#feather facts

[exigencelost]

[photo id: five keets, three of which are looking at the camera, the others can only partially be seen. They have brown down over most of their bodies, lighter colored heads with dark brown stripes, and black eyes. They are standing on wood shavings.]

[photo id: over a dozen keets laying down on a bed of wood shavings, many of them asleep, laying close and leaning on each other. There is a reddish glow, coming from a heat lamp that is not pictured.]

Baby guinea fowl are called keets and they are so goddamn adorable and fluffy and soft!! If you hold them for a few minutes cupped in your hands, they’ll just fall asleep!

The eggs of guineas are much harder than chicken eggs, breaking them open requires a fair amount of force, which means that when snakes swallow them, it takes forever for the eggshells to break down enough to actually consume them. Somewhere I have pics of a snake that raided a nest, you can see the lumps. It was pretty cool once I got over being mad at the snake.

Hi please know that Tumblr blocked these images because it thought they might contain sensitive content which is the funniest thing to happen to me in at least the last several hours. I was able to unblock them (acting on faith that you were in fact sending me bird pictures) and they’re very good thank you. Thank you also for the IDs.

Are baby birds like baby humans in that if they fall asleep while you’re holding them, you can’t move until they wake up?

[exigencelost]

Idk if you’ve gotten this fact already but birds have hallow bones this makes them lighter and makes it easier to fly!

I knew about the hollow bones but I didn’t know about the hallow bones. How do birds hallow their bones, is there a communal religious ritual or does each bird consecrate their own bones individually? I am assuming that this blessing bestows a sort of divine semi-immunity to gravity?

[exigencelost]

Pretty well known fact, woodpeckers' tongue curls around their brain and cushions it which allow them to hammer trees with their beak without getting a concussion! Bearded vultures aren't naturally red-ish, they just bath in ferruginous soil/water which colors their feathers with time (also their diet is mainly bone marrow and they usually break bones by throwing them on rocks). Nuthatches are one of the only passerine birds (maybe even the only ones, I know in western Europe they are) who can descend head first on trees (they can also hang upside down (treecreepers can do that too); also they're quite smart, I've seen a eurasian nuthatch use a nook in my cherry tree to hold a nut while she was breaking it open. Swift have legs so short that if they fall on the ground they won't be able to propel themselves up again (if you find a stranded swift, take them to a wildlife rehab!). Also gulls suck and will eat anything, don't trust them they will bite you.

Okay so I’ve read this a couple times in the eons since you sent it and I think what’s been happening is I got stuck at the first absolutely insane thing you said, which is that woodpeckers’ tongues curl around their brains, which completely redefines my understanding of what the word “tongue” and also maybe what the word “body” are capable of meaning, and so I haven’t been able to process any of the other pieces of information in this ask until now. I’ve now finally made it all the way through this ask and I think I have (syntactically at least) understood all of it and I have only one question I am able to articulate, which is, how do swifts (swift?) take off normally? Do they just knock themselves off treebranches? (bold for legibility not emphasis.)

[exigencelost]

yeah the main thing is their inability to do pretty much anything on land. this is due to their legs being set super far back on their bodies, which is great for swimming, but means they can’t walk more than a few steps without falling over & they have to take off by running and flapping across water. the name “loon” either comes from their clumsiness or how they sound. they can also fly well but they do Not have hollow bones. their eye color changes with the seasons. they eat rocks. (1/2)

(2/2) also while i was fact checking these, wikipedia informed me that last year there was a loon that just fucking stabbed a bald eagle through the heart, so there’s that

Fucking hell! (@heart stabbing.) Insert Arrested Development “Good for her” meme I guess.

Didn’t know about the eye color change! I thought they had red eyes—what’s the alternate setting?

[exigencelost]

Haast's Eagle was a bird species that lived in New Zealand until a few centuries ago. Largest eagle species in history. They preyed on Moas (NZ version of Emus) (also extinct these days). They fit the same ecological niche as lions etc. as New Zealand at the time had no land mammals except bats. As a result, many of our native bird species are flightless.

Thank you belatedly for this excellent bird fact! Sorry it took me so long to get to. I was saving some of the bird facts for a figurative rainy day, which today very much counts as.

I love the forbidden lion birds, but I’m a little confused about the last sentence. How does this eagle cause flightlessness of birds? Or are you saying the birds are flightless because of the dearth of land mammals?

[exigencelost]

oh i missed bird facts day but, i forget, do you already know how fucked up loons are

I have some information about loons. I know they can’t take off for shit. I’m sure there’s a lot I don’t know about loons. Bird facts day was like, months ago, FYI, you’d didnt miss anything recent, I’m just clearing out my inbox, but regardless, Please tell me the fucked up loon lore.

[feathered-detective]

Feather Facts

Evo city, or Evolution City as its officially known, was originally New York, but was renamed, after a surge in Evo population turning the already mixing pot of a city into a furry, feathery, and scalie rainbow.

[feathered-detective]

Feather Facts

Jackson, despite having lived in France for a good portion of his life, is only able to speak basic French, as over the year’s he has lost the need. It doesn’t help that he has developed a curious accent, from living so close the center of EVO City.