It’s actually impossible to measure how many fucks a corvid give because there is no device sensitive enough to register such a tiny amount.
science/animal side of tumblr… explain to me the birb thing
Tail Pulling is a behavior noted in many corvids. The practical application is to create a distraction that will allow the birb to make off with the target’s food. Imagine being in the lunch room and a large fellow has a Twinkