando yo estaba en San Pedro, un viaje en San Pedro cuesta cinco quetzales (más o menos setenta centavos de dólar). A veces las maestras de la escuela de español donde yo estudiaba tomaban los autos, y a veces los estudiantes tomaban los autos para llegar al otro lado de San Pedro- un viaje de 10-20 minutos. Los niños de la maestra de mi escuela de español tomaban un auto para llegar a la escuela en la mañana-  como los millones de niños en la India.

Las cosas del transporte y la comunicación son esenciales para el turismo y para mejorar la vida de la población. Según yo, los autos forman una gran parte de esto así como los teléfonos celulares que mejoran la situación de la vida cotidiana.

Que equipo apoyas tu? Si me sigues, cuídate del fuego de las ruedas!

En realidad, cada cosa es como el dios Janus. Una parte buena y otro parte mala. Lo malo de los autos es que hay el problema de congestión con los autos cuando la cantidad de los autos aumenta demasiado. En muchas ciudades de la India, el gobierno no permite el acceso de los autos en el centro de la ciudad- por que los autos no siguen las leyes de tráfico, se mueven al azar e impiden el suave movimiento del tráfico. En San Pedro de la laguna, el gobierno de la ciudad no da más licencias para operar los autos- la ciudad tiene más o menos cien autos.

El gobierno también no permite que los autos de otras ciudades  trabajen en San Pedro. Cada dia yo veía los autos de las ciudades cercanas, de San Juan y de San Pablo, que esperan por mucho tiempo en el centro del mercado por los viajeros quienes quieren ir afuera de San Pedro. Las ciudades de San Juan y San Pablo son vecinas de San Pedro y no tienen una fuente de turismo grande como San Pedro y por eso ellos no tienen muchos pasajeros en su ciudad original, y esperan por mucho tiempo en el mercado de San Pedro. Asi es la vida de los choferes de San Juan y San Pablo.

Y la discusión sobre el impacto del transporte en la salud de las personas (porque muchas personas eligen las ruedas sobre los pies), el calentamiento global y la vida cuando no haya más petróleo, sería muy deprimente discutirlo aquí!

Finalmente, para mi los autos forman una parte y un pedazo de la India en un país extranjero que me hizo sentir como estar en la India.

Evolution and Fat: Internal versus External Storage

Nature All Around Us: A Guide to Urban Ecology
by Beatrix Beisner , Christian Messier , Luc-Alain Giraldeau (Editors)
Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; First Edition edition (September 21, 2012)

Another book I chanced upon at the local library is titled, "Nature All Around Us: A Guide to Urban Ecology", edited by Beatrix Beisner, Christian Messier and  Luc-Alain Giraldeau. It is a short book of around 160 pages which contains little snippets about the nature one sees in the urban environment around us. It has a focus on the living things one is likely to see in North America. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to find out fascinating information about animals and plants which we see around us; and pause to wonder why they look the way they are, and if we can find out what the evolutionary and social strategies favoured by the creature. 

I could write a blog based on each chapter in the book. I wish when I was a kid, I was taught from something like this- to help build a greater appreciation in me about nature that I saw around me. If we stop and think about it, even common creatures  like crows, sparrows, squirrels and pigeons have an evolutionary advantage for living in around an urban human environment.

One fascinating chapter is called a "A Life of Extremes", and discusses an important difference between a squirrel and its cousin, the marmot. I saw both these creatures while doing the "Highline Trail" in Glacier National Park, Montana on a sunny day in late July 2013. It did not enter my mind to think why these creatures are the way they are; a relatively thin chipmunk, the size of a squirrel, (I do know which was the exact sub-species I saw in the picture below), and a pudgier slightly larger marmot.

Chipmunk: External Storage of energy in fats in nuts. Picture taken at Glacier National Park, Montana, USA, in July 2013

The reason for the difference in their shape turns out to be related to the diet of the two creatures. Chipmunks eat a diet rich in energy dense nuts, which are not bulky and easy to store as far as volume is concerned. During winter they sleep in their burrows- but do not sleep all the time. They sleep for up to six days, wake up, gorge on stored nuts and sleep again, continuing the cycle throughout winter.

