Time to eat crow on quiz answer

  • By Sharon Wootton Herald columnist
  • Friday, March 2, 2012 4:46pm
  • Life

Every now and then I get taken to the woodshed and spanked with a wet feather, which was what a Marysville resident did the other day about an answer in my question-and-answer column last Saturday.

The question was “How high can some migrating birds fly?” with answers ranging from ½ to 2 miles (2 being the alleged correct answer).

Gary Clark served in the Air Defense Command in Montana in the 1960s, helping control interceptors, using radar and computer, watching for signs of a Soviet attack.

One night an “unknown” was on radar, heading south through Alberta, Canada at about 38,000 feet altitude and 137 mph. An F-101 was sent out to identify the UFO. With help from radar and a tracking computer, the pilot had a visual, Clark wrote, and went in for a closer look.

“About two minutes later he said, ‘Sidewalk, (our call sign), you are not going to believe this. The target is a big flock of geese. They are not flying. They are coasting. These are bar-sided geese, with their wings set out, and they are coasting on the jet stream,’” Clark wrote.

“So, there you have it. I know that a bar-sided goose can fly up to at least 38,000 feet. The amazing thing, even to this day, is to realize that the geese knew they could meet up with the jet stream and save some energy on their flight south,” Clark said in his email.

Who would have thought a pilot with bird ID skills would be in the cockpit for a close encounter with a flock of bar-sided geese at 38,000 feet? I wish that there was a way to verify the information with Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology because the pilot’s sighting would likely be the presumed highest sighting of a bar-sided goose.

Cornell (www.birds.cornell.edu) reports that those geese migrating over the Himalaya Mountain Range have been recorded as high as 27,880 feet, but there was no specific source beyond Cornell being a highly reputable source in itself.

However, Audubon Magazine (www.audubonmagazine.org) calls bar-headed geese the world’s highest-altitude migrants, saying that the geese have been sighted flying directly above Mount Everest (summit: 29,028 feet).

National Geographic News (news.nationalgeographic.com) reported in June 2011 that a 2009 study by researchers at Bangor University in the United Kingdom tracked 25 bar-headed geese in India with GPS transmitters just before they left on their spring migration to Mongolia to breed. The result: peak altitude was 21,120 feet.

The BBC (www.bbc.co.uk/nature) website called the geese “the highest flying birds.”

However, Cornell’s site also stated that a high-flying Ruepell’s griffon (large African vulture) was sucked into a jet engine at 37,000 feet. The kings of thermals often go as high as 20,000 feet, so that was one serious thermal.

Or, depending on the source, the 1975 (or 1973) collision over the Ivory Coast was at 36,100 feet (or 37,900 feet). Whatever the altitude (all much higher than the summit of Mount Everest), it makes that griffon the world’s highest-flying bird, or at least the bird that has been seen at the highest altitude.

In the U.S., according to Audubon Magazine, a mallard collided with an airplane in 1963 at 21,000 feet above Nevada. But the magazine’s stat that I enjoyed the most during this search was this: In 1924, a yellow-billed chough, among the highest-altitude nesting species, followed a climbing expedition’s food scraps to 26,500 feet on Mount Everest.

As to the 2-mile answer in last week’s Q&A column, I needed to have asked a more specific question in addition to offering the correct answer. The worse of it is that I’ve seen a video of migratory birds fly through the Himalayan mountain passes.

I think I’ll frame a feather and hang it on the wall for humility’s sake.

Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Life

Brandon Hailey of Cytrus, center, plays the saxophone during a headlining show at Madam Lou’s on Friday, Dec. 29, 2023 in Seattle, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lynnwood-based funk octet Cytrus has the juice

Resilience and brotherhood take center stage with ‘friends-first’ band.

FILE - In this April 11, 2014 file photo, Neko Case performs at the Coachella Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Calif. Fire investigators are looking for the cause of a fire on Monday, Sept. 18, 2017, that heavily damaged Case’s 225-year-old Vermont home. There were no injuries, though a barn was destroyed. It took firefighters two hours to extinguish the blaze. (Photo by Scott Roth/Invision/AP, File)
Music, theater and more: What’s happening in Snohomish County

Singer-songwriter Neko Case, an indie music icon from Tacoma, performs Sunday in Edmonds.

Dominic Arizona Bonuccelli
Tangier’s market boasts piles of fruits, veggies, and olives, countless varieties of bread, and nonperishables, like clothing and electronics.
Rick Steves on the cultural kaleidoscope of Tangier in Morocco

Walking through the city, I think to myself, “How could anyone be in southern Spain — so close — and not hop over to experience this wonderland?”

chris elliott.
Vrbo promised to cover her rental bill in Hawaii, so why won’t it?

When Cheryl Mander’s Vrbo rental in Hawaii is uninhabitable, the rental platform agrees to cover her new accommodations. But then it backs out. What happened?

The Moonlight Swing Orchestra will play classic sounds of the Big Band Era on April 21 in Everett. (submitted photo)
Music, theater and more: What’s happening in Snohomish County

Relive the Big Band Era at the Port Gardner Music Society’s final concert of the season in Everett.

2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport AWD (Honda)
2024 Honda Ridgeline TrailSport AWD

Honda cedes big boy pickup trucks to the likes of Ford, Dodge… Continue reading

Would you want to give something as elaborate as this a name as mundane as “bread box”? A French Provincial piece practically demands the French name panetiere.
A panetiere isn’t your modern bread box. It’s a treasure of French culture

This elaborately carved French antique may be old, but it’s still capable of keeping its leavened contents perfectly fresh.

(Judy Newton / Great Plant Picks)
Great Plant Pick: Mouse plant

What: Arisarum proboscideum, also known as mouse plant, is an herbaceous woodland… Continue reading

Bright green Japanese maple leaves are illuminated by spring sunlight. (Getty Images)
Confessions of a ‘plantophile’: I’m a bit of a junky for Japanese maples

In fact, my addiction to these glorious, all-season specimens seems to be contagious. Fortunately, there’s no known cure.

2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited (Hyundai)
2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited

The 2024 Hyundai IONIQ 6 Limited is a sporty, all-electric, all-wheel drive sedan that will quickly win your heart.

The 2024 Dodge Hornet R/T hybrid’s face has the twin red lines signifying the brand’s focus on performance. (Dodge)
2024 Hornet R/T is first electrified performance vehicle from Dodge

The all-new compact SUV travels 32 miles on pure electric power, and up to 360 miles in hybrid mode.

Don’t blow a bundle on glass supposedly made by the Henry William Stiegel

Why? Faked signatures, reused molds and imitated styles can make it unclear who actually made any given piece of glass.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.