Heidegger's Crow Feeder
About four bazillion years ago, I was an all too brief philosophy major. (I made it through the 19th century, then slammed into Sartre et al and went sniveling back to the university registrar to change my major.) But one thing that did stick (I think), was Heidegger's ideas on the philosophy of thought (epistemology). I believe it was in his book, "Being and Time" that he suggested that for any given issue or problem, the essence of thinking is the stripping away of the esoteric, convenient, comfortable, and instead grappling with the most intrinsic - i.e. not what we want to think, or even what we believe should be thought, but rather what is most "think-worthy"*.
Still awake? Wow... Anywho... It's with that om wafting in the back, that I approach the "right now" problem of seagulls raiding the crow feeder (or any danged feeder they can get to for that matter.) This has to stop. Where the crows peacefully co-exist with, and even protect the smaller birds, the gulls are simply bulldozers. So how to stop them? Everything from a flying comfy pillow to starvation has crossed our minds, but I think Heidegger nailed it... What is unique about crows and seagulls and what is different? Well, crows are smaller, they have oscine feet (great for perching), and are highly intelligent. Gulls are huge, have larus (webbed) feet, and quite frankly aren't all that bright. So how about this??? A smaller feeder that crows can still use, surrounded by a perch wire, and if need be, only accessible by a foot trigger or "key". (No "key push" means the door doesn't open and the food remains inaccessible.)
It would be a relatively easy build, and would give the gulls fits... On the other hand, if the seagulls watch the crows, and learn how to balance and use the "key" to open the feeder door, they may be closer to Heidegger than I thought... Hmmm...
See you by the feeders,
CapeCodAlan
* And what did Martin think was the most "thought-worthy" subject for humanity??? He suggested that the fact that we're still not thinking takes the prize.
Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: Inside Birding
Cornell Ornithology Laboratory: All About Birding