Marmot: Internal Storage of energy in body fat: Picture taken at Glacier National Park, Montana, USA, in July 2013

Marmots in contrast have a diet of grass and other plants like clovers, buttercups and dandelions. It would take around 50 cubic feet to store all the energy needs in grass for a winter for a single marmot- which can be quite problematic for a small creature the size of a human infant. It is not simply a problem of finding storage space, but grass does not store as readily as nuts, and can get infested by bacteria and fungi. The strategy chanced upon by evolution for them is to store their energy reserves for winter in brown body fat- which is the same kind of fat that newborn human infants have! The presence of a lot of brown fat in human infants helps to keep them warm, and the brown fat for the marmot serves the dual purpose of keeping them warm and providing a source of fuel for the body when nothing grows in winter.

For some creatures storing fat internally is the only option. An extreme case is that of the ruby-throated hummingbird. Some of them fly across the Gulf of Mexico, a distance of 800 km from the Yucatan to Texas in a single non-stop flight. This is possible because the birds weighing about 3 grams double their weight by storing the extra energy in fat for the journey.

It is amazing to think how evolution shapes things in creatures like chipmunks, marmots, humans and hummingbirds. On the surface, we as humans are quick to jump to a hasty conclusion calling an animal cute, fat or slim. In reality the reason for the animal's shape has a lot to do with survival in the external environment, and nothing to do with our perceived aesthetic tastes.

Book Review: "War Play" by Corey Mead

War Play: "Video Games and the Future of Armed conflict"

by

Corey Mead (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt , 2013)





War Play: "Video Games and the Future of Armed conflict"

by

Corey Mead (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt , 2013) 

I chanced upon this book in the new book section at my local public library. It is a fascinating well written book that discusses the US American context of how video games and simulations are playing an increasing role in the US Army.

In one of the earlier chapters in the book, the author discusses the history of how this came to be, and how many technologies which are part of our daily lives now were originally developed for a military purpose. These technologies had received their initial funding from a defense source in the USA and were kept in production by the military even when they were not commercially viable. To quote from the book: "digital computers, first version of the Internet, semiconductors, radar, sonar, jet engines, portable phones, transistors, microwave ovens, GPS - the list goes on".

From other sources, I have read that chemical weapons which were developed for the Second World War effort by many countries-  morphed into pesticides after the war ended. For me the interesting thing to learn from this is that many technologies are hard to develop without having the money to investigate various options- and as can be expected most of the options explored will not result in a success. It also makes one realize why a country like India could not come up with these inventions- it is not that any people lack intelligence, but that one needs a lot of resources for doing research. In addition, many countries in the West and Japan were able to divert a lot of their resources to war efforts, which lead to the development of many different kinds of technologies. They also invested a lot of money in educating people so that they could both develop and use new technology.

For example, after World War II, India did not have a car industry, and it was not until the 1990s and 2000s that we started designing and producing our own modes of transportation. In the early 1990s, the only motorcycles we had in India were Japanese motorbikes produced under a license. Now, we have companies like Bajaj and TVS, which are no longer beholden to Japanese technology, and introduce new motorcycles in the market which have been designed in house. [How the Japanese copied technologies from cars to cameras was not unlike the more recent efforts of some Indian firms] Even in Japan, there are numerous cases of companies like Toyota which were propped up by the government- when they were not doing well financially. Compare India's case with German companies like BMW and Mercedes, which benefitted immensely from World War II- they were able to train people and learn about car technology because of the war effort. This lead they had in technology continues to this day. [Not that producing cars and motorbikes is good for the environment in the long run, - but that is a different story]

He cites a book which discusses this in more detail. "From Sun Tzu to Xbox" - by Ed Halter. (this book discusses how many of the games we play today have an origin in the culture of the military, to take chess for an example.)

