i HAD NOT but after a bunch of reading, it turns out that gouldian finches, when theyre freshly hatched and featherless, are often born in very dark nests. dark enough that its was suspected their brightly colored parents used to find it hard to actually locate their chicks mouths, which APPARENTLY led to the development … . of these
the little nodules are completely normal, and act as a light-reflecting homing beacon that guides their parents beaks in the right direction, which im SURE comes in handy but also has the side effect of being Really unnerving to watch in action
the chicks dont stop being nightmare bobbleheads until about 25 days later when their first feathers come in, but the little nightlights still remain visible until they get into their adult feathers and completely distance themselves from their shady past
while the colorful bumps on the beak seem to be unique to the goldian finches, the pattern on the INSIDE of the beak are pretty common in a lot finch species ( and other birds in general !)
Flocks of birds, no matter how large,
are never led by a single individual.
The movement is collectively
controlled by each bird reacting
almost simultaneously to the slightest
change of direction by another flock
member, as if they are of one mind. SourceSource 2Source 3
Which you can observe in just how completely inefficient their movements are sometimes.
Peacocks are some of the most dazzling birds, using their beautiful multicolored feathers to woo potential mates and also catch people’s eyes. They make a great subject for photography, as shown by these 9 stunning images of the luxuriously adorned birds taking to the sky.
people are always like “birds are so everyday but sometimes you can really tell theyre descended from dinosaurs” but like ,
have you ever paid really close attention to birds?? birds are like fifty times more weird and fucked up than what we know about the vast majority of dinosaurs. dinosaurs seem like they were more or less regular animals except big. birds are like horrible little aliens. like. people act like birds are normal but geese have teeth on their tongues and ducks have corkscrew genitals and woodpeckers have retractable prehensile tongues that they keep in their nostrils and hoatzins are hatched with fingers on their wings that drop off as they mature and that’s just, like, the stuff that’s unusual for birds? not even just the stuff that birds come with as standard, which i promise you is universally just as bad, honestly, like, have you ever taken a good look at feathers???? theyre fucked up. bird legs? fucked up. birds flapping their wings like huge weird bugs? FUCKED UP
BEAKS? WHAT THE HELL HONESTLY
like, i will acknowledge that for example many mammals are completely fucking ridiculous, like, for example, moles, moles are awful, but thats just one kind of mammal. same with reptiles, tortoises are extremely messed up but most reptiles are basically animal shaped? whereas, birds are universally horrifying. i think about this every time i spend half an hour kissing my bird on the head.
new rule: youre not allowed to reblog this post and tag it “i hate birds”. youre only allowed to reblog this post if you love birds and cherish them and want to be their friend
Kimchi and Justice 