Ever discover friend/whoever was ignorant basic knowledge/facts?

[UTUSN]

I was talkingto this friend on the phone, told her a bird/ was doing its thing, and she said it was "his nature/instinct."

I asked what she meant. I said, I guess Idon
t have termites in my house since the bird ain't knocking on my house

She said it was INSTINCT.

I asked are you crazy? The bird is looking for termites to EAT

She said, I never knew that


This person never KNEW that this bird was looking for SOMETHING TO EAT!!!!!!!!!

[UTUSN]

1. Woodpecker. It was a woodpecker. I left that out. n/t

[NYC_SKP]

2. It was instinct.

You might have termites!

[kurtzapril4]

3. Not necessarily.

Woodpeckers also knock as a way of marking territory.

[UTUSN]

6. O.K., but there are REASONS for the instinct, no?

That said, how does pecking mark territory? Is there a scent to the pecked material? Does the pecking leave a design that is like writing? Somehow, this doesn't ring true to me because the woodpeckers that have been around here don't hang around long, are not consistent with their hanging around, so why would they claim possession?

Once, this woodpecker DID stake a claim, worked for days chipping out a nest hole in a rotten tree trunk, complete with a beveled edge around the opening, really nice pad. Then I witnessed his bringing the lady of the house there to inspect and approve. She did NOT approve. They flew off and never took up residence.

[kurtzapril4]

10. The sound of the pecking warns interlopers to stay away.

It may be true that they are looking for something to eat, but I just wanted to let you know they hammer at stuff for reasons besides looking for food.

[nolabear]

4. We used to have a FLicker who fought his reflection in our window.

He was a regular, man. Every couple of days he'd grab hold of the wooden crosspiece in the huge window and just beat hell out of that other bird. I was always afraid he's hurt himself but he and the window both survived.

[UTUSN]

9. This underscores my point: Yes, an instinct is in play, in this case the instinct

to claim and dominate/defend the claim, my point being that there IS a REASON for the instinct. Iow, the instinct evolved though association with a desirable outcome of whatever kind.

I volunteer that my o.p. was nearly unintelligible. My point was that my friend had NO concept of the woodpecker's pecking. She thought the pecking was its own thing, that the bird was hammering its head off just because. Whether it's for food, gouging out a nest, or marking territory, there is a reason for the instinct. In the case of your visitor fighting with his reflection, yes, the instinct is deflected by the bird's inability to distinguish between a reflection and a real rival, but the reason behind the instinct is still there.

Thanks for helping me to clarify my unintelligibility!1

[nolabear]

17. Agreed. And you were intelligible to me!

[UTUSN]

18. Wow, your sweetness has knocked the breath out of me!1 Thanks!1 n/t

[Howtosolveshootings]

5. Perhaps

Perhaps

[Loryn]

7. We have bluejays

That come to the window and knock. I've run to every door thinking someone was here knocking.

[Baitball Blogger]

8. I built a fountain once. I had a woman come by to see it.

She was a friend of the neighbor who couldn't understand why I would want a natural looking feature in my backyard. As she watched the water feature, with the water coming up through a bubbler at the top, falling down through a runnel and narrow corridor before falling down into a small 80 gallon "pond," she asked me where I connected the hose to bring in the water. I think it was the look of shock in my face that told her that the question was far out there.

[Populist_Prole]

11. My know-it-all right wing father never heard of youtube till last year when I told him

He's great at data mining every conservatard website and bombarding my email inbox with right wing noise in the form of links, videos etc, but he never heard of youtube.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. I once had a college classmate whose mother had agoraphobia

and refused to go more than a couple of blocks away from home or ride in a car. They lived a couple of blocks from the college, which the daughter, who did not have agoraphobia, attended.

I was in a play with the daughter, and after one rehearsal, we all went out to a diner for dessert. Some people ordered pie and coffee. As we were served, the daughter picked up one of the little sealed creamer containers and asked what it was.

[UTUSN]

13. Well,my own limited life experience has also led to incidents like not knowing the creamer thing was

I have only been to, yes, THE OLIVE GARDEN, less than a half dozen times, and the last time several years ago, I was with my elderly sister's look-down-your-nose (yes, she thinks the OLIVE GARDEN is nice) church friend and a priest, and looked at the condiments holders, didn't recognize a sugar substitute, and asked the waiter for one. He reached to the same holder and handed me the little paper tubes of sugar sub.

Limited life experience, mine, shows itself. This is along the lines of different places having their own organizing systems, like places where you go to the front to order and take a number to your table vs whatever other ones.

[kurtzapril4]

14. Every morning

I go to the local gas station to get my morning tall, frosty Coca Cola. I don't drink coffee. I'm friends with the women who work there, and we got to talking about going to the city(Chicago)and taking a couple of our dogs to Montrose beach. One of the women said "There's a beach in Chicago?" I said yeah, there's several beaches in Chicago, on Lake Michigan. She said, I swear to jah, "There's a lake in Chicago? No way! What lake?"

This woman is in her mid-forties. It takes all kinds to make this world!

[nycgiants9944]

15. i meet such people on a daily basis

i got used to it eventually

[KG]

16. i once worked with a woman who didn't know fucking led to babies until about the third kid...

i didn't bother asking her were she thought they came from before...

[Orrex]

19. I recently learned that a college educated friend had no idea of the age of the universe

He's not some fundy wackjob, either; he's a thoughtful progressive who's traveled around the world, and he had no idea at all.

When I asked him to guess, he was wrong by more than a factor of 1,000.


It was hard for me not to embarrass him, simply because of my honest shock at his ignorance of the subject.



Then there's another guy who has a master's in soil ecology and microbiology, and he flatly rejects all notion of human-influenced climate change. That blew my mind as well.