"War Play" goes on to describe the first person shooter game called "America's Army", developed by the army in conjunction with the entertainment and the video game industry. He discusses the role played by key figures in bringing to the market- and  the surprising bureaucratic hurdles faced by many people in the Pentagon in this process. One of the reasons for the introduction of the game was that the US military (which no longer had the draft after the Vietnam War) was facing a shortage of military personnel, and traditional media like advertisements in newspapers and magazines were no longer working.

 A decision was made to not depict the bad guys simply as "Arab" looking- but to include different ethnicities from Europe, Africa and Asia. In his analysis, the author points out that "America's Army" is not a simple first person shooter game where one just goes out and kills people; one first has to undergo basic training, and only then can one advance to the next stages in the game, and that one loses points- or can even be kicked out for killing people on one's team. At the end of the book, the author mentions how the success of "America's Army" is being copied by countries all over the world: the UK, Iran, South Korea and China, all of which have developed similar video games. An interesting thing about the Chinese game called "Glorious Mission", is that in the game there is only one type of enemy- the US military!

Another interesting thing mentioned by the author is how things like standardized testing and even exams which survive to this day like GED (high-school diploma for students in the USA who do not finish high school ) and SAT (scores from this test are used for undergraduate admissions) have origins in the needs of the military during the first World War. The author cites the case of a SAT question which makes the link obvious, "A certain division contains 5,000 artillery, 15,000 infantry, and 1000 cavalry. If each branch is expanded proportionately until there are in all 23,100 men, how many men will be added to the artillery?"

The standardized test came about because during the draft years of the first World War, the army needed a way to quickly compute the intelligence of a person, and assign them to tasks based on their aptitude. The author quotes the work of the famous scientist Stephen Jay Gould from his book "The Mismeasure of Man". Gould points how the data analysis had concluded that whites were more intelligent than blacks, and that darker people of southern Europe were less intelligent than the fairer people of northern European. This continued to shape US immigration policies for decades, and led to the continuation of cultural and racial prejudices. More recently, people have shown that it is wrong to assume that a certain people are "primitive" and lack intelligence- there are many cultural and social factors, (like access to education), which influence the outcome of the test results.

There are many criticisms of standardized tests- but they are still pursued to this day- not just in the USA- but all over the world- just because they are cheap to administer- another logic from the military which has been imported wholesale into the corporate and education world!

The author discusses a lot of other fascinating details in the well written book about the history of the military and education ( how George Washington wanted his troops to be educated to read the Bible for greater spiritual awareness, how the GI Bill sent lower class people to college dispelling the notion that blue collar people were not intelligent, how the video games are being introduced in the class-rooms, the rise of the military-entertainment-education complex). He also discusses how video games are being used to not only train soldiers, but are also being used to treat returning veterans suffering from PTSD.

All in all it is a fascinating book that makes me re-think about the connections and availability of resources in the world, and how society chooses to go about things.

You can get a snapshot of the book by reading this article by the author Corey Mead in the USA magazine Time, titled "Military recruiters have gone too far" : http://ideas.time.com/contributor/corey-mead/

 

The Lesser Big Day

I woke up at 3:00 a.m. to go birding the other weekend. Though I consider myself a beginner, waking up so early made it seem as if I were crossing some invisible line that set me apart from the casual birder. The stated goal was to hit several spots along the Washington coast in search of shorebirds. There were five of us who went. The three beginners included Sugata and me and one other person. Tony DeFalco of Feathers of Color was one of our two experts.   

The first place we stopped was Ocean Shores, Oyhut Wildlife Area. The experts had timed our visit to be within two hours of high tide, and we were on schedule. We passed a structure that emitted a pulsing sound and bore labels warning us that interference could result in loss of life. Something about air traffic control. We ducked through some bushes and followed a narrow path that led us to a muddy flat land.

At first sight, everything looked quiet, but out came the spotting scopes and mud-colored birds quietly picking at the sand came into view. Plovers. Sandpipers. And with the expertise of our experts I added to my knowledge base of shorebirds:

Western and Least Sandpipers flock together. When they land, they tend to separate; the smaller, Least Sandpipers head toward the land, while the larger Western Sandpipers wade into the shallow water.

