And I'm Madeline Walden and this is Aquarium of the Podcific a podcast brought to you by Aquarium of the Podcific Southern California's largest aquarium. Join
us as we learn alongside the experts in animal care, conservation and more.
Welcome back to Aquarium of the Podcific it is an emergency episode today we have a huge update on The Young and the Restless Season to Season Two Season Two update by our first reoccurring guests. On the podcast. We're joined by agriculturist Ashley Loper. Hi, Ashley.
Hi. Happy to be back. Thank
you for joining us. We heard you had some scoop.
All right, I'm back with some hot new gossip. So the tea right now is happening mostly in our alcid colony which if you don't know what an Allison is, that is our diving board areas. That's a family of birds that includes puffins, pigeon guillemots, MERS Aucklands. All of those diving birds you would see in the northern hemisphere. So here our tea concerns the horned puffins this season. So it is currently our breeding season for them. And they are all kind of establishing where they are going to be nesting. So if you've never looked at our habitat, there's actually little tunnels that lead back into our nest boxes there and they all have little boxes. There is more than enough for everybody. However, one of our puffins has decided she wants to nest in this weird awkward little cave it is not what I would pick I guess it's fine she but it's like this tiny little hole in the side of the exhibit. And it's meant I think to control some sort of plumbing there's like an app there's a pipe in there there's like a open and shut off valve but she's been there a couple seasons now and that is
its location location location. Site of the exhibit is a hot
there are plenty of open. I'm going to call them real nest but she has refused
to this cave is perfect.
Yeah, I guess so. You can fit one bird and which which bird is is that would be Daisy, the horned Puffin Daisy,
what are you doing so easy girls Daisy,
but meet Daisy does not have a mate. So I guess she just needs a single home for one I see this little thing works fine. I
was picturing one of those very like industrial style lofts that people like the hose valve in the middle and she's like, honestly, I just designed around
very industrial. It's actually very diligently collected nesting material. We give little plants and stuff out for herself. So it's very homey, and they're cozy, you know, she's doing her best with it. But where things kind of the plot intensifies here is that I started seeing another Puffin hanging out in that spot. So I'd come in in the morning and I see a head poking out of there and I assume it's Daisy and the bird came out and it was not daisies. So it was another Puffin named half. Now half does have a mate and they have a burrow together a very nice burrow. They are very established pair. So I was like, well, he's probably just house hunting, you know, they're like, checking their options.
This one's already furnished. I'm
gonna read all this nesting material, so I'm sure he's house hunting, and this will kind of die down once his mate lays her egg. They're established they're gonna go in there, they're gonna leave Daisy load won't be a problem. They have now laid their egg. And guess who I saw in their last week as half who is sitting in Daisy's burrow and daisies hanging out outside of Daisy and all this right and she just watches she she's just seen very confused by it but she's not like aggressive or rude about it. She's like, I guess. But then it got me wondering and this is purely gossip at this point. This is purely me spreading rumors
and gossip and gossip, the podcast. I feel
like I have two options here which is half is either just having like a man cave bachelor pad moment, away from the nest he's chosen that or Option two is he has a little girlfriend on the side. He's at her
like little apartment. visiting
her in real life is like
at home. And who is his mate? Sorry, this
made us another one puffy name bruiser.
Bruiser, so Bruiser, and half a bruiser and the rocks potentially
maybe but then okay, here's where it gets even weirder. It doesn't. Bruiser was in the weird nest, and half was on the egg. So I don't know what is happening. This is thrilling. There's so much fun there one of my favorites. So I'm happy to talk puffins anytime,
that's amazing. It's
crazy to me how the social dynamic of these birds is so in some ways very human. You know, you're like, hey, this is my apartment. I've got this cute little studio and then this like older gent just kind of was like you know, you're cute. You have a house I'm gonna and that's just it's a very progressive,
progressive. They can be and then there's like any of the birds you'll get some of the occasional shake up. So they're like, actually, I am gonna go see what the neighbors doing over
there sir puffins,
that type of animal that tends to mate for life and they have the same pair over like the course of Year after year, or do they choose other?
General they mate for life. So I have worked with parents before that were together 20 plus years. So they can be incredibly faithful. But just like with any pair, sometimes things don't work out and they will repair with a different individual.
They're a little risky. So
I feel like they've made for life in the way humans maybe for life where sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't.
Sometimes you meet a cute girl who lives on the
side her own apartment and live in enough on the east side, maybe
so. Now on the flip side, we do have some very cute, well established pairs. My favorite at the moment is our pair of tufted puffins. So we have Monti and Nya and they are both like senior citizens are both considered geriatric for puffins. They're in their 20s. But they are so cute together. So you might have seen nya posted on social media. Yeah, a little bit.
Beautiful picture. You took a great, great photo,
but she's quite a princess. So Monty pampers her like, he's always grooming her. They're always learning together. And he's just like pruning her tops and pruning her little back feathers, and not once have I ever seen her.
She's doing her it's a relationship to strive to take such good care.
She's a princess.
She doesn't. But I love them. They're very cute.
We have some very old animals in our house that exhibit I think people you know that I don't think people will often look at acids or puffins and realize they can live. But it's crazy to be like, Yeah, we have a couple of puffins in their 20s. And we actually have quite a few that
most of them I would say most of the animals in that habitat are considered geriatrics at this point. So it's like a little retirement community in there.
So if you've visited the aquarium before, the habitat we're talking about is in northern Pacific is called diving birds. What other animals live in there, because it's not just puffins, right? It's
not just Puffin. So we do have like I said, the whole family of birds is called Alison. So within that family, we have auklets we have a crested awkward in there at the moment. He's very cute. So he's one you might walk by and he's got this crazy little like Elvis hairdo going on with his feathers, kind of hangs out like almost like a quail on top of his little head. So that's a crested rock lil. And then we also have pigeon guillemots in there, who depending on the season can look drastically different right now everybody's in breeding plumage. It's very pretty. They're all these really striking like black birds with white shoulder patches. But then if you come in the offseason, when they're not breeding, they're gray and white and salt and temporary looking. So it's a pretty dramatic change that they go through. But all of those birds are related to puffins, but they're all quite different. So it's a very diverse family.
There's one pigeon gilmont That looks different than the other pigeon guillemots. And in the cutest possible way.
Gosh, I know exactly who you're talking about, am I referring to that is pepper. So all of the other pigeon guillemots are black and they have a little black beak and pepper has a bright orange beak. She's got a little genetic mutation, where she doesn't have melanin and like her beak and her toenails. So you get the orange color and she's got clear toenails. So she definitely stands. She has a clear one time somebody sent a picture to her like group chat that we have with just a picture of a bird's foot and they said Who can name this animal and I saw it was the clear toenails. Was pepper
oh my god I got
I'm still get made fun of where people said Bo to animal. What animal is this? was one time
but like also, you're probably right every time. You're studying,
I sent Ashley once a picture that was probably three pixels big of some sort of bird of prey. And I was like, What is this? Like? It's a Cooper's Hawk.
That is my brother's favorite game. He loves to send me terrible bird pictures and see if I could find out what they are. Well, I'm undefeated.
listeners want to send the aquarium some just random bird pick.
Let me just give you Ashley's number. It's rare.
I think it's a really worthwhile game. I think we should just start sending any sort of animal foot to Ashley and then
I think actually that would be a very fun video is if we sit you down and we show you we're
doing it actually is actually an avid birder and she knows quite a bit about different species she
does so much. She was just she just started in our Pelican release video with the wetlands and wildlife Care Center. And it was great. You did awesome. How's that?
That's really awesome. I have never gotten to work with pelicans before, but it's certainly a species that I have a lot of love for. Like I have brown pelicans back in Louisiana where I'm from, and then we have them here in California. So that's a bird I grew up seeing that means a lot to me. So being able to help them when there was a time of crisis and help our neighbors that wetlands and wildlife was really awesome. And I really saw those birds at their worst when they were first coming in. And I got to see them at their best when they were being released into the wild. So I really got the full spectrum of experience and I was called to feel like I was making a difference in our local bird community.
