Hoard of Shinies @ankewehner - Tumblr Blog

This is a real picture taken by photographer Keinichi Ohno. It's a single photo of a bird standing at the edge of some water with a wall and its reflection creating a fascinating optical illusion.

kedreeva

Why do your birds dust bath? Does the dirt help absorb oils or something? Unrelated but my cat likes to also roll around in dirt, but he's just a stange boy.

Absorb is probably not the right word for it.

Dust bathing does 3 main things. a) provides gritty material to aid in removing feather sheaths b) aids in mechanical (mechanical here meaning physical forces acting upon mass, not technological mechanical) removal of stale lipids, and c) aids in the mechanical removal of ectoparasites.

Feathers grow in ensconced in a flaky sheath of keratin. This is soft and pliable as it comes out of the skin, but will dry and become flaky, for easy removal. If left too long, or if made with bad nutrition, these sheaths can become very hard/stiff and may even become impossible for the bird to remove without assistance. Dust bathing is a mechanical method of removing sheaths, by rubbing at them and speeding up the flaking process.

Birds apply preen gland oil to their feathers, and it becomes stale over time the same way your hair can. Rather than soap, they are able to again mechanically rub off stale oils in a dust bath, effectively cleaning the feathers and allowing for proper feather alignment again.

Dust baths don't kill ectoparasites, but they can "remove" them the same way you might remove a spider crawling on your leg- by physically brushing it off. This doesn't prevent infestations, it doesn't treat infestations, it merely provides some temporary relief until the parasites climb back aboard or hatch more. It won't even remove all of them! It just reduces the load to be more manageable.

beardedmrbean

blogofex

These guys would be the biggest hit at any Renaissance fair they went to.

therobotmonster

An envoy from a kingdom in the far East comes to your hamlet and of course you give them a warm welcome!

Do you have any idea what access to the spice road would do for the tiny Dukedom of Fairground By the Budget Hilton?

maximilian-gardenberg

I ended Lies of P Overture and died

(And totally in love with Romeo)

whatthefoucault

tumblr is so broken. just got a new follower that's almost certainly spam, so i go to click on the blog in order to report it, and it won't let me view the blog because it contains "potentially mature content."

turns out i can report the account from my followers list, but at this point, i have no means of verifying for certain whether the account is spam or not because tumblr won't let me view it. so i'm stuck in this purgatory of being pretty sure the account is spam, but not wanting to report it in case i'm wrong, but also not being able to view the account in order to verify either way. this is stupid and bad and i hate it.

and while we're at it: tumblr, why on earth should i be required to age verify if i've held this precise tumblr account for a double-digits number of years? you can reasonably assume i didn't join tumblr as a toddler so you really ought to be able to extrapolate that i'm an adult.

kedreeva

How do peafowl behave with siblings? I know that some birds seem to recognize a familial link with other clutches from their parents/mother while other treat them like any random baby. Will Mantis behave differently with Bug's new chick's vs an unrelated hen's kids?

I don't have a lot of outside evidence for sibling interactions, so everything is based on my own animals.

Right now, Mantis is still learning what babies ARE. The last babies she saw was her brother when she was a baby. She is a bit overly curious, and she would like to put them in her mouth, I think. BUT on the other hand, she didn't hurt them when one of them got away from Bug this afternoon, she just followed it around, and when I called one of the babies over to me away from Bug and showed it to her, she was mostly just trying to figure out what it was (and if it was a treat, maybe?)

For the most part, yearlings tend to just be confused and a little annoyed at fresh babies. The moms will chase yearlings away from treats to let the babies have them, and the yearlings are not usually thrilled about that. They also are confused because it's often Their Moms not letting them have treats anymore, and that's hard for them.

I usually try to make it a bit easier, by giving them separate treats where the hens won't come (close to me), which serves to make them a little nicer to the babies, and make them friendly to me, as the one giving them treats.

There IS a study done which suggests males recognize blood-related males, as when leks form they seem to be comprised of blood-related males. Related males hatched apart that never met were recorded still forming a lek together. So I think there's definitely room for them to recognize related individuals. But recognizing relations isn't the same as liking them or caring about the relationship.

m45t3rc0mput3r

Important diagram

fuckingfuckersfucked-deactivate

Well, it’s finally finished. It was a genuinely satisfying project. I present you Ankh Morpork in the guise of Google Maps.

seiya234

brb, ugly happy screaming.

agentquinn

WOWWIE THIS IS GREAT

oberonsson

Dame Archer kicks McDougal’s Scots ass there in the rain at the Washington Midsummer Renaissance Faire - August 11, 2018 - Photo by Douglas Herring

anarcho-wormism-deactivated2019

😮

garrettauthor

Oh NO.

treacleaergia

me, a sheltered noblewoman: Pray who is that brave knight? Dame Archer:*turns around* me: gasp! *instantly in love*

dirtyriver

Alicia Archer

ex-sang-uination

my bi heart………

ohmightysmiter

I’VE NEVER SEEN THE ADDED PICS

hrefnatheravenqueen

nyx-belial

*dies*

garrettauthor

Oh shit.

notlostonanadventure

GAY KNIGHTS

unicornofdarknessstuff-deactiva

Fellas I’m real gay

thecarrott

@0hheytherebigbadwolf HELP!!

0hheytherebigbadwolf

Every June this inevitably winds up back on my dash. And I appreciate that. And I will reblog it. Every time.

rockitcat

Hey, it’s @archerinventive, and the Pride Knights!

simkaye

Pride prints are back in stock but leaving soon! 🐹🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️

alvallah

“The occurrence of an event is not the same thing as knowing what one has lived through. Most people had not lived—nor could it, for that matter, be said that they had died—through any of their terrible events. They had simply been stunned by the hammer. They passed their lives thereafter in a kind of limbo of denied and unexamined pain.”

Another Country, by James Baldwin

a-random-fandom-friend

It's pride month so I'll allow myself to express one opinion on the internet :

There are no "exact color" of pride flags.

I see more and more sites and posts talking about the exact hex codes for the lesbian flag, or the right purple for the ace one, and how it should be more or less saturated and I just want to say: pride flags were meant to be sewn in your kitchen. To be spraypainted and to be recognised.

There are no "exact colors" of pride flags because you should do them with what you have ! Nobody should care if you use a crimson red instead of a cherry red or whatever ! Be free ! wave your colors ! The colors you have !