A Celebration of Weird Bills

And by 'weird bills' I don't mean the sort where someone wants you to pay lots of money to renew a subscription that you never had!

A decade ago I wrote a brief irregular series of short posts on unusually adapted bird bills; those are pretty much lost in the mists of time but I've decided to resurrect the idea and build on it for today's post. A bird's bill (or beak if you'd prefer, there's no difference) is a wonderful structure, and is the sole food-gathering tool for most birds, as well as being fundamental to preening, nest-building, chick-feeding any many courtship activities. It is not too dissimilar to the jaws of other vertebrates in comprising upper and lower jawbones (mandibles) but it is covered in a thin horny or leathery keratin sheath. The top mandible is connected by three bony prongs to the forehead and sides of the skull, so unlike in a mammal's jaw the top mandible is moveable as well as the bottom one, enabling a significant gape. 

Let's start with a couple of the biggest bills, and one of my favourite birds (though that tends to depend somewhat on which bird I'm watching at the time). 

The claim to fame of the fabulous Sword-billed Hummingbird (Ensifera ensifera) is that
it has the longest bill of any bird relative to its body size. Indeed it is also claimed to
be the only bird with a bill longer than its body. Yet another claim is that it always rests
with its bill held upwards, because it's too heavy to hold horizontally, but this female
didn't seem to realise that.

I first saw the species (this photo commemorates that occasion) in Ecuador, at the delightful Yanacocha Reserve, 6,700 hectares of cloud forest on the northern slopes of Pichincha Volcano, across the ridge from Quito. Like other precious Ecuadorian cloud forest reserves, it is run by the admirable Jocotoco Foundation. While the Sword-bill feeds on a variety of tubular flowers which don't require the remarkable length of  bill, it seems to have co-evolved with passionfruit flowers, and especially the species Passiflora mixta. Both the bird and the flower live in a long strip of high elevation cloud forest (between 2500 and 3400 metres above sea level) along the Andes.

A related species of Passiflora at San Isidro Lodge in north-eastern Ecuador. The flower tube
of P. mixta is even longer than this, and probably no other bird can reach the rich nectar
supply at the base of it.

Well that's relatively the longest of any bird bill, but what about in absolute terms? That honour seems to belong right here in Australia, with a very familiar bird - the Australian Pelican Pelecanus conspicillatus. 

A male's bill can be up to 50cm long. The famous pouch, of thin stretchable skin,
is supported by a pair of surprisingly delicate long bones, but can hold up
to 13 litres of water.

The important point is that pelicans do not carry food (or water) in the bill, but eat it immediately.
As soon as a food item, nearly always a fish, is scooped up along with the surrounding water,
the pelican presses its bill back against the breast to squeeze the water out.
As can be seen here, pelicans (along with gulls and owls) can spread the bones of the bottom
mandible to increase the width of scoop. The fish is then manipulated to be swallowed head first.

As we'd expect, in most birds (though not the ones we're looking at today) the upper and lower bill mandibles are essentially the same size and shape so that they fit together snugly when closed. However if 'biting' or tearing is required, the upper mandible is often hooked to provide grip and leverage to rip and crush flesh, hard seedcases or even wood. In this case the tip of the lower mandible is often broad and square; when closed the top hook fits over it. Here are a couple of examples.

Yellow-tailed Black-cockatoo Zanda funerea breaking open Banksia marginata cones
to extract the seeds (in our backyard in suburban Canberra.) In this situation the
force is exerted by the bottom mandible against the top, which hooks into the cone.

The same cocky species has ripped deep into this very hard-wooded Blackbutt
Eucalyptus pilularis to extract moth or beetle larvae.
Near Ulladulla, south coast New South Wales.

Wedge-tailed Eagle Aquila audax with road-killed Red Kangaroo carcase, far
north-western NSW. The hooked bill will have no trouble opening the body.

However in a few specialised cases, this hooked upper mandible is greatly attenuated for extracting edible material from within a hard case with a small access. The big apple snails (Pomacea spp.) are abundant in Neotropical wetlands, but despite (or because of) being a valuable potential food source are protected by their large, smooth, hard shells with a small opening. However two species of raptors have evolved a long slender upper mandible to solve the problem; they are snail specialists.

