d u c k

artist personal blog

[daily-bird-facts]

today we've got the ring-necked duck, a migratory and rather pleasant-looking critter. for being in its name, the males' reddish collar is less visible than i expected. its native range lies almost entirely in North America, spending the breeding season widespread across Canada. they winter in the Gulf of Mexico, the southern U.S., northern Mexico, and some scattered bits of southern Central America. in summer, males gain starker black-and-white markings.

while they're not extremely picky when it comes to homes, they do strongly prefer plant-heavy bodies of water that are small, shallow, and still. they're also not huge on social life - they'll accept a couple of same-species neighbors, but the population tends to be spread fairly thin. unfortunately, in the south of their range, some former wintering locations have become far less hospitable due to environmental alteration. some areas are to the point that they'll crowd in the hundreds into bodies of water that meet their standards.

a diving duck, as opposed to dabbling; that is, they feed underwater rather than from the surface. sometimes, a few will join flocks of other diving ducks to forage in particularly nice spots. primarily, they're herbivores, but have a much more generalistic diet than similar ducks. this lends itself well to life in bogs and other areas which don't exactly appeal to its relatives.

5 June 2026

[nerdfuckerrr]

sucking nerd cock to acquire knowledge

[greatmolassesflood]

i can't be the only one who's just straight-up ... bored with women hating themselves. my mom keeps lamenting to me how upset she is about her gray hair. my friend stares at her laugh lines every day in agony. my sister loses sleep over the horrible unbearable thought of looking fat. and every time these women i love open up to me, i can't help but think ... then stop staring at yourself? stop drowning yourself, narcissus, and just fucking live your life instead of sitting in front of a mirror obeying cosmetic corporations' lies. just stop it. this is getting ridiculous. you're too smart to be falling for this bullshit. "oh no but these men who hate women told me that if i'm ugly i'm worthless!" girl if you actually believe that then good luck. but i am getting worse at being supportive of people whose nonsense worldviews keep them trapped in pain. stop looking at yourself start fucking living i am pleading you deserve to be happy and it is stupid that you disagree

[vanityschild-deactivated2026031]

Someone in the comments said "you really said just stop being insecure" and yes :) make an effort to stop spiralling about your looks, challenge insecure thoughts and stop doing things that lead to you feeling insecure.

[whisperingthings]

I always come back to this: Do your insecurities match your morals?

Do you truly believe that having belly fat makes people disgusting? That the media should have final say on how you feel about yourself? If you don't believe it and there is a mismatch between your moral beliefs and your gut reaction to your appearance...

Then yeah. Stop being insecure. It's work but it's worth it.

[freshgratednutmeg]

Promoting @sarkywoman 's tags as that's a perfectly distilled mantra:

I am not the exception to my beliefs

[finnglas]

I’m not lying when I say “I am not the exception to my beliefs” has rewired my brain.

[queer-as-city-folk]

Remember the cup song??

[queer-as-city-folk]

I remember the cup song

[queer-as-city-folk]

It turns 20 next year

[janusisasnakeyboi]

this post is why I learned Cups from the 2012 movie Pitch Perfect was based on a song from 1931 called When I'm Gone that was reworked into a folk song in 1937 called Miss Me When I'm Gone, a cover of which was first recorded and uploaded to YouTube with the cup game as the percussion in 2009. please note that none of these years are 2006, twenty years prior to next year, 2026

[queer-as-city-folk]

That's because I lied!!

[souamorte]

[todaysbird]

the american woodcock is a common shorebird foind primarily in the eastern half of the united states of america. baby woodcocks are precocial, meaning that within a few hours after hatching, they are already exploring and learning; within a few days, they are self-sufficient enough to feed themselves. at five weeks old, they become fully independent. young woodcocks are known to freeze or take cover with their mothers if they are frightened; their brown coloration often helps them camouflage into brushy habitats.

[eidercafe]

and they say PEENT

[herpsandbirds]

Wood Ducks (Aix sponsa), L - female, R - male, family Anatidae, order Anseriformes, MD, USA

photograph by Joe Subolefsky

[bunjywunjy]

got any cursed facts about falcons?? 🥺👉👈

compared to hawks, falcons have shorter and weaker talons and shorter beaks! this, combined with a lighter overall build, means that falconkind is really badly unsuited to do the hawk/eagle/owl thing where they just plunge out of the sky and stab a rabbit to death with their feet.

so what they do instead is fly really high in the air, keeping an eye out for unwary birds they could get the drop on, and then they DROP. and as they drop, they curl their talon into a fist, which they use to strike their unwary prey at speeds well in excess of a hundred miles per hour. (this either stuns or outright kills the unlucky target) 

and this method works so well that they can even take down birds much larger than themselves, like ducks!

so basically,

FALCON

PUNCH

[bunjywunjy]

now why don’t we give that a slo-mo action replay?