The other beginner commented that it seemed remarkable that when the sandpipers took off in a flock, they didn't run into each other. This, in turn, sparked a story from one of the experts with the moral that perhaps birds have a harder time predicting the movement of different species of birds.

It can be difficult, I learned even for experts to tell certain shore birds apart. Thus I began to learn the patience required by those that would ferret out the true identity of the species we were observing. While the experts spent ten to twenty minutes trying to determine if the Plovers in our view were American Golden Plovers or Pacific Golden Plovers, we beginners stood around pointing our binoculars at moving objects.  "What's that over there in the mist?" I asked. I'd seen an intriguing large-billed silhouette disappear below a mound that separated us from the ocean proper. It turned out to be a Brown Pelican. Had I known how many Brown Pelicans we would see that day, and how close, and how little we would see of Plovers, I might have attended more to my shore-bird education. 

The experts had resorted to peering hard through the scope to count "primaries," that is, the feathers found at the wingtips of the birds, which, when the wings are folded, and the subject of study is going about its feeding and could care less about you counting anything on its body, can be difficult to do. Identifying the the Black-bellied Plovers proved no trouble for the experts. One showed up in breeding plumage, brandishing its distinctive black belly. I quickly became confident that I, too would be able to tell Black-bellied Plovers from the rest of Ploverdom, but at home the next day as I leafed tbrough my Sibley's guide, I noticed that all Plovers in breeding plumage boast a beautiful black belly. So much for the brief candle of confidence.

A few drops of rain accompanied by a rumble of thunder sent us scurrying back to stand under the pulsating something-to-do-with-air-traffic structure for cover. In a few minutes the rain subsided and we ventured out again. We saw a flock of Wilson's Snipe, Short-billed Dowitchers probing the sand, Pipits, Dunlin, Killdeer, and a Semi-pulmated Plover which looks very similar to Kildeer but has only one band on its neck instead of two. The Kildeer has more rufous coloring on its back. It also has that distinctive call, the one where it supposedly cries its own name. But the calls we heard it utter were only one syllable and there was some disagreement among the group about whether the poor bird was crying "kill" or "deer." 

The Pipit is named onomatopoeically as well, and its flight undulates much like its call. Up and down, up and down as if hopping over invisible hills of air.

We saw Lesser and Greater yellow legs. A slightly larger size identifying the Greater, along with a slight curve of beak. The experts  seemed to concur that the Lessers tend to be more active, and stride about more vigorously on their long, (yes, and surprisingly bright) yellow legs.

Sugata and I took notes on paper, but we lost track of precisely how many sights we visited and which birds we had seen. But Tony was well-prepared and subtle in his record-keeping. I saw him look occasionally at his phone and assumed he was sending or receiving texts. What he was really doing was noting down each location and each species in a special app. His records indicate that we visited at least nine different locations in our quest for birds. 

The other expert had an especially keen ear for birds. Before the three of us in the back seat could entirely extract ourselves from the Toyota Rav 4, he would be pointing skyward or to a tree, incanting, "Hairy woodpecker," or "Orange-crowned warbler." 

We were not, of course, restricting ourselves to shorebirds. The smallest Savannah Sparrow feeding among the red sedge was worthy of our list, as were the song sparrow, the starling, the gull.  Sugata cried out with delight every time he saw a pelican, though we saw many. The other members of the party who had already turned their optics toward scarcer and more exotic birds, may have been amused, but for Sugata, Pelicans always proved magnificent subjects for photography.

We'd seen plenty of the Double-crested Cormorants near the Willamette in Portland, but on the coast we saw the Pelagic cormorants which are all black, and a little sleeker looking. Sugata noticed that one of the cormorants was sitting with its wings spread out and asked what the bird was doing. "Drying its wings," the experts told us. Cormorants are ancient birds, and unlike many younger waterbird species, never developed water-repellent feathers.  

