I went to the local aviary today and they had some really mean things to say about owls.
I can confirm that most birds have a detectable amount of wiring behind the eyes – blinking lights and buttons and sliders and frizzy things that spark and chirp and beep. They also have a lot of soul that can communicate with ours because the programming is fairly compatible. Vultures are clever and curious, swans are clear and lawful, chickens have a lot of personality, caged parrots are dissociated and disinherited and frankly worrying, falconry-trained birds of prey are tremendously businesslike.
And owls are absolutely lovely beasts with their own irreplaceable validity. but they are basically stuffed with polyester fiberfill. They have one button, like a child’s toy dinosaur that opens and closes its mouth when you press the back of its head. And it isn’t even a sophisticated electronic button it’s just a lever that rocks back and forth to make the claws open and close. I think they may have actually evolved independently from sponges. Their skulls simply exist to create holes that funnel sound and light, and as a place to hang a giant hinged beak. An owl is just an empty tube like a windchime that the wind whistles through, and you can drop meat down it. They use the meat to generate feathers, and then emit the bones in pressed little packages like those machines that flatten a penny and stamp it with the logo of a theme park. I think that’s the gist of it – most birds are electronics of varying levels of sophistication, but owls are just a system of levers and pulleys. No elevator music in those skulls, just the wind echoing through empty caverns of slightly irritating design. Absolutely fantastic.
Are owls smart? Lord no.
Are owls efficient? So much so, that they don’t need to be smart.
Tags:
#birds #owls #that one post with the thing #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once
As someone who has spent time with professional ornithologists and has seen people make 500-mile trips to see a Single Species Of Hummingbird i can say without a single doubt that wizards being discovered cus they keep bringing their nonnative birds places is a completely realistic scenario
i’m imagining a bunch of very confused ornithologists trying to research the appearance of non-native owls in scotland, but they keep getting turned around by hogwarts’ anti-muggle defenses and it’s this endless cycle of
“well, we know that within this few mile radius of undisturbed highlands, there are massive concentrations of owls that Should Not Be Here. we know the owls are here, we know where they hunt and approximately where they return to roost but we just. we jsut. can’t find a SINGLE fucking nest??? anywhere?????? every owl we tag has their tracker malfunction RIGHT HERE but whenever i investigate i somehow end up back home in my slippers with a cup of tea.”
Owls confirmed to be the creepiest birds ever. LOOK AT THE FUCKING THINGS. If you fail to notice the one on the left fucking SWALLOWING a rat, then you have the dude singing some satanic chant or something next to him, and then you have those two other fucking psychos synchronized to make you feel creeped the fuck out with their soulless dance of FUCKING DOOM.
Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge lies in northern Utah, where the Bear River flows into the northeast arm of the Great Salt Lake. The Refuge protects the marshes found at the mouth of the Bear River, providing a critical habitat for migrating birds. More than 250 species move through this area annually by the millions to rest and feed, including ground of burrowing owls pictured here. Photo by Katie McVey, USFWS.
When a super old favorite song comes on the radio.
Brinens and Things 