GET WRECKED.

[tangentmoth]

Please consider this video of a female peregrine taking on an enormous brown pelican. It's like watching an F-18 take on an Antonov and the Antonov does not stand a chance.

[kylebonallo]

Bass Rock by Kyle Bonallo (ig: @kylebonallo)

[apas-95]

JFK (also rendered as JFC) was a pseudo-mythological historical figure born between 3000-4000 years ago. He¹ was a powerful leader whose public death was shrouded in mystery. Contemporary accounts state that he was shot, and then nailed to a cross. The land of Italy was blamed for his death. Mythologically, he is said to have returned from death and constructed a port.

Historical pronoun.

[birdwarde]

Keith Haring Gull!

idea from my friend @ TheBirdist on twitter! i'll be selling stickers with all $ going to a new england queer charity soon

[dinosaurcharcuterie]

"What am I supposed to do if I want to do something I can't? Just not use AI?"

1. Yes.

2. Ask for help.

[deadmomjokes]

It recently came up in conversation with my toddler that some birds can talk, and this has caused her great concern.

See, we were talking about how movies are pretend and how in real life, animals don’t talk. I mentioned that there are some birds who talk a little bit, but not like the animals in movies, and she just looked at me like “???”

So I informed her that some kinds of parrots can copy sounds that people make, and can learn how to say words. I thought this would give her a giggle, as fun new facts often do, but she was just deeply perplexed and a little worried about this.

“Birds can talk?” “Do they ask questions?” “What do they say?” Why do they talk?” “Do chickens talk?” “What about Blue Jays?” “Why do some birds talk?” “How do they talk?” “Birds TALK???”

We showed her a video of a parrot doing the “Hello, pretty bird, give a kiss” thing, and she was dead silent the whole time, hugging her comfort pillow with her knees to her chest. We asked if she wanted us to turn it off, and she shook her head. But we also asked if she wanted to see another one, and she shook her head even harder.

I don’t know why it has distressed her so greatly to learn that some birds can mimic human speech; but then again, I don’t know why it doesn’t distress the rest of us more to know that some birds can mimic human speech.

I keep thinking about that post that’s like “The first person to hear a parrot talk was probably Not Okay.” Because that’s exactly what happened. She had never been introduced to the concept, and her entire worldview got SHOOK.

[philosophicalparadox]

Part of why Ravens are considered Spooky Bad Things We Associate With The Faeries is because they can and do mimic human speech - but much, much better than a parrot. With a parrot, you can tell something is off about the sound. You can tell it doesn’t belong to a human. Ravens don’t sound like that, no, cause they’re overacheivers. (And passerines). They sound EXACTLY like the voice of whoever they are mimicking.

But more importantly they love the sound of human laughter. No one knows why. But it is totally, 100% possible, and it happens to this day, to walk along the paths in the Black Forest and suddenly hear a strange kind of giggling sound, or maybe even a very clear, definitely human sounding “hello?” “Hiiiii!” Or “let’s go!”.

However, it takes a lot of practice for them to copy sounds as perfectly as they do, so you’re equally likely to hear something that definitely sounds human-like, but the words make no sense and the sound is unlike any language you know.

Ravens at the Tower of London do this all the time. Theyre pretty sociable with humans though, so they do it quite openly. I have seen videos of people, mostly Americans, look absolutely spooked out of their skins when a big ol’ raven (mind ye, these are birds that are 2 feet tall with a 5 foot wingspan) comes waltzing up on the deck and starts talking to them.

And ravens, especially the ones there that have been bred and raised by humans for centuries, don’t just imitate - they have one of the same language processing genes we do, and they understand the way a toddler might that things, places, and individuals have names, and can string together basic sentences much like an african grey.

I know because I used to work with one, Darlene, who knew, quite well, what she wanted and how to ask for it. If you were preparing her breakfast, she would hop on up and investigate. She used to be an illegal pet, and had been taught “manners”. That is to say, if she went for something and you told her, sternly, “mind your manners missy!” She would stop, look at you, perhaps for up to a minute, and then point with her beak to what she wanted. If that did not work, she would ask, in plain English, “grape?” Or “Darl have grape?” And lord help you if you gave her anything less than what she asked for. She would throw it at you, and try to bite you, sometimes while saying “No!” In the same tone as I imagine she was reprimanded in her home.

So yeah. Parrots arent the only ones.

[summer-fruits-and-cream]

WHAT

[roseofithaca]

Was anyone gonna tell me that ravens can talk or was I meant to read about it on a tumblr post?!

[ironedorchid]

Talking Ravens has been a trope in fantasy for so long that people forgot that it is based in fact.

[t-hirstreview]

Pappy's rules for living

[t-hirstreview]

Pappy's rules for living pt.2

[eidercafe]

lil test quilt

[howstrangethemusicsoundstome]

People are trying to bring back 1880s-era anti-ASL sentiment. Worst timeline.