And the question I have for you that is entirely unscientific. But I think is a question I get asked a lot. What does the like Flappy guy on a pet like you don't like their their throat? What does that feel like?
So weird. I feel like it feels exactly what you would imagine that it feels like it's just this weird smooth skin
does it feel like if you pinch your elbow skin like this
after Within that, like, it's really like, soft and it feels so thin like when you're handling the pelicans. And gosh, I hope I don't like to hear and that's like a very common injury you see with pelicans too as they go after like fishing gear, or something and that pouch tears surprisingly easy with some of that sharp gear. So it's very fragile.
Yeah, I was talking to you and we were at the release and at the wetlands and wildlife Care Center. They seem so delicate like their beak seems so delicate, but then I was watching them just fly open mouth into each other. They're they're funny animals. Yeah,
it's weird. Birds are like, sturdy and delicate at the same time. Are you like, Okay, I have to hold you a certain way. And this feels scary. But if you if I don't, you're gonna hurt you. Or hold you too tight. That could also be a very fine balance, leave.
One thing that I learned about pelicans about how to handle them is when you are holding them and restraining them obviously, the big part is the body part that can hurt you. But if you hold their beak closed, they actually can't breathe. their nostrils or the nerves that you see do not function as well as you think. And so you have to hold their mouth slightly open or else they can't breathe. And I was like, that is the funny like, why can't you
you've got such a giant mouth. Just totally gonna shut. Breathe anymore. Yeah, that seems like a design. Yeah. Millions of years of evolution.
We got. So there's weird animals and all the animals. I think a fun game would be like, what does this feel like on different animals?
I don't feel like that translates well to an audience.
We have gotten really good at being very descriptive and what things feel like such as an octopus feels like a wet gummy bear and everyone's like, I know exactly what that feels like. You have told me that a sea lion feels like a white horse is very accurate. A white horse or white gummy bear for that matter. But
what is the weirdest part? Feeling part of an animal?
Any animal that I have touched? Oh, that's so that's a hard question.
Right? I got the Pelican Google's gotta be one of them.
It's called a Google know.
The real word. It's a jeweler pouch. Okay, got
it. Don't worry. frogs have Guler pouches. Oh, well, that's what you're seeing when you see some
pelicans are basically the same comparison.
We're looking frogs are just like every other animal.
That's exactly like a frog.
It's true. Well, it's been an exciting month in bird world. I guess you had the Pelican release. We have these new shenanigans with our acids. What about penguin world what's going on there?
We need a season one update on all of the couplings and all the things that were happening last year. Have they been good this year? A surprisingly
problem free at the moment. So we did not have a lot of scuffles or anything going on during breeding season. Our pairs were all stable and faithful to one another. We did have Gatsby single last season. And Roxy is also newly single out on the beach. So those two were both single and male and female. Roxy took her sweet time deciding to come up and build a nest but she finally decided to she moved in with GATS. I don't think either one seemed particularly thrilled about it, I think they were just the only option. And then Roxy is Gotsis mom. So it's like he moved back in with mom, and was helping, they felt a lot more like roommates, which is preferred. But that was the only I think weird thing that we had going on. That's pretty big. Right? To move in with mom again.
But I will say if they want to make it to season three, we're gonna have to have some more shenanigans. So I've done that again.
We're gonna shake up the with guests. And Roxy is I think a lot of people ask, like, can they tell that that's their parents? Do you have any understanding? Or can you give us insight into whether or not penguins can tell if they're related or not?
I think initially when they're chicks they can but kind of as they grow up, I don't really see any parental relationships that I've ever observed going forward once the chicks are like fully fledged and on their own. Like I've seen parents bully they're like you're on your own get out. I feel like there's any fondness necessarily there. I think they just treat them like any other penguin got it. For cats
for cats is always the hot single on the beach. Like he's always with someone a little bit and then he has never quite settled down.