Once while birding in an isolated location, the other beginner spotted  someone in the distance and asked jokingly whether the "White-capped human" was male or female. "Male," was the immediate answer. Tony claimed that the hobby tended to be male-dominated. Which led us to a discussion of gender bias in bird-watching. He suggested that one of the reasons for the gender bias was that women generally weren't as comfortable being out alone as men were. The other expert, who teaches classes at the Audubon society, claimed that 95% of the students in his classes were women. Thus it became unclear as to the true ratio of male to female birdwatchers as the female may be well-inclined to learn about birds, but less inclined to bird alone.

Individually, Sugata and I recognized, growing in the sand, the sea beans we often buy at the farmer’s market.

We walked out on piers and jetties for chances of seeing birds that prefer the open ocean to land. One expert pointed out a line of dark shadows skimming just above the surface of the sea.  I could barely make them out. He identified the shadows as Sooty Shearwaters, and they were travelling northward in a steady but somewhat sparse stream that seemed to break into clumps of about half a dozen at a time. 

I was initially unimpressed with the Sooty Shearwaters, those nearly invisible wisps in the mist, though one expert piqued my curiosity by mentioning that they breed in Australia or thereabouts.  He scanned the sea with his binoculars hoping to find among the Sooties, a glimpse of a Manx Shearwater, a "life bird" for him. He told us that once on a Pelagic trip, he'd seen 100,000 Sooty Shearwaters migrating. Pelagic trips tend to truly separate serious birders from casual birders. Pelagic trips involve going at least 25 miles out to sea on a small boat, getting immensely seasick and seeing birds that you wouldn't otherwise see on shore. Shearwaters are among these. Tony told us of his Pelagic trip. He was sick the whole time he told us, but had a great time. A true and valiant birder.

On our way to our final destination, the Tokeland Marina, we noticed a heavier stream of Sooty Shearwaters and pulled into turnout for a better look. I spied down the line, what appeared to be a sort of bird rave with gulls, Sooties, and Pelicans. There were birds circling and diving and sitting on the water. "What's happening over there?" I asked pointing. The experts said it must be a “bait ball,” a huge school of small fish, ready for the taking. I know of few species that can resist delicious free food. The bait ball made its way back toward us, until the air and the sea in front of us was swarming with birds. The expert told us that what we were seeing, right there on the coast was what we'd normally see on a Pelagic trip. We stood agog for several minutes, our faces toward the sea. One local pulled into our turnout, and getting out of his truck remarked. "I've never seen anything like this," he says. "I live here and I've never seen anything like this before."  The expert first estimated the number of Shearwaters as somewhere near 100,000, but changed his number as we traveled farther down the road kept seeing the birds flock in. The final estimate entered was 250,000.

Many other species of birds were a significant part of this trip. I'd like to thank the Marbled Godwits, the Elegant Terns, The Heermann's Gulls, The Belted Kingfisher, and the Bald Eagle. Each of you helped make this trip memorable. A special thanks also to the two experts without whom, I might have seen less than half of the species that I did, and certainly wouldn't have identified most. I hardly have time to thank all my "sponsors" (i.e. bird species) as there are seventy-one of you in all, but to each, I want to extend a personal thank you for all you contributed to this Lesser Big Day.

Why a Lesser Big Day? Despite the fact that I arose at 3:00 a.m. and returned home at 10:30 p.m., we were informed by the experts that on a true "Big day" we would have gotten up earlier and gone on to look for owls.

Abode of the Acorn Woodpecker: to be chopped down as usual

One or All of these magnificent 200 year old trees(? do not know exact age- they could be older!) will be chopped down: soon. I have seen blue jays and acorn woodpeckers frequent this stand of trees.

At the Orenco station for the inter city train line in Hillsboro, Oregon, USA is a stand of old magnificent Oregon White Oaks. Till recently I did not know anything about these trees. I would get off at the station, and be off to work. As a transplant from across the world, the trees did not mean  much to me- they looked like other trees and I did not know that it was an oak tree.

About a couple of months ago, I got off the train as usual, and noticed that there was a woman at the station who was asking people to sign a petition. I was almost about to walk by, when I overheard what she said to someone else, "Saving the oaks over here".