[tuttle-did-it]

You'd be surprised how often I'm told there is no interpreter at an event, there are no captions at an event, and they act like I'm asking for something absurd.

This isn't a performative dance routine interpreting what is going on.

But hey, deafies, we're woke now because we require interpreters.

[tuttle-did-it]

This is all absolutely true. Also, to add, many deaf people receive a much worse education because the schools are unwilling/unable to invest in proper education for deaf people. So there are deaf people out there who struggle to read English because the structure of English is completely different than the structure of Sign Languages.

Also, Sign Language is NOT international. Signing in London is different that Ireland, or Paris, Toronto, Mexico, New Zealand, India-- some of the signing may be similar or even related but they are all different languages. So if you see several interpreters at an event or a news broadcast or en EU summit, and they are doing different signs, this is why.

And for the idiots who still don't comprehend that for many people English is a second language, even signers who were born in an English speaking country-- and still argue 'you get captions what's the problem' - Have you ever watched the auto-craptions on the news or a live event, or even a film on Amazon that they couldn't bother to get a human to properly provide subs? Yeah. A good percentage of the time, it's just word salad that means absolutely nothing. You're likely to just get a pile of words that may or may not have to do with anything going on in what you are trying to watch.

Some time, put on the news with no captions or sound. Put on a film or show you have never seen before, and try to lipread what is being said. Try to figure out what the plot or context is from just the actor's faces. Just try to engage when the only queues you have are facial expressions and movement on the screen-- if you can even see them talk at all, a lot of films and shows are shot over a shoulder with the back of someone's head.

Wear ear-plugs when you are out having a coffee with a friend and try to figure out what your friend is even saying. No music, no nothing-- just earplugs and trying to figure it out.

Do all of this for a week and then tell me that craptions are enough. Then tell me we don't need interpreters. After two days, you're going to be angry and frustrated because you don't know what the fuck is going on.

Interpreters do more than just tell you the exact words. They INTERPRET English language and put it into sign. They aren't just randomly throwing around their hands and looking silly. And they do it on the fly, live, as something is going. A good majority of the times, Interpreters have no idea what is going to be said. In those moments they are hearing something in English (or French, Spanish, what have you), figuring out what the best way to sign these words back to a sign-user base, and they have to do it all in seconds. It's a LOT of work.

So if you are at an event or you see two or even more signers who keep switching off after half an hour or an hour, know that the money is NOT being wasted having multiple interpreters there. They are not being lazy. They are doing a whole helluva lot, and their brains and hands and faces occasionally need a break.

So if you are hiring interpreters for an event, don't be surprised if they say you'll need to pay more to have several interpreters there. The interpreters are incredibly skilled, and they work bloody hard. If they tell you they need more than one, don't have a fit at them and try to talk them into just having one interpreter, thinking you can pay less. Understand that they work their arses off, and it's a very intense job that requires a lot of brain power and body power. So please, PLEASE be kind to interpreters.

And for chrissake, STOP DOING THIS. STOP DOING THIS. STOP FUCKING DOING THIS.

[once-a-polecat]

Seconding all of this, but also to get more specific on the first point:

ASL (American Sign Language) is not only different from BSL (British Sign Language), they're not even in the same language family. Similarly, LSM (Mexican Sign Language) is different from LSE (Spanish Sign Language), and there are other regional sign languages in Spanish speaking South America.

My (hearing) kid is studying ASL and when there was a Deaf contestant on British Bake Off he said that he really didn't recognize the BSL signing. But we traveled to Peru last summer and saw some people signing at a restaurant, and he said he recognized a few signs of LSP, even as he could tell it was a different language.

When you start to understand how much signed languages are full and complete languages with specific grammar and structure, you realize why captioning is not an equivalent to interpretation.

[leebrontide]

"Why would deaf people need interpretation in a language that's their first language? Can't they just read a fast moving faux-phonetic transcript of a speech made in their second language."

Clown-ass behavior.

[songoftrillium]

"There are closed captions on all broadcast channels and streaming services" I suspect people don't realize that Closed Captions and Subtitles are not the same thing.

DVI, HDMI, and D-Port straight up don't transmit or interleave CC data, and the most modern TVs can't decode it correctly either. DVD, Blu-Ray, and media players have their own encoding and decoding built in to process and display subtitle files, bypassing the closed captioning on the screen entirely. Most people CAN'T use the embedded closed captioning technology in their TVs as originally designed in the way that human flipflop above described. Its just yet another way society has failed to meet the bare minimum of equity in communication.

[eidercafe]

PEENT

Can’t help but think it was the woodcock hat that blessed us with so many peents tonight

full checklist with additional media

[chiropteracupola]

made a label for my sharps container...

[eidercafe]

yoooo ten of swords !!!