Snail Kite Rostrhamus sociabilis, Panatanal, south-western Brazil,
at work extracting an apple snail, above and below. (The Slender-billed Kite Helicolestes hamatus
has developed a similar bill for the same purpose.)

But snails aren't the only food hiding in a hard shell; many seeds do the same. In the south-west of Western Australia the Marri tree Eucalyptus (or Corymbia) calophylla dominates large areas of dry forest; its fruit are not entirely dissimilar from an apple snail in appearance.

Marri fruit near Perth; the cases are phenomenally hard, but a couple of bird species endemic
to the area have solved the access problem in the same way the South American kites have. Both
these birds are experts at extracting the seeds without damaging the fruits.

Red-capped Parrot Purpureicephalus spurius, Albany,
a truly glorious large parrot, and the sole member of its genus.

The key feature of the Red-capped Parrot from our perspective however is the extended upper bill, fairly clear in this picture. Experienced older birds show great dexterity in nipping off the hard ripe Marri fruit, holding it in one claw, testing it and, if it is of good enough quality, rotating it while inserting the upper bill to extract the seeds. (Green fruit are simply chewed apart.) An earlier study found that 54% of Red-capped Parrots in winter had been eating Marri seed. 

Given the value of the resource offered by Marri, it is not so surprising that another bird has independently come up with a similar solution to the issue of accessing the seed. This is Baudin's Cockatoo Calyptorhynchus baudinii, named for French commander Nicolas Baudin, sponsored by Napoleon to lead of one the most impressive exporatory expeditions ever to visit Australia, in the first years of the 19th century. (I won't digress here into the vexed question of whether we should be lumping animals with people's names, but it was certainly simpler when the two white-tailed black-cockatoos were referred to unequivocally as Short-billed and Long-billed!) As you'd expect from the previous story, Baudin's is the long-billed version.

Baudin's Cockatoos, Stirling Ranges NP. The special mandible is not as clear as it is in the
Red-capped, largely because the bill is part-hidden in feathers, though the light isn't helping.
In this pair it can best be seen in the female (with pale bill) on the left.

Baudin's Cockies are even more dependent on Marri than the Red-Capped Parrot, with wood-boring grubs comprising most of the rest of the diet. Sadly they are listed as Endangered, by the IUCN and both Western Australian and Australian governments. The single population is estimated to comprise between 10,000 and 15,000 birds; the main threat formerly was habitat clearance, while now it is regarded as a mix of loss of mature Marri trees (the key food source), competition for nesting hollows with feral Honeybee colonies, and illegal shooting (primarily by orchadists).

Another Australian cockatoo has also evolved such a bill, but for an entirely different purpose. 

Meet the Long-billed Corella, Cacatua tenuirostris, here at Urana in
south-central NSW. Its long upper mandible evolved to extract tubers, of a
native daisy species, from the ground.

Murnong, or Yam Daisy, Microseris lanceolata, here in Canberra.

The daisy is not uncommon, though never abundant, but once it was almost unimaginably profuse. Accounts from the grassy plains and open woodlands of southern New South Wales and northern Victoria tell of swathes of Murnong flowers turning the plains golden to the horizon. Their small sweet tubers were harvested by Aboriginal people, eaten raw or roasted to a delicious treacly consistency. European settlers learnt the trick from them.There are stories of wagon wheels turning up thousands of Murnong tubers from the soft soil, leaving them to rot on the surface. Then the sheep came, eating the plants and learning to push into the soil to eat the tubers as well. The plough finished the job. 

 

The corellas used to come in vast flocks to feed on them, but when the Murnongs largely disappeared so did the corellas. They rebounded when they found that the grains which replaced the Murnong were also edible, but of course this was a capital offence and the numbers fell again. Today numbers seem to have again recovered within their fairly small range of south-western NSW and western Victoria, partly due I suspect to their ability to adapt to eating the tubers of exotic weeds.

But what about the lower mandible; can that be adapted to a particular food-gathering purpose? Well of course it can - nature can do anything!

The skimmers comprise three species (one each in Africa, southern Asia and the Americas) of birds in the gull family (though until recently they were given their own family). They are distinctive birds with large bills, usually seen loafing on sand bars or mud banks either in rivers or at the coast.

Black Skimmer Rynchops niger, Pantanal, south-western Brazil.
Here you can clearly see the much longer and heavier lower mandible.

