#Bird Facts

[corvidaemnit]

every single day I think about how american black vultures are known for engaging in interspecific allopreening (preening between different species)

and they have a specific relationship with crested caracaras, in which the black vultures assist them by not only preening them after meals but also leading them to food in the first place, while the caracaras assist the black vultures by acting as a warning signal in case of danger

and while this is more typical of black vultures, this is not common at all for any member of the falconidae family— it’s a special bond!

yet another post in favor of vultures everyone , hope you enjoy:) and I implore you to do some more research on these incredible birds !!

EDIT: I meant interspecific allopreening! excuse my typo!

EDIT 2: black vultures do not have a superior sense of smell to caracaras, sorry for the misunderstanding!

[thatsbelievable]

[aneighborhoodnaturalist]

Rock doves navigate via Earth’s magnetic field, allowing them to return to their home territory even if released in a new location.

(Rock dove or pigeon)

[spookysalem13]

I've always loved 🖤 crows, but even I didn't know there were this many different kinds 😍

[hometoursandotherstuff]

I never knew this, it's like a built-in helmet.

[toyastales]

Cardinals

[amazeyphaedra]

most people only have to worry about their boss scheduling them on weird shifts or denying them leave, the dropout cast has to live in fear that they might show up to work and out of nowhere be thrown into a bizzare saw trap gameshow designed to torment them for entertainment

[siravalon]

Bird of the Week: The Hooded Pitohui! 🪶

The hooded pitohui, an old world oriole, is a truly unique bird. They are one of the few, quite literally, toxic birds. Within the skin and feather tissues of the hooded pitohui are batrachotoxins; they are believed to come from the choresine beetles that the pitohuis consume.

Hooded pitohuis can be found throughout forested areas of New Guinea. Their diet consists of plant material such as fruits, nuts, and berries, as well as the beetles that give them their infamous toxin.

[weavingstarlight]

A gift for @breannasfluff of Wild from her Wing Bois AU! And it's a whole ding-dang painting because I am INCAPABLE of restraining myself.

If you're unfamiliar with the AU, it's basically "what if the Linked Universe boys were bird/hylian hybrids". Wild here is based on the Taiwan blue magpie (Urocissa caerulea), also known as the long-tailed mountain lady or (Taiwanese) Tn̂g-boé soaⁿ-niû

This is what they look like! (sorry I don't have the photographer's name)

And since I am an unashamed bird nerd, here are some bonus facts about the Taiwan blue magpie!

These birds are not very afraid of people and often live near human settlements. They have even been known to attack humans to defend their nests.

Magpies are omnivores and like to stash food for later.

They are relatively social birds that flock in a distinctive line formation. However, they nest monogamously.

Blue magpies are considered sacred by some cultures. In one story, the blue magpie helped carry fire back to the people after a great flood.

This painting was sooo much fun to go all-out on, even though the lighting kicked my ass! Seriously, there are so many layers of color on this page. I decided to blend Wild's designs from Linked Universe and WB, and to give him tailfeathers JUST because Taiwan blue magpies have such gorgeous tails.

8.25in x 11in. Watercolor pencils, watercolor markers, alcohol markers, colored pencils, and various pens.

[batfambrainrotbeloved]

do you think that actual pigeons get like uncanny valley from the robot ones

They probably do but don't give a fuck

Pigeons are not solitary animals, existing within a set "flock" where there is (like many communal bird species) a "pecking order" or hierarchy. For Pigeons in research thus far the hierarchy seems to be limited to navigational decisions with one or a select few at the "head"

Heads are actually heavily theorized to be dependant on size, where heads are more likely than not to be larger (makes sense for if you're that big, you're good enough at survival to maintain that size)

Gotham Pigeon Packs?? A lot of the "integrated" pigeons are deemed navigational leaders due to their programming alarming accuracy.

AKA- Pigeons are smart enough to go "This ones weird as FUCK-" but also "Karen knows where the good food is and sometimes leads us safely away from shoot outs, so yeah she's chill"

(Of course you run into the early issues of pigeons following Tims spy birds into active combat scenes, so a lot of his birds are "retired" and work purely as moving spy cameras around the city- but otherwise live completely normal pigeony lifes)

[corvidaemnit]

let’s talk about the kiwi!!

(an info-dump about one of the weirdest, most scientifically interesting birds we know of today!)

so, we’ve all heard about ratites, right?

well, maybe you don’t know them by name, but you’ve most certainly either heard about them or seen them at some point.

some commonly known members of the ratite group are species like ostriches, emus, and cassowaries— as shown below:

ratites are all flightless birds within the infraclass palaeognathae— the infraclass that none other than the (now extinct) moa and elephant bird belong to!

now, these birds all share very similar characteristics; they’re large, long-necked, and long-legged with big clawed feet. all of these birds are also diurnal— which means they’re primarily active during the day time, just like us!

however, there is one species in this infraclass that is not quite like the others..

the kiwi.

not only are kiwi significantly smaller than their fellow ratites, but they also happen to be nocturnal.

and despite being small, their eggs are incredibly large, taking up to around 20% of the kiwi’s body weight, which has caused a lot of rigorous debate between scientists on exactly why.

one outdated theory suggested that perhaps the kiwi had shrunk over time from previously being very large like its ratite relatives, while its egg remained big…. but this has been debunked in recent years.

the current consensus, while still a theory, is that the egg size has to do more with precocity than anything else;

kiwis are born precocial, which makes them pretty much immediately independent upon hatching, with the ability to run and feed themselves without the help of their parents.

