I heard the funniest birding story of my life this evening, especially if you can laugh at blind people getting put at risk of getting run over.

At my university, Angelo State, we have a cross walk that emits a loud shrill repetitive tone when it’s safe to walk across a busy street. The nose sounds very similar to a bird call, and in fact, my very week on campus, I was headed to class and stopped in my tracks when I heard it. You see, I thought it was a bird, and I didn’t know what it was. It’s very rare when I don’t recognize a bird by sound, and it either means it’s rare or that I get to learn something — either one is fun.

I never knew what that noise was for, until talking to a friend tonight. It allows blind students to know when it’s safe to cross the street, and there are probably around a dozen or so that make use of it.

What a great system, right? Well it was, until a Northern Mockingbird learned how to perfectly mimic the tone. Apparently, the bird did such a good job that people couldn’t tell the difference between the light and the bird.

Something had to be done. Some folks in the biology department used a net to catch the bird and relocate it. And fortunately (for mankind and the bird), it didn’t come back.

I’ve heard of mockingbirds mimicking an incredible range of noises. In fact, I just posted about their mimicry of prairie dogs this weekend. But I’ve never heard of a mockingbird that risked killing people.

I’m sure you saw this already, but if you didn’t, a Malaysian man is getting charged quite the amount for long distance on his late father’s telephone bill.

A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he received a U.S. $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday.

Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father’s phone line in January after he died and settled the 84-ringgit (U.S. $23) bill, the New Straits Times reported.

But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01-ringgit (U.S. $218 trillion) bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported.

It reminds me of the ransom demand in Austin Powers. ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS! And everyone just laughs.

Is it even possible to talk that long in a lifetime? Does all of Malaysia even use $218 trillion of long distance in a year?

Well, it seems the kids are continuing their downward spiral into decadence. I previously blogged about the first time I noticed we were encouraging their behavior. Now my wife has brought home the second installment to their debauchery.

She told me that one little boy came up after class and told her that he liked her earrings.

Don’t trust him honey. He’s just trying to reach third base.

I went birding today at a local state park with my wife and ended up parked in the middle of a prairie dog colony. I was looking for Burrowing Owls, but ended up absorbing myself in the antics of these furry little Sciurids (squirrels).

Several of the little buggers approached the car. Hmmm. Somebody’s been feeding the wildlife.

The coolest thing by far though was a territorial behavior we witnessed between (presumably) two males. One prairie dog would approach the other, who would turn it’s tail, raised up in the air, towards it’s opponent. After a while, it would turn around, and it’s opponent would turn around too. In other words, someone was always looking at their opponent’s butt. They even made short sprints at each other.

We didn’t know at first whether they were going to mate or fight. Being the voyeurs that we are, we kept watching. We got our answer when suddenly two prairie dogs became one large blur as they rolled around violently on the ground. It was a heck of a fight and pure fun to witness.

As we kept birding, we noticed that the mockingbirds in the area would intersperse their song with perfect mimicry of prairie dog scolding and alarm calls.

The birding was good, but the highlight this morning was watching mammals.

In this, my 200th post, I wanted to take a moment to tell you about something very cool, something a few of you probably never knew existed.

bola spider

In a conversation in class about reproductive isolating mechanisms (factors that can keep populations from interbreeding), the use of pheromones by insects was mentioned. As I’m sure everybody knows, some species of insects use these chemicals to attract mates, sometimes over great distances. For example, some male months can attract females from a mile away with the pheromones they release. Pheromones are also important in certain species as a way to advertise “Hey, baby, I’m your species.” In other words, pheromones can help keep a species cohesive, insuring that it doesn’t mate with the wrong bug.

Much like a homeland security official on a MySpace website, there is a spider which has learned to use these pheromones to lure in a moth, at which point it makes use of an ingenious method to capture it.

Bola spiders (pictured at right) release female moth pheromones and attract male moths. They also produce a glob of sticky glue which hangs on the end of a single thread. When the male moths approach looking for a mate, the spider begins spinning this glob around like a lasso. Upon making contact with the moth, the spider reals in the line to have dinner.

Bola spiders get their name from the cowboys of southern South America (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay), after the bolas they use for hunting. A bola has two balls connected with a rope that they would throw to entangle the feet of an animal. It was used very much like North American cowboys used a lasso.

I found surprising little information on bola spiders online, but as best I gather, there are many species with a worldwide distribution.

I have a cat (I’m sure you’ve heard), and since we have a two bathroom apartment, he occupies one bathroom to himself. We’ve stuck his litter box in the bathtub, behind a shower curtain.

My wife had the good idea of buying a Glade scented plugin to improve the smell. She set it to the lowest level and plugged it in.

When I came home, the entire apartment smelled like she’d spilled a bottle of disinfectant. Even on the lowest setting, it was just too strong. Maybe the low setting was for a Super Walmart, the medium for your average shopping mall, and the high for Texas Stadium. Whatever those levels were for, low was too much for our place.

So my wife, in true Ralph Nader fashion, emails the makers of Glade, explaining that their products sucks, and requesting a refund. The response comes quickly. They appreciate our feedback, and will be sending us a free refill cartridge for our plugin!

Think they even read my wife’s message? She picked up the phone and tenaciously waited on hold, seeking justice.

I now have a check for $4.32 sitting on my desk that I need to cash.