He really has it and he wasn't very helpful. Even when Roxy Roxy laid eggs. He I don't think I saw him sit on the eggs one time he was like you're on your own mom, those are your kids.
Mostly the gossip around and Kate and Robbie. How are they doing together? They it couple on the day
or the couple and they still got it and they said got it. You're still going strong. Very cute. Very beautiful.
I think that there is another subset of birds that has gone through breeding season pretty recently that seems to also have a little bit of gossip surrounding them and those would be our avocets.
Ooh, you're right. I didn't think of them initially, but they certainly do. Got a little spicy spill. So avocets in general, when it comes to breeding season, the hormones fire up and they just become incredibly territorial. So a lot of times if we have them on our shorebird habitat, they will start defending a territory towards us the keepers and towards all of the other birds. And they do get pretty intense and they're yelling at you all the time. And they're kind of just like flying at you. You're like, Oh, I
could sound like when they yell at you. It's just like a high pitched
Oh, man, I'm gonna have to do it. opposite impression. I don't know. It's really
horrible yelling is good. It's
like, kind of little just like beep chirps. But like very rapidly beep beep chirping at you. While flying at you. That's fair. Yeah, they got long legs and a long beak. And it's quite a thing. So this year for avocets, they have been in what we call our upper wetlands area. So that is going to say on the bottom floor outside in the aquarium kind of by shark lagoon. We have a heron in one section. And then in the upper section is where we had the two avocets together. And we were like, Okay, this is great, they're going to be by themselves, there's not going to be other birds to Billy and they can nest it's going to be awesome. But I think in the absence of other birds so fully, they decided when hormones got really high that they were going to maybe chase each other a little bit so they were very hot and cold, toxic. So sometimes they would be great together they'd be building a nest together
and then just destroy it.
Surprisingly, the female I guess, you know, hormones. So the female was chasing the male quite a bit and trying to like hit him with her wings. To the point she actually started to like hurt her wings a little bit. So we didn't make the decision to separate them because we saw that going on and we kind of toxic to intervene. So that was a lesson that we learned this year is even by themselves those hormones do not go away. They will direct them at something and that something can be one another.
I feel like we need like a stuffed animal in there for them. To be like I don't like ganging up on waterfowl.
Just put a picture of an episode in there and it just is like punctured over Yeah,
I feel like you just have to unite them against a common enemy.
Exactly. Exactly. Nothing brings two people together like a common enemy, right? It really
brings two episodes together like a common stuffed animal. That is so it's so interesting how much birds have this like super involved social dynamic, and then the seasonality really impacts their behavior like it is wild because most of the year totally fine, totally fine. They could
be in shorebirds there's no issues everybody lives peacefully but for some reason breeding season kicks in. Yeah, different birds different things going on out there.
You know who's never involved in the drama,
the greed, your brain sciences business. I also we got a new bird out there recently new hot pinnacle, right. She's been a fan favorite already and a staff favorite. And that is our white faced Ibis. Gladys is her name, little name. Yeah, she's super cute. And just like an unproblematic queen. She settled in perfect. She's not like shy towards people. She is very curious and comes anytime you put something new in there, like we just put new plants and she was the first to come just like sticker a little beacon on the planet. And check everything out. So she's super cool bird and if you catch her on a sunny day, you really see all of her colors, especially if she's like bathing, you're spreading her wings or something and she's stunning little bird.
She's like iridescent and she was a rescue. So
I think she was found here in Long Beach with some pretty significant injuries. She had some gashes along her back. She's like a broken collarbone. She went through and she was like a child. She was a juvenile little ibis, but they were able to heal her. They just can't release her. She couldn't fly so they were able to reach out to us and we had a little home for her so wonderful. She she's doing so great. And we all love her
a lot. She doesn't create any problem.
No, she says Oh good, so unproblematic can be problematic.
