kunit92 on Instagram

@joel-farabee

loons’ legs are positioned so far back on their bodies that they are incapable of standing or walking on land

in fact one major cause of death is from them mistaking wet pavement for bodies of water and trying to land on it, causing them to be stranded and vulnerable because they can’t take flight or move beyond a weird scooting crawl

Is it possible if (somehow) someone encountered one in that situation to help it picking it up and hold it high in the air? Would it be able to take flight then?? Like if you just hold it up?

No—they have to have a sufficiently large watery runway to get up to speed for takeoff. If you find one away from water, you could take it to a rehabber since it may have been stranded for a while and starving or injured, but they’ve really got to be released on lakes, huge ponds, or wide, slow-moving rivers.

like look at this shit

Can confirm -- Loons are the weirdest creatures. When I was a Naturalist living at a Raptor Rehab center they took one in because it had "landed" in a hot parking lot. It stayed overnight and I was greeted at Lunch to, "DO YOU WANT TO SEE THE LOON IN OUR TUB???" and of course I was like, "...HELL YEAH!"

aw man I’d kill a man to see a loon in a tub :(

lest we all think poorly of loons, remember that they are water birds adapted for diving, at which they are extremely good:

and unlike penguins, they can still fly! 2 out of 3 ain’t bad.

So: in Canada, there are many lakes. Loons can land in small lakes but they cannot take off from small lakes. This makes small lakes a loon valve, and at equilibrium they accumulate loons.

There is a job in canada for a guy who goes around to the loon trap lakes, gathers the stranded loons, and moves them to a takeoff-compatible body of water.

the loon harvester, the loonbus, the loon collector

I take it back, loons are an evolutionary mistake, because that’s a stupid as hell problem for a bird to have and stellar diving adaptations do not make up for Lake To Small Syndrome.

some high quality Wormbecca wiggles

An unknown transmittable illness is wiping out many native birds. Bird feeders, particularly uncleaned ones, are a major transmitter of disease. Please take them down for the meantime! Your birds will survive naturally without it - the impact of your ‘help’ could be far worse!

@nonasuch​ 

Since I know you’ve got a fair number of followers and are in the Maryland Area.

Please enjoy these ducks changing their minds 

(Source)

Running with the pheasants

(via)

I know that all birds are dinosaurs, but some birds are better at looking like dinosaurs than others.

At a first glance, those look like small theropods. Honestly, you’d hardly even need any editing to make those convincing live action dinos.

“oh that’s a lot of birds”

*camera turns*

“oh that’s a LOT of birds”

Sitting Pigeons Stickers // SummahSun

@amblychromaticjess

Ok it's been a fun and exciting 24 hours, if anyone needs a breather here's some pictures of

It duck might not be intersex - mallard drakes are known for mating with any female that doesn’t move faster than them. (All of that family are in play. There are a lot of hybrids. That includes domestic white ducks.)

The Duck is from a pond that’s got Mallards that live there year-round because they get fed at the cafe, but no domestics within 30 miles (Isolated mountain town).  All the birds present look like they had just recently molted into thier Fancy Fall Plumage, and there were no other juveniles or mixed-plumage birds.  This bird also had new/undamaged plumage like it had just molted, rather than in the process of Molting.  That said, this is a relatively isolated group of ducks so it is almost certainly at least a little inbred. IDK,  I don’t know much about duck genetics, but it didn’t look like a molting juvenile or a non-mallard hybrid.

Pictures I found in this blog post: http://birdhybrids.blogspot.com/2015/01/intersex-birds-and-their-confusion-with.html Seem to suggest that intersex duck is very likely.

Woah. Nice!

“Here’s my chicken wondering what I’m doing” 🐔 ❓ ❓

Weird Duck Not Like The Others 

(via)

the crows are his allies now.

“THE DEBT MUST BE REPAID. YOU HAVE OUR ALLEGIANCE, HUMAN”

@theclockworkscarecrow

That’s actually how it works.

Crows: smart enough to not only remember but convey to their buddies which humans were nice to them that one time and which were jerks, but dumb enough to get their heads stuck in fences, apparently.

They are wise but ridiculous birbs

I mean... I remember personally witnessing one occasion of a guy getting his head stuck in a chair when I was in grade school. He had to be taken to the hospital, because that was the only place they had the necessary tools and authority to man-handle a dumbass thirteen-year-old to get him out of the stupid thing. There were photos of him in the back of the ambulance with the chair legs sticking out over one shoulder. he looked ridiculous. I heard stories about at least... three other occasions? though I remember thinking one of them was a confused re-telling of the first kid. So... 

Basically, humans are just AS stupid...

A very bizarre bird was photographed in Venezuela recently. Meet the Potoo, which is rarely seen in daylight. - Imgur

NOPE

what the fuck is that

that looks like a god damn nightmare

and this is sound it makes

MOOOOOM

are you fucking kidding me it sounds like a 18 year old boy complaining to his mother because she cut off the wifi

So it sounds EXACTLY like it looks like it should

No, but seriously, if you love yourself, you’ll listen to this fucker whine to his mom. 

This is the best purse I’ve ever seen

@gallusrostromegalus

@shiftythrifting I WILL GIVE YOU MONEY AND CHOCOLATE OR WHATEVER FOR THIS. I NEED IT.

UPDATE:  I FOUND IT HERE.

THESE PARENT BIRDS ARE SO BEAUTIFUL LIKE BIRDY DRAG QUEENS WITH FLAWLESS EYELINER AND THE BABY LOOKS LIKE AN UNFINISHED MUPPET AND I’M DEAD.

These perfectly done up geisha are just so proud of their strange little alien sock puppet.

this picture makes me happy

Every time I see this I think I laugh harder

They really do look so proud

So serious, so dignified as they bask together in the stupid looking lint monster that came out of one of their butts

I love this!

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS

YOU MAY NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT THIS POST GETTING NOTES AGAIN

@akireyta

@courtneydrunkicles

whats the best way to trim the crest+beard of a silkie? this lady can barely see with all that floof! 

apparently some people use little headbands to keep the fluff out of their eyes

80s chickens

yo im late but when i first got my polish frizzle bantams years ago from their breeder their crests were up to keep them out of the mud (because they’re show birds) and the result was amazing

chef hats/make-up brush hair

i love them thank you for the advice

@gallusrostromegalus

I have questions

To get to the other side

oK But thisss

European raven

Turkish raven

North African raven

Himalayan raven

Western (American) raven

AUSTRALIAN RAVEN

look at it look at that weird birb it doesn’t know how to raven

other ravens: caw caw

australian ravens: aUGH AUUuuuGH AAAAUUUUUUughhhhhHHHhhhhhhh

it genuinely didn’t occur to me that this was weird that i’d never heard a crow or raven caw in my life and frnakly the australian raven noise is the most common noise to me and it means “it’s the morning now”. i can’t imagine life without it. its background noise i didn’t even think to identify as coming from somewhere. it’s just There.

quoth the raven, “aUGH AUUuuuGH AAAAUUUUUUughhhhhHHHhhhhhhh”

it sounds like a depressed kazoo.

Wait a minute… how do non-Australian ravens sound? Do they not sound like this?

For comparison

@lotsandlotsofbirds

When I try to describe to my friends what our stupid ass crows sound like I'mma link this now.