#bird knowledge

[bluebird8683]

Wing AU!

Before the accident, Danny has regular old swallow wings (pretty common) but after the accident, he losses the ability to use his wings (as it was his wing that pushed the button in stead of his hand in this AU).

Danny adapts to no longer being able to fly, until a ghost attack happens and his wings are taken as collateral from protecting his classmates in human form. As a result of the injury, his wings have to be surgically removed.

Danny's echo doesn't like this, so Danny regrows wings... except they are no longer the swallow wings that they were before, they are now the red ones of a cardinal (known in certain circles to carry messages from dead loved ones).

This is an issue, because now Phantom also has wings (skeletal ones, but wings all the same).

[paranoidpug]

have a bird fact! a lot of birds, chickens included, fluoresce under UV light! they also can directly see UV, so these patterns that only show up under a blacklight for us show up all the time to them.

the birds can GLOW???? :O

[birdography]

https://blog.csiro.au/australia-breeds-brainy-birds/

“Ravens love bread, but bread means more than food to their sophisticated minds. Ravens have been observed picking up bread, flying it to a pond and placing it in the water. The bird waits until fish begin to nibble at the bread and catches them, enjoying a big seafood dinner instead of a little bit of bread.”

[paranoidpug]

Another bird biology fact with bonus unpleasant thing to inflict on YHS Grian: Birds digestive systems are quite different from mammal ones - they generally have 3 organs that are basically stomachs, and each one is specialized for a different part of the role of the stomach in other vertebrates. One of these is the crop, which is specialized just for storing food, with no digestive secretions - which makes it prone to various infections, collectively called 'sour crop', if the crop doesn't completely empty or takes an unusually long time to empty. stuff actually starts to ferment in there and then that causes Problems.

this seems like the kind of problem a bird kid who was made to eat plastic might have to deal with.

Ouch. As if the poor birb doesn't have enough to deal with XD.

[paranoidpug]

Another bird fact!

Birds have an interesting cryptochrome (protein type found in the eye) that responds to magnetic fields and also some other electromagnetic fields!

So they can literally see magnetic fields...but it can be interfered with by radio-frequency electromagnetic fields. (It has to be a frequency aligned with the oscillation of the cryptochrome molecules or it won't interfere with their magnetic sense.)

Funny possible side effect if Grian has this: His comms unit interferes with his magnetic sense so he basically just...doesn't have that.

Oooooooo more birb facts :D

I love imagining that something about Grian tends to... interfere... with the technology around him. He just seems to break any redstone he's around without even trying. Technology also interfering with him could also be fascinating to explore.

[paranoidpug]

some more thoughts about gizzards: hard stones are generally preferred, since they're more effective, and sometimes this leads to people reporting about ostriches eating some large dollar amount of diamonds (as far as the ostrich is concerned it's just a particularly good rock). so if grian had a gizzard he's probably like rougher iron ore, deepslate, flint, the little bits left over from Fortuning diamond, etc.

Pffffffffffffffffft ostriches have expensive taste I see.

[paranoidpug]

Some more bird stuff! Some species of birds are just always kind of powdery/dusty, since they produce a powder that coats their feathers instead of or in addition to preen oil.

Also, lots of bird species dustbathe! Even if the feathers are clean (eg shampooed) they will still feel the urge to dustbathe every so often and if they can't will sham-dustbathe on nonsuitable substrate like bedding material or food. (Of course sometimes you get a dumb bird that sham dustbathes RIGHT next to a good dustbathing spot, which looks very silly.)

Ehehehehe birbs! Thankyou for the knowledge :D

(Is taking notes for writing avian characters)

[airasora]

One of the struggles with being a bird owner (or just someone with basic bird knowledge I guess lol) is seeing big parrots like macaws being put in cages 10 TIMES TOO SMALL than what they're supposed to have.

THAT size cage is for small birds like conures and cockatiels. And even then it's still only fit for ONE bird.

Don't even get me started on the complete lack of toys. I'll be at my keyboard all day 😂