That dream. Well, you can visit her in our shorebirds habitat. That's next to ripple. Is that right?
Yep. Yeah, it's next to penguins and Ray pool.
If you visit offseason you will be confused as to why they are called white faced Ibis. Because they are totally green and black and iridescent. No, not at all white.
And it's a weird day where people are like, what's that bird? Oh, it's a white faced Ibis. There's no way I didn't name it. Last week, I went up there and she does have a little she does have a little it's still not what I would say is like the most prominent feature but there's another very similar looking Ibis called the Glossy Ibis, so I guess that name was like, Oh, this one is more white, showing.
She just malt twice a year to change color or as her new as her feathers kind of grow in Are they like on brain pretty wide.
Body feathers will stay pretty much the same. It's just that little bit of weight on her facial just gradually like transition to being a slightly more dramatic little mask, and then it'll fully Do you like transition back at the end of breeding season to no masks? Little secret identity?
Are there any other animal species names that you have a problem with? Because they don't really fit? Actually animal?
Oh, there's so many I'm sure. Especially in birds are like, that's what you name it. Like there's a duck called the ring necked duck. If you look at it, you're gonna be like, where? Where's the ring? And apparently, if you see it in certain light, you could see kind of the essence of a ring.
If you imagine
like that, that's what we named it. Okay, someone
just put a ring on its neck and then like it's a ring.
discovered a new species. Like some make total sense. Like you'll see a blackbird with a yellow head. You're like yellow headed Blackbird, you're like that. Black Blackbird with Red Wings. It's a red winged blackbird. Alright, so one of my favorites is somebody texts me one time and they said, there's a bird outside my house and it sounds like a cat. What is it? And I had to tell them that it's called a cat.
I was like, messing with you.
So for real?
This is a cat bird. That's so funny. Crazy. Who
gets to choose, you know, like, who's like, yeah,
this week to put you in charge
I want to choose.
I would name the frogs terrible. speckly brown frog. Slightly more speculate, but
I don't I actually do have beef with whoever named mountain yellow legged frogs because the yellow is so inconsistent with the juveniles. This is tan and I have a weirdly, my main guest complaint is legs aren't yellow.
And it's funny because people will be like, they're not yellow. And I was like, did get a little yellow or when sometimes Yeah. And there's a couple of words more. But like again, it's like the suggestion of a white faced Ibis is similar to the mountain yellow legged frog. So but California red legged tree frogs, very red leg. So whoever did that. Today will keep you it is odd. Whoever gets to name those things. I learned more about birds today than I ever thought
I know. It's gonna be just like a little short and sweet episode, but we crammed in a lot of information or anything else exciting going on.
What's your favorite bird thing happening
right now? I think my favorite bird thing happening right now, bringing it back full circle to the puffins. I love Puffin breeding season because they have so many cute little courtship behaviors that they do. So you'll see a lot of my favorite favorite thing that they do is called billing. So it's where they kind of rub their bills together. And it's very cute. So you'll see parents do that. But you'll also see them like flap their wings at one another. So you'll see one do it and then somebody else will be on like the rock below them. And they'll open their wings. And it's kind of sad thing they can do. The Mate say either be between mates, or it can be between two that are like subtly beefing with each other. I'm bigger than bigger than where it's like it's over I have so you'll see that you'll also see them like head toss at each other. So they'll just subtly like toss their head back at one another. Or like they'll Bill gave and they'll open their mouth and kind of show the inside of their mouth. So if you see the pigeon guillemots, it's actually really cool. It's an all like I said, all black bird with white shoulders, but when they open their mouth, it's bright red inside. And they'll do that as they like call and vocalize or just to one another. They'll open their mouth and you just see that little flash of color. So I just keep watching all the different behaviors going on and that habitat this time of year and everybody looks so beautiful with their meeting plumage. There's so many different colors. The tufted puffins have their glorious like tufted hairdo going on.