I talked to her and found out that she was asking people to sign a petition to show the city of Hillsboro that there were people who cared about the oaks; Oregon White Oaks that were slow growing trees; trees that were at least 200 years old; trees vital to the ecosystem which provide food and shelter to a myriad range of species- the magical interconnected web of nature. I signed the petition to voice my support.

On the same day, when I was coming back from work, I saw the same woman standing in the blazing hot summer sun asking people to sign the petition. I felt sorry for her, and admired her love for the trees.

Panoramic view of the property where houses will be built: looking west from the sidewalk on the edge of the property. The property is currently owned by Trimet.

A bit of googling led me to find out about the trees and the region. OreNCo stands for Oregon Nursery Company, which used to operate in this region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The MAX train line property was initially part of the Oregon Electric Railroad, which was planning to build a branch train line from Portland to Hillsboro via Beaverton. Trimet currently owns the "Right of Way" - on which the current train line and property stands.

There is a developer who wants to build a $120 million housing complex in this area, and the initial plan was to chop down the trees: because the trees would get stressed during the construction, and eventually die. The latest news is that the city recommends chopping down one of the three large trees: (here is the link to the article in a local newspaper with the story:
http://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/index.ssf/2013/07/platform_district_2_white_oaks.html)

Curiously, the newspaper article mentions the citizens petition which I had signed, (along with around 140 other people). I could not find the citizens group online through my initial googling.

According to some people a tree needs water in its dripline area to survive. The dripline is the area under the tree from which water can be partaken. Recently, some scientists think that the dripline for a tree may extend as far as twice the distance from the base of the tree to outermost extent of the foliage. Here is an article containing the questions posed by the citizens, and some of the controversy regarding how the health of the tree is assessed. :http://www.oregonlive.com/hillsboro/index.ssf/2013/06/holland_hillsboro_arborists_me.html

A fallen acorn (The seed of the Oregon White Oak)on the ground at the Orenco Train Station. Birds like the scrub-jay and the acorn woodpecker depend on this as a vital source of food.

Of Seeds and Birds

Acorn Woodpecker with an acorn from an Oregon White Oak in its mouth at the nearby Dawson Creek.

Recently, I went on a birding trip to a nearby area in Hillsboro, called Dawson Creek by the Hillsboro Public Library. I was with an excellent group of birders, and among the many birds we observed was the Acorn Woodpecker. It was my first time seeing this bird in action. I had seen glimpses of it in the past, but here I saw all the drama of a bird trying to drill a hole in its tree; the cache location being observed by other birds, the bird flying to another tree nearby and resting and observing other birds caching the seeds. After observing them for over half an hour, a bird landed close to me, and I was able to get some good pictures of this bird.

Holes drilled into trees to cache acorns by the Acorn Woodpecker.

The acorns (seed of an Oak tree) contains bitter tannin. The tannin is thought to prevent the absorption of protein into the body, and thus this nut does not contain easily absorb-able nutrients, and prevents a bird from putting on much bio-mass. The native people of this area used to soak the acorns in water to leach out the bitter tannin, and make a flour out of the dried nuts.

The Oregon White Oak is a slow growing tree whose seeds form a vital part of the diet for many birds in the area. It is facing habitat loss in much of the areas around the Portland metro area. According to the Metro.gov website, only about 1% of the original 500,000 acres of the original oak savannah habitat remains in the WillametteValley, (most of it lost to agriculture). In many parks like the Mount Talbert park in Clackamas county, fast growing fir trees are "girdled" to kill them; this allows the slow growing Oregon White Oak to survive.

Acorn Woodpecker in an Oak Tree.

Canoeing the Tualatin River

Sonya and I went canoeing in the Tualatin river yesterday. We rented our canoes from the non-profit group: http://www.tualatinriverkeepers.org/ at Cook Park near Tigard, a town south of Portland, Oregon. We joined as members, and rented a canoe for 4 hours- all for $35.00. The friendly staff supplied us with life-jackets helped us launch our canoe around 11:30AM. One need not be a member to rent a canoe from them- but becoming a member helps you get a discount on future rentals, support this non-profit organization, and find out more about the river from the newsletters we will be receiving.