African Skimmers R. flavirostris, Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.
You can click on both these photos to better see what I mean.

But for what purpose? This photo, ordinary as it is, gives you the answer.

Black Skimmer 'skimming', Isla de Chiloé, southern Chile. It is flying along steadily, just above the water, with that long lower mandible cutting the surface. When it contacts a small fish or shrimp it automatically snaps shut, flipping the snack inward. Wonderful!

OK, so much for unusually long slender bills; what about bills that seem abnormally flat and wide for scooping? No problems. Here are two examples in totally unrelated water birds. The first is the Shoebill Balaeniceps rex (ie 'king whale-head!'), sometimes referred to as a stork, but actually the only member of its entire family. Its massive bill is well over 20 centimetres long - only pelicans and some large storks have longer bills.

Shoebill, Murchison Falls National Park, Uganda.
The slightly mad-looking eyes can be a bit disconcerting, but more so I suspect
if you were about to be seized by that huge bill! They mainly prey on fish, especially
lungfish, concentrating on low-oxygen water where the fish are forced to come
regularly to the surface to breathe.

From this angle the savagely hooked tip is obvious, as well as the mass of the bill.

Across the Atlantic in the mangroves and streamside forests of the Neotropics, from Mexico to northern Argentina, lives a bird with a surprisingly similar bill to the Shoebill, but though it is equally massive relative to the bird's size, the Boat-billed Heron is only a third as big as the Shoebill.

Boat-billed Heron Cochlearius cochlearius, Pantanal, Brazil.
The very big eyes tell us that it mostly nocturnal, so we can only see it
in the very late afternoon and at night. It is probably not particularly uncommon
but because it can mostly only be seen from a night-time boat ride, it seems scarce.

The strange bill led it to be regarded as 'not-a-heron' (and there are some who would reinstate the older view that it belongs to a separate family) but the general opinion is that it is an out-lying member of the heron family. It snaps up a range of prey, especially fish and invertebrates and small land mammals, often using its bill as a scoop in a way that no other heron does that I can think of. 

While typing this I've thought of another, entirely different, group of birds with similar broad scooping bills. The frogmouths comprise a family of well-camouflaged nocturnal birds from Australia-New Guinea and south-east Asia, mostly dwellers in dense forests. The best-known however is the Tawny Frogmouth Podargus strigoides, found in open forests and woodlands throughout Australia. Their short broad bills enable them to 'swoop and scoop' on prey, from large insects and spiders to frogs, lizards and even small mammals and birds. They are related to nightjars, swifts and hummingbirds!

Papuan Frogmouth Podargus papuensis, Cairns, north Queensland.

Finally a couple of bills that really don't fit any sort of pattern used by any other birds. 

 

Toucans, from the Neotropics, have famously huge colourful bills with which they toss down fruit, and extract nestlings from tree hollows. However we now know that the driving force behind the bill is its role as a heat disperser, to manage body temperatures in the tropics.

Toco Toucan , Pantanal, Brazil.
Rather than reiterate things I've written about in detail recently, see here for more on
toucans in general and here for the temperature-management story.

Flamingoes have an extraordinary feeding behaviour, which requires an extraordinary bill. In all the birds we've looked at today, the top mandible is the larger one with the flexible lower one working against it. In flamingoes the opposite is true.

American Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber, Galápagos Islands.
Here the lower mandible is clearer larger than the top one.

What makes this seem especially peculiar is that the flamingo then turns its head upside down in the water so that the bill is almost horizontal, to feed with its bill in the conventional bird shape - larger mandible upwards! Presumably only thus can it get its bill close to and parallel to the substrate.

American Flamingo, same location, feeding in shallow water. It is separating water and
unwanted muddy particles from food items using a large, fatty, highly sensitive tongue with
numerous fleshy protuberances (lamellae), complemented by a keeled bill also fringed with
fleshy lamellae. The tongue is used as a pump which beats from five to 20 times a minute to
suck in beakfuls of muddy water and wrigglies - including algae, small fish and invertebrates -
and to expel unwanted gunk via a complex set of movements. Remarkable.

And while all these bills are, I believe, fascinating variations, I've left one of the most peculiar and  mysterious - ie whose function has only recently been properly understood - until last. There are two species of openbill stork, genus Anastomus, one in Africa and one in Asia. They, like the Snail Kite earlier, feed on the big apple snails but their approach is quite different. There has been a lot of debate as to how they use this structure to extract the snails, not least because the process is both rapid and mostly occurs under water. It is now agreed however that despite earlier beliefs they do not break the shell, or use the gap to carry snails away.