I was gonna ask if you could tell us a little bit about the difference between the tufted and the horned puffins I know the tufted it looks like they have beautiful long eyebrows almost.
Yeah, it's very stunning thought of them
as I think I really like just like really long eyebrows.
And they are it looks very hair like but those are still feathers. They're just really modified feathers. Yeah, that look here like it does look like they have little interviews going on.
Someone got those like eyebrow transplants from
crazy again another transformation is they lose those those completely go away and nonbreeding season and they just turn into these weird blackbirds to the point that like I have had people who work here and who know those birds come up to me and go did we get a different bird what is to break it to them that that is a tufted puffin and not breeding season.
I know very dramatic that molt is subtle and gradual. And then it becomes very obvious, but I love the idea that you just find this blonde eyebrow on like
one day. My favorite treasure to find. Yes, please. So the both of the Puffin species do it but it's a little more prominent in the tufted puffins. They get this little sheath on their bill. It's called a ramp Theca it like grows and for the breeding season and it's a little covering on the base of their beak. And that thing will completely like slough off at the end of breeding seems like it just falls off and you'll find it like I found one on the habitat last year and I was so excited. I kept it wanted one for so long. It just got totally fall. was off with the horned puffins. They have it but it tends to flake off a little bit more. It doesn't always fall off in one pretty piece, but the tufted puffins that's a whole treasure you get to find Wow,
that's pretty cool. That is cool. Is it true that their eggs have sort of a unique shape to them? Is that the puffins or is it some of the others
are the ones that have the leg that's a little bit more pointed, so puffins will to an extent but it's not as like jointed. Yeah, and elongated but MERS will definitely have kind of more of a cone shaped egg. And it's because they're Cliff nesters. So if something knocks it the eggs gonna I know how would you lay your egg?
Like the most perfect, my
child I'm gonna lay it on a clip side.
That is birds though. Right? Like, yeah, have
you seen a pigeon nest?
You mean the one stick that Reagan? Perfect. Yeah.
But the cool thing is though, if their egg does get bumped, it will kind of just roll in a circle and not off of the cliff because of the way that it is. We
still have that thing upstairs. We do. Yeah, there's a display with two types of fake eggs that you can see how well one rolls off a cliff and how not well the other one does, and that's the shape. Yeah, since puffins
nest in burrows, there's doesn't need to be quite as like cone shape. But for the cliff nesting guys, there's does have usually that little rolly do
the puffins dig their burrows typically like how do they create?
They can Yeah, so they can dig out burrows or sometimes they'll just kind of get under like a bush or something and kind of dig it out.
That would be me as everyone else Dylan bush.
I like the cave idea like daisies plan. Yeah,
right. Or maybe not gonna crawl through a tunnel. Are you kidding me? Like I'm just gonna hop in this little opening and that's good enough.
Does her little nest cave preclude you from using that hose?
Well, thankfully, it's not a valve we ever have to attach like, I do not fully know what it goes. So it doesn't she I guess her show. It's not what I would use, but it sure is what she's doing.
That's really we're gonna need to keep stay updated on this.
This is we're gonna need a picture of the inside of her home the industrial show.
I gotta put her on blast.
It's like don't come in. Well, maybe half will be in the Yeah, we'll find
out where bruiser bruiser is gonna be scrolling on social media
and be like half Why are you in this scandal? Honestly. Pretty good. Thank you for joining. Thank
you, Ashley. Thank you for that quick little update. We appreciate it and we'll talk to you in season three. You gotta come back and give another update. It sounds great. We'll
have to catch up on all of the bird t that happens there's always things happening and Birdland I think that's why I like this as like a comprehensive what is happening with all
tell us some of it's so silly. Like it's just silly little things that they're birds silly,
but it's also subtle and really you would probably only be sensitive to it if you see these birds every single day. Yeah. And you're like, you're in a weird Yeah.
Why are you there? That's not
Well, thank you. Cool. Thanks, Ashley. Do you see you next season? See you next on younger than Netflix. We do need young analyst list of things