As is the story of many rivers in the 19th and 20th centuries, this river had become quite polluted due to human activity in the area. However, these days the river is in a much better condition due to the efforts of many organizations like the Tualatin Riverkeepers and The Tualatin River Watershed Council (TRWC), a local watershed stewardship organization. A full history would be a book length study!

The river contains washed off silt from nearby areas, silt which is so fine that if one were to let a jar of water from the river sit on a table, it would take more than 6 months to settle. The river was calm with a gentle current- which meant that paddling upstream was not too tiring. There is a map at the launch site which contains information on sections of the river which are safe and sections which can be dangerous due to dams and possible log jams. We were only planning to canoe 2 or 3 miles upstream and return-and did not have any serious hazards on the way.

"Oooh! Its like glass here"- comment by a fellow kayaker. 

We were lucky to see some new animals and birds today. 

- River Otter?: a dark brown snake like hairy body along the river's edge caught my eye, and its undulating shape slithered beneath the bushes and disappeared from view.

- Spotted Sandpiper?: Grey top- white underneath: this bird (there were two on them on a small grass meadow by the river, one flew away, another landed on a log on the river), dipped its head and tail alternately in a weird dance move.

- Pileated Woodpecker: Its flight made me think it was a northern flicker, but when I trained my binoculars on it, I noticed a red patch on the head, white in between and a black body on a dramatically foreshortened bird that flew directly away from me with cries like "pok a pok a pok wok".

- Green Heron: This is the bird that adorns the logo of the Tualatin Riverkeepers. On the way back, I wanted to have a closer look at some violet flowers growing on a rock, and we saw a bird fly into the bushes as we approached the bank. As we were leaving the area, we noticed a bird land on a log-through the binoculars it looked a miniature version of a great blue heron- a foot tall, with yellow eyes, a long yellow beak and yellow feet-with a "S" shaped neck and striped feathers. Juvenile?

Guide to exploring the Tualatin River: "Exploring the Tualatin River Basin" : A Nature and Recreation Guide by Tualatin Riverkeepers.

- Olive-sided flycatcher?: This bird was on a branch on a tree close to the heron, and had a pale yellow chest, and its angular head in profile looked like a miniature kingfisher.

- "Tree Bass": this is what a guy said pointing to his fishing line caught in the tree as he was standing on a boat launch dock.

Some of the regulars were

- Belted Kingfisher: The placid canoe trip began with a loud belted kingfisher emitting loud cries in the bushes, and then darting back and forth in the river ahead of us. We saw the same bird (or possibly another specimen according to Sonya) a few more times on the river and on our way back.

- Red-Tailed Hawk: we saw a few of them circling overhead scanning the area along the river for food, and heard their "kileree" through the tree canopy without being able to locate the bird at other times.

- Scrub Jays

-Starlings

-Norther Flicker: Many of them criss-crossed the river with their familiar flight pattern, flying up and then diving like a custom input to a power electronic device.

- Dragonflies skirting the surface of the water.


- Mallards: flying by, and mallards extending their necks to eat low hanging berries from an unknown plant

It was fun to watch mallards sitting in the water, extend their necks to reach for the berries shown in the photo above

There were many paddlers on the river; some muscular, some not in the best of shape, families with children, couples, singles, people fishing from private docks along the river, all politely saying hi and waving to each other as we passed each other. A woman kayaker put it perfectly with her comment "It is like glass here!" on a quiet section of the river. For the three hours we spent on the river, we were only passed by one motor-boat- that too someone who courteously slowed their pace to a gentle crawl as they passed us.






Food:
- Onion flavored Thanh Son Tofu
- Gluten-free bread with basil cashew pesto made  by Sonya
- sugar plum tomatoes
-organic baby carrots


Public Transit:
- MAX from Goose-hollow to Beaverton Transit Center
- 76: from Beaverton Transit Center to stop near Cook Park: http://goo.gl/maps/YbIae
- Walk from bus stop to Cook Park: http://goo.gl/maps/zfUvq

 I would highly recommend this trip as a relaxing way to connect with nature in a place that can be easily accessed by Public Transport.