African Openbill Anastomus lamelligerus, Entebbe Botanic Gardens, Uganda.
You can see readily enough the outward curve towards the end of the lower mandible, but not
obvious from this angle is the twist to the side, so that the tips don't meet. Stalked pads at the
tip of the upper mandible hold a big Pila snail against the ground (or underwater mud) while
the lower tip stabs past the protecting operculum to cut the muscle which holds the flesh
in the shell. Even more remarkably a narcotic in its saliva trickles down the bill to assist the
process by relaxing the snail.

Well, there's probably nowhere to go after that story, at least in my opinion. I've gone on longer than I intended, but that's the (only) problem with good stories. Maybe we can even follow this thread in different directions one day. Meantime, thanks for perservering!

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 13 OCTOBER

 

I love to receive your comments and in future will be notifying you personally by email when a new posting appears, if you'd like me to. All current subscribers have been added to this mailing list and have already been contacted. This will mean one email every three weeks at the current rate of posting. I promise never to use the list for any other purpose and will never share it.
Should you wish to be added to it, just send me an email at calochilus51@internode.on.net. You can ask to be removed from the list at any time,or could simply mark an email as Spam, so you won't see future ones.

Daisies Part Two; a family album

In my last post, I introduced the wonderful world of daisies, one of the world's two great plant families (along with orchids) in terms of number of species, which are found in all continents where plants thrive. I introduced a range of habitats in which daisies grow, and showed what makes up the complex hoax of clustered tiny florets that we (and, more importantly, presumably pollinating insects) see as a showy flowers. I ended with a look at some pollinating insects at work on daisies, and the two main strategies for distributing seeds which help make daisies so successful. And I also ended with a promise to be back this time for a look through some pages of the daisy family album; thanks for coming back for that!

Though we think of non-native daisies as garden ornamentals (eg dahlias, chrysanthemums, dahlias, gerberas and zinnias) there are also some important edible ones, such as lettuce, globe and Jerusalem artichokes, chicory, chamomile, calendula, absinthe and tarragon, and oil-producers such as sunflowers and safflowers. On the downside of the ledger are serious environmental and agricultural weeds such as thistles, boneseed/Bitou Bush, dandelions, Crofton Weed, Bathurst and Noogoora Burr, ragweeds and hawkweeds.

Spear Thistle Cirsium vulgare, Nowra, south coast New South Wales.
Just one of many thistle species which make our lives harder, and one of very many exotic
and invasive daisies which Australia would be better off without.

I'm going to start with a few non-Australian daisies from three continents to set the wider picture, then focus on some of the 300 Australian genera (just a few of them, I promise).

Formerly Aster (now generally called Symphyotrichum) vahlii, Seno Otway, in the snowy
eternal winds of Patagonian Chile. It is a widely accepted convention that a family of
plants (or animals) is named for the first genus in the family to be described.
The whole daisy family, Asteraceae, is based on the genus Aster, a big Eurasian genus.
Daisies originally described as Aster from elsewhere, like this one, have since been moved
to other genera. This is the classic daisy 'flower' with yellow fertile disc florets
and numerous surrounding white sterile ray florets to attract attention.

Staying in this cold wind-blasted landscape near the tip of South America where
flowers are surprisingly profuse, here is Chiliotrichum diffusum. This tough daisy is found
only in the far south of the continent and on the Falkland Islands.

And from the nearby spectacular Torres del Paine National Park, here is the lovely
Perezia recurvata (which I would not have immediately recognised as a daisy).
The genus is mostly restricted to the high Andes.

Another daisy that I'd not necessarily have recognised (though the resemblance to thistles
is obvious once you get your eye in) is the 'Flower of the Andes' Chuquiraga jussieui,
here at nearly 4,000 metres above sea level in El Cajas NP, southern Ecuador. It is the
unofficial national flower of Ecuador, but sadly endangered.

Chuquiraga is the main food source of the Ecuadorian Hillstar Oreotrochilus chimborazo.
This gorgeous hummingbird is found only above 3600 metres in the páramo, the near-treeless
tundra of the northern Ecuadorian Andes.