modern DNA analysis suggests that the size of kiwi eggs is not just a left-over trait from ‘incomplete’ evolution, but instead the exact opposite— an evolved adaptation to ensure better chances of survival.

due to their sheer size, kiwi eggs house more yolk than average, which ends up keeping newly hatched kiwis nice and fed until they learn to forage food for themselves.

when mammals began to spread in new zealand, kiwis had way more predators to worry about, and it’s theorized that they were previously unequipped to deal with this startling introduction of land-predators, such as stoats and rats, that started feeding on their eggs.

this could explain why kiwi eggs have developed to be so large over time— they give the chicks plentiful nutrients and thicker shells to ensure a better chance of survival against predation.

so… yeah. kiwis produce monster eggs and no one fully knows why just yet. neat, huh?

and that’s not even where the weirdness ends, my friends!

on top of all of this, it’s been a running joke in the bird world that kiwis are ‘honorary mammals,’ not only because of their weirdly mammalian appearance, but also because of some of their atypical biological traits.

for instance, kiwis have an average body temperature of around 38 degrees celsius .. aka, 100 degrees fahrenheit.

while this is not typical at all for birds, this is very typical for mammals, which has stumped a lot of researchers over the years.

similarly, kiwis are also the only bird in the world with exposed nostrils at the end of their beak, which can help them detect prey by using scent instead of their vision, which is very poor.

so… yeah. kiwis are the nocturnal, freakish little cousins of some of the biggest, most dangerous birds on the planet, and scientists are, quite frankly, still a little weirded out by them.

[productiondesignismypassion]

I love these little birds and their magic origami counterparts so much 😭. There is so much care this crew and cast of creators puts into their storytelling!!

(I made this little Storm Petrel Appreciation Post via Instagram after the first episode of MisMag2, but then realized the lore would be better to share with the Tumblr homies lol 🤟🐐💞)

"Storm (or stormy) petrels were named because the best time to see them is during storms at sea. In fact, in some native legends in the Arctic, the story's storm was actually caused by the petrel."

"For instance, it was once believed that storm petrels were the souls of drowned sailors, and it was bad luck to kill one. And the image of the small, intrepid bird on the stormy ocean has also become a chosen symbol for revolutionary calls to action around the world."

[aneighborhoodnaturalist]

White-throated sparrows have two color morphs each with their own behavioral patterns.

(White-throated sparrows)

[na-bird-of-the-day]

Why do sparrows get protection from predators?

When sparrows nest in osprey nests they get protection from predators because other animals aren’t going to mess with an osprey! And the ospreys pose little threat to the sparrows because an osprey’s diet is almost exclusively fish.

[projectnomoho]

The Spectacle(d Cormorant) - an informative post about an underrated extinct bird

(Artwork by me. Halfly based on the artwork by Joseph Wolf.)

Just something out of the ordinary from before. I am getting tired from posting all those comics and stuff on here, so here's a repost of my depiction of one of my all-time favorite extinct birds - the life, the moment, the spectacle itself - the spectacled (or Pallas's) cormorant, as well as a bunch of facts about it below this because I care about this bird so much and will protect it with all my life if it still existed.

You may ask, why am I so into this nerdy-looking bird? It's not like it's THAT special or anything - we still have at least 40 other cormorant species alive on earth - 3 of them in the same genus as the spectacled cormorant.

The reason is simple - no one ever talks about it or even has an idea on what it is, even though humans were the sole cause of its extinction. (And believe it or not, cormorant culling IS still a thing, but that's a different story for now.)

(Specimen kept at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, the Netherlands.)

Large, stupid, clumsy, ludicrous in looks. That was how others, including Georg Steller, the discoverer of the bird, described the spectacled cormorant. It was, perhaps, the largest of all cormorants known to exist, rivalling the Galápagos flightless cormorant in length, but was way heavier than the latter. Due to its large size, it was probably flightless, but studies of its wings have shown that it was more likely reluctant to do so due to its lack of natural predators (besides Arctic foxes) while residing in its former habitat - the Commander/Komandorski Islands in Kamchatka Krai of Russia. Occasionally, some of these birds would get lost and end up on the Kamchatka Peninsula, which led to its consumption by the locals.

However, it wasn't until the 1820s when their extinction was hastened. The Russian-American Company started to transfer Unangan (Aleut) people to the islands, and, to no surprise, they found this cormorant easy to hunt. As Steller said on his journey in 1741, the spectacled cormorant was also rather delicious, unlike most other cormorants. Along with how it was abundant on the Commander Islands, this was most likely the exact reason why the Unangan people consumed it whenever they could not catch enough fish to sell or feed their families.

That marked the end of the legacy of the spectacled cormorant. It vanished from the islands and the world in the 1850s, and was never heard from anyone ever again.

(Artwork by J. G. Keulemans.)

The reason why it might have been forgotten by man was probably due to there only being six known specimens of this bird collected (all apparently by the same person, Governor Kuprianof), and only one or two of those specimens are currently up for display in the whole world.

The spectacled cormorant died like the dodo, but unlike the dodo, it was quickly forgotten by the people who caused its rapid extinction. By the time we wanted to care about it, it was already gone.

170+ years have passed. People like me still remember this bird, wanting to do anything to bring it back to life, or just imagining it while it was still in its glory - plummeting into the cold seas to catch a mouthful of fish, as it clumsily swims back to the shore to dry its wings. A beautiful bird that met a rather depressing fate.