Underground Bummer Culture Warrior @riotsquirrrl - Tumblr Blog

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goddamnshinyrock

There's this fascinating psychological phenomenon where people post an unknown animal they think might be something exciting or rare to an ID forum and then promptly dig in their heels when the response is that it's something common, and, crucially, much smaller than OP had estimated. The OP had built it up in their head as so special, unique, or intimidating that it literally grew in their memory.

The tendency to remember or perceive exciting things as physically larger combines with the fact that humans are very bad at accurately estimating the size of unknown distant objects without a clear point of reference. But, as this is not something that non-birders have to do on a regular basis, most people also have no idea that they are bad at it.

This is how you get people swearing up and down that they spotted a mountain lion while posting a picture of a normal average-sized house cat. Also the many requests to ID what the poster is positive was a "giant eagle," which they then refuse to believe is "just" a red-tailed hawk. Another particularly annoying iteration is "What is this? It was huge, WAY bigger than the [species] I normally see!" with a picture of a totally normal example of the aforementioned species. That person will then categorically refuse to believe anyone telling them that no, it was that species after all, because they've already convinced themselves it must have been something better and more exciting.

The most common "I saw something HUGE, GIANT, ENORMOUS" examples:

Wolf (coyote, husky or shepherd breed dog)

Cougar or panther (bobcat or, much more often, domestic house cat)

Bobcat (domestic cat)

Bald eagle (red-tailed hawk, osprey, raven)

Golden eagle (juvenile bald eagle and OP didn't realize the size difference is actually negligible)

Hawk or falcon of some kind (any average-sized songbird)

Grizzly bear (cinnamon black bear)

This pretty much never happens with ungulates for some reason. People just don't seem to get real excited about deer and think they're looking at a moose or an elk.

riotsquirrrl

You know what's bigger than it has any right to be? Beavers. It's one thing to see a stuffed one at a museum. It's another to have one hanging out on your canal path gnawing at a tree. It wasn't just that it was like, knee-height. But also its teeth are ginormous. And it was clearly not bothered by me.

I saw a coyote/wolf hybrid a couple months ago and I definitely initially thought it was a dog as it was dog-sized. Not dog eyes, though.

setulose

The one thing about gender is that frankly my ideal gender situation has very little to do with me and infinitely more to do with everyone else on the earth who cannot be fuuuuuuuuucking cool about anything ever

#transphobia #But yeah-mood

k-eke

When cats yawns they look terrifying, I love it.

#cute #cats

oscarjamesleigh

Tumblr is a fate driven website. You can't find posts through the search function, you see them when you're meant to.

hometoursandotherstuff

A master carpenter did the intricate work in this 2002 estate in Burton, OH, and wait until you see it. Talk about dust collectors. The 4bd, 3.5ba, 4,422sqft home is asking $1.495m.