One daisy habitat that I was unable to show you last time was rainforest, though there are certainly some rainforest daisies in Australia. Here are a few from rainforests elsewhere to compensate. 

Mutisia sp. in the cloud forests of Manu Reserve in southern Peru. This big genus
of some 60 species is spread along the full length of the Andes.

Senecio sp. from lower down in the Manu. This huge genus (currently nearly 1300 species though it is likely to be broken up) is one of the largest genera of flowering plants and is found over much of the world.

Chilco Baccharis neae in wet temperate rainforest in Alerce Andino NP near
Puerto Varas in southern Chile. Another huge genus of some 500 species
found throughout the Americas, though mostly in the south.

Red Bean Tree, Red Sandalwood (and many other names) Adenanthera pavonina, from a
rainforest elevated boardwalk in Sepilok, Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. Native to southern
China and India it has become widely naturalised (including northern Australia,
and in Borneo).

And with that, back to Australia for some more Family members. To prevent family squabbles I'll introduce them in alphabetical order. A couple of these were taken in botanic gardens but most were in the wild.

Winged Everlasting Ammobium alatum, Southern Tablelands Ecosystems Park, in
the Canberra Arboretum. This NSW grassland plant makes a superb garden plant,
and has thus become established in other states.

Hill Daisy Brachyscome aculeata in Namadgi NP above Canberra, a common daisy of the ranges.
When French botanist and daisy specialist Henri Cassini published the name in 1816 he used this
spelling but soon realised that it was grammatically incorrect and corrected it to Brachycome.
Unfortunately, despite widespread support in Australia for retaining the 'correct' version,
it was eventually deemed (in 1993) that his original incorrect version must stand. Hmm.

Variable Daisy Brachyscome ciliaris, Ormiston Pound, western Tjoritja/
MacDonnell Ranges. This species is widespread in inland southern Australia.

Brachyscome obovata Kosciuszko NP. This species is restricted to wet sites in the high alps;
these plants were actually growing in running water.

Milky Beauty Heads Calocephalus lacteus National Botanic Gardens, Canberra.
The genus name means 'beautiful head'. This striking little daisy is scattered in wet grassy
sites in south-eastern Australia. Last time I featured the closely related Lemon Beauty Heads.

And another of the same genus, but this time a desert species.
Yellow Billy Button Calocephalus platycephalus, central Australia.
(And yes, Billy Button is more usually applied to Craspedia spp. but there are
no rules for common names!)

Purple Burr Daisy Calotis cuneifolia, Mutawintji NP, western NSW.
Can be abundant (often with Yellow Burr Daisy C. lappulacea below).
I discussed burr daisies last time regarding their effective seed dispersal mechanism
via sticky sharp burrs in fur and socks.

Yellow Burr Daisy, Canberra woodlands.

Sifton Bush Cassinia quinquefaria, Angle Crossing, ACT. A familiar genus of large
shrubs, which locally tend to flower in summer when not much else is doing so.
Some can cause skin complaints.

Silver Snow Daisy Celmisia sp. with beetle (Eleale sp.) and spider, Namadgi National Park.

Pompom Everlastings Cephalipterum drummondii near Mount Magnet, Western Australia.
The only member of its genus, it comes in both yellow and white, which can be
confusing initially.

Bear's Ears Cymobonotus lawsonianus or preissianus - the two are virtually
indistinguishable, so I haven't a hope! - Canberra.

 

Silver Ewartia Ewartia nubigena, Kosciuszko NP, forms creeping silvery mats in some of
the toughest habitats in Australia, living only above the treeline and south from Kosciuszko.

Blue Bottle Daisy Lagenophora stipitata, Namadgi NP.
This is a common grassland daisy in eastern Australia, and north into Asia.

Olearia is a large genus of conspicuous shrubs, herbs and small trees found in range of Australian, New Guinea and New Zealand habitats. I've included several because I couldn't work out which ones to leave out!

Alpine Daisy Bush Olearia algida, Kosciuszko NP. A shrub from the high country
of south-eastern Australia.

Large-leaved Daisy Bush Olearia megalophylla, Namadgi NP. A common large shrub
of the tall wet forests of the ranges of south-eastern Australia.

Twiggy Daisy Bush Olearia microphylla (cf the previous species), Timmallallie NP, north-central NSW.

