#birds are real

[riciurca]

Alright! Got the sketch done, and I'm ready for painting! I was going to paint a couple of practice owls, but since when do I not jump in with both feet and damn the consequences. I can always draw it out again if I ruin this one!

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Wait, birds aren’t real is a real conspiracy theory?

I thought it was from Night Vale..?

(Everyday I learn things I wish I hadn’t)

nope, it's a conspiracy theory, and like all of those someone has managed to blame it on (((my people))) bc gd likes to torture me I guess

[fshoulders]

I hate that people are posting fake wildlife videos.

Not just the ones spliced together from several different real videos to serve a glurgey narrative, either! I’ve seen two different videos with hummingbirds apparently digitally added to footage of other animals so they look like they’re “playing” or something. (I assume they’re doing hummingbirds because their flight is easy to model digitally, but they’re using a flashy southern hummingbird with northern ground fauna, so they’re not trying very hard.)

Anyway, it’s a weird flex and a bummer. Why are you making stuff up for clout when the actual natural world is weirder and more lovely than anything? If you have no ethics anyway, you could just be posting clips from the decades of fabulous wildlife videography that exists. Or…just don’t. Go outside. Touch dirt. Listen to a bee. Stop lying and love something real. 🤷🏻‍♀️

[inkskinned]

probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.

we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."

at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.

the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.

the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.

what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.

here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.

[zancorvid]

The Vote Guys @ Anime Los Angeles 2024 (Sun 01/07)

[savagegood]

enemies to lovers? and they were teammates - and roommates? men’s sports have nothing on women’s sports

and this particular guy... cry harder (imagine if women's sports had the funding, visibility and accessibility men's sports are gifted):

[hinamie]

shows up a day early with a nobara birthday tribute

[crows-before-bros]

Exposure was set too high because I was taking crow pictures so I doubt I can get the sky to be less bright, but check out this dinosaur.

[wroniec]

Maglor

[riciurca]

Sketchbook work tonight! BARN OWLS. They definitely get my vote for creepiest owl. Like, why are they wearing a mask? What are they hiding that's so important they needed to GROW A MASK.

Anyway, if you've ever read The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern and you didn't picture a Barn Owl as the Owl King who graduated from the Parliament of Owls by eating the eyes of fate.... Here ya go. Gotta be.

[micaerula]

CELEBRATION ART FOR TODAY !!!! I JUST READ IT ITS SO FRICKIN GOOD HOLYYYY TATE BROMBAL I OWE YOU MY LIFE

[longingforrotkehlchen]

You can look at me like that all you want. I hate you too.

Graureiher (grey heron) am Max-Eyth-See, Mühlhausen.

[itsallreallythere]

Accurate, painful, part of why I love the feral pigeons so much. Our rock doves adapted so readily to the canyons and cotes of our cities.

Sometime take a minute to appreciate color and pattern variability in pigeons. You don't get that kind of thing in wild bird populations. Birds are picky about the look of their mates. Not pigeons, not anymore. Shiny neck feathers, for sure, we want those, but otherwise, mate we're all just tryna get by, I don't care if you're white and speckled or a ginger. Some of that is just that we baked a lot of phenotypic variation in when we were breeding them and selecting interesting mutants that wouldn't have made it in wild populations.

Here, learn some stuff about pigeon genetics!

We're still learning things about gene regulation and color pattern production from pigeons, lo these many decades since pigeon breeding was a popular pastime (though it still is in some places!) These birds are a living catalog of the results of hundreds of discrete experiments in maintaining mutant lines, and often, genes that affect color patterns in pigeons are also known to be associated with disease in humans, helping us understand both things better. Eg, blindness and pale pigeons -

And finally, I bring you the crowned pigeon (Goura cristata), a different species than our Columba livia of the city, and a vulnerable tropical forest species:

https://ebird.org/species/wecpig1

why do ppl hate pigeons so much. they r just little guys

[onstagesport]

Thinkin about that post that's like "If Hatchetfield wants to keep you, you can't leave. Emma always comes back from Guatemala, Alice always gets off the bus, Lex or Ethan can go to California not both" and Edward Hopper's painting of the diner with no doors

You know, his painting Nighthawks

[ochiody]

cyclops vs underworld saga to me

[violetsandshrikes]