For everyone aged 21 or above, alcohol may play a role in your life. For some, it brings out the honest version of themselves. For others, the wild crazy side unbeknownst to the general population. For most, sometimes it just helps you relax at the end of the day. In our anthropocentric environment, we tend to think we are the only species that rejoice in the luxury of alcohol. But remember -- alcohol is one of Mother Nature’s natural elixirs, and while we may craft it in exquisite ways, store it in fancy bottles and drink it in unconventional ways, its pure and natural form exists throughout the world and is available to a select group of animals that can find and exploit it. Mainly, birds.
My personal all-time favorite bird of New England, the cedar waxwing, is a delightful, energetic, gregarious songbird with a warm brown head, black mask, sexy crest, gray back, sulfur-colored belly and a yellow-tipped tail that frequents New England year-round. They are generally only present on Tufts' campus from late fall through early spring. Cedar waxwings are primarily frugivorous (they eat fruits and berries), and get the first part of their name from their preference for cedar tree berries. However, some waxwings especially enjoy snacking on juniper berries. For those of you familiar with hard liquor distillation, you’ll know that fermented juniper berries are the basis for gin production. Seriously, if you go squish a juniper berry in your hand and then smell it, it smells exactly like gin. Waxwings have no berry-selection process that we know of, so they are perfectly content eating ripe or fermented berries. What happens when a songbird that weighs no more than 20 grams eats several fermented juniper berries? You guessed it. They get drunk. If you’re lucky and watching a flock of waxwings foraging at a juniper tree at the right time, you can see them attempt to take off from a branch and promptly plummet to the ground due to their intoxicated state. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt them. Well, not a lot anyway.
While cedar waxwings are the primary offenders for flying under the influence -- FUIs, if you will -- they certainly aren’t the only degenerates around the neighborhood. Many common backyard bird-feeder birds will consume fermented winter berries when other food sources are scarce. The charismatic, enthusiastic, every-old-ladys-favorite-bird black-capped chickadee has been known to snack on fermented berries as well, and the result is equally entertaining. The relative levels of intoxication can vary among birds too -- lightweights and heavyweights. A couple of absolutely hammered cedar waxwings crashed into a car over in Minnesota a couple winters ago, while other individuals most likely enjoyed just one berry and had a cozy evening in their roosting area.
On a more serious note, we must all be extremely careful with alcohol consumption -- birds and humans alike. While booze can be fun, it can also ruin lives. Also, please don’t read this and then go try and get drunk off juniper berries. It’s not going to work, and you’re going to look like an idiot.
Love always,
Henry