Olearia montana Tinderry Ranges, south-east of Canberra, is a rare shrub restricted
to the Tinderries and a couple of nearby sites.

Goldfields Daisy Olearia muelleri, Mildura, north-west Victoria. Found across semi-arid southern
Australia, but especially common in the Goldfields region of Western Australia around Kalgoorlie,
hence the common name.

Dusty Daisy Bush Olearia phloggopappa, Namadgi NP. This is, as you can see, quite a sight in flower.
It is common in the ranges of south-eastern Australia.

Sticky Daisy Bush Olearia tenuifolia, Mount Tennent, south of Canberra. Found
scattered in drier rocky areas of inland eastern New South Wales and Victoria, and
to me it's not at all common.

Grey Podolepis Podolepis canescens, Caiguna, Nullarbor Plain, Western Australia.
We met this genus last time, in alpine and arid situations. This is another example of the latter.

Mountain (or Cattleman's) Lettuce Podolepis robustus is another high country species.
It wasn't the cattleman who ate this with gusto but their cattle. When cattle were removed
from the fragile high alps the species (and many others) began to recover.

Soft Billy Buttons Pycnosorus pleiocephalus, Mutawintji NP, western NSW.
Widespread in dry inland south-eastern Australia, where it favours situations which are
periodically wet - clay pans or, like here, at the foot of a stony ridge.

Splendid Everlasting Rhodanthe chlorocephala, inland from Geraldton,
central west of Western Australia. I can't fault the common name, it is spectacular.
The black marks at the base of some of the bracts are interesting - they are not insects
but may well play a part in attracting pollinators to the adjacent disc florets.
The species is found across WA and into western South Australia.

White Paper Daisy Rhodanthe floribunda, on the edge of the stony Breakaways
near Coober Pedy. It is found in a discontinuous range across the whole of the arid inland.

Cotton Fireweed Senecio quadridentatus, Namadgi NP, ACT. Not the 'standard' daisy flower
we've been looking at and, moreover, it doesn't even resemble most other Senecio.
I find it a bit of a mystery. It is also found in Indonesia and New Zealand.

Streptoglossa decurrens or odora, Great Sandy Desert, Western Australia. The two species are
generally reckoned by those much better qualified than I as almost impossible to distinguish
with any certainty. They are found scattered across the tropical drylands.

Golden Waitzia Waitzia nitida, Kalbarri NP, Western Australia.
It is found across the south-western sector of the state.

This has been an extensive journey through the family album, and thank you for reading this far! Time to wrap up our daisy dedication now with some simple enjoyment of some fine spreads of daisies in various situations, starting in the high south-east and moving downhill and west.

Silver Snow Daisies Celmisia sp., Kosciuszko NP, above and below.
In the top picture there are also Mountain Aciphylls Aciphylla glacialis Family Apicaceae,
in the background.

Hill Daisies Brachyscome aculeata under the Snow Gums on Mount Ginini, Namadgi NP, ACT.

Hoary Sunrays Leucochrysum albicans, Liverpool Range near Merriwa, central western NSW.
(Also some feral Prickly Pear cactus on the left.)

Lemon Beauty Heads Callocephalon citreus brightening a summer native grassland,
Mulligans Flat NR, northern ACT.

Many-stemmed (or Woolly-headed) Burr Daisy Calotis multicaulis, Mutawintji NP, western NSW.

Pompom Everlastings Cephalipterum drummondii near Mount Magnet, Western Australia.
As noted earlier this spectacular species comes in both white and yellow.

A magnificent massed display in Kalbarri NP, WA. I think the stars here are
Splendid Everlastings Rhodanthe chlorocephala and Pink Everlastings Schoenia cassiniana.

I hope neither of us is daisied out, but I think that's enough for today! Thanks for coming on the journey with me, and I'm looking forward to wherever we may travel together next time. But meantime, love your daisies!

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 7 JULY

I love to receive your comments and in future will be notifying you personally by email when a new posting appears, if you'd like me to. All current subscribers have been added to this mailing list and have already been contacted. This will mean one email every three weeks at the current rate of posting. I promise never to use the list for any other purpose and will never share it.
Should you wish to be added to it, just send me an email at calochilus51@internode.on.net. You can ask to be removed from the list at any time,or could simply mark an email as Spam, so you won't see future ones.