birds

Have you ever seen a peacock in full flight?

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

breathingunderwater24:

spodiddly:

morrissarty:

wildanimalwildperson:

I do not own these pics. They were sent to me in an email. But I thought I’d share with you all because they’re just AMAZING.

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DRAGONS

They look like mythical creatures O:

Peacocks FLY?! The extent of my knowledge of peacocks was seeing them walk around freely at the zoo. Holy crap. Day made.

Tags:

#looks like they only fly for short distances #but they do it while looking *magnificent* #bird #pretty things #awesome

The Cowbird’s Guide to Practical Brood Parasitism

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

koryos:

Birds.

I don’t know how else to preface this article. Birds, man.

So I’m willing to bet that a lot of you are aware of brood parasitism à la the cuckoo, and a good number of my followers have probably even heard of the terrifying methods the intraspecific brood parasitic coot uses to weed out the fakers from its progeny.

But have you heard much about this lady?

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Looks kind of drab and unassuming, doesn’t she.

(She murders your children if you don’t do what she wants.)

So let’s talk about brood parasitism and why it’s good and why it’s not so good and the different strategies that different bird species use, including mafia behavior. And we’ll talk about the development of male cowbird courtship too because that’s kind of cool. But yeah, lots of bird child murdering behind the cut just so you’re aware.

Read More

Tags:

#bird #brood parasitism #the more you know

Image ~ ~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

pervocracy:

nyctopterus:

Avimimus portentosus was a small maniraptoran theropod from the Late Cretaceous of Mongolia.

This is a substantial photoshop reworking of an oil painting from 2001 or so. I think it might be my first successful paint-over job, which is always harder than in seems.

Why I love John Conway’s paleoart:

1. Dinosaurs with feathers! Not just a little bit of feathers-on-a-lizard.  Full-on feathers!  With varied and birdlike coloration!

2. Dinosaurs I never heard of!  Not just Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops. (Apparently I am a dinosaur hipster.  …I was into dinosaurs back when they were underground.)

3. Dinosaurs with closed mouths!  They’re not going “raaarrr” and showing off big spiky teeth and fighting each other all the time!  I mean, I deeply love “raaarrr”, but the small part of me that isn’t a ten-year-old appreciates a more nuanced depiction.

4. Dinosaurs that look and behave like real, natural animals, not like monsters or dragons.  Conway’s paintings make me feel like I went for a hike and instead of seeing a deer or a turkey I happened to see a dinosaur.  And that’s pretty damn cool.

Tags:

#dinosaur #bird #art #awesome

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

jtotheizzoe:

scienceing:

creepilylate:

maccawashere:

creepilylate:

creepilylate:

bird puns are pretty fowl

goddamnit i really want someone to reblog this and say “toucan play at that game” but i’m so alone

then that would just be robin us of a joke

i’m better off just going cold turkey off of bird puns

stop it these are grouse

Owl thank you not to cormorant here and start ostrich-sizing those who use bird puns lark it’s some sort of cardinal sin. Heron Tumblr, we don’t take kindly to people puffin their chests and trying to make us look like loons and boobies. Swan thing to poke a little fun, but time and time again we see these vultures pigeonholing people and pouring petrel on the fires of intimidation. I know that I can tern to my fellow avian punners as pea pelican trust. We are birds of a feather.

On second thought, maybe I should duck out oriole go stork-raven cuckoo.

Tags:

#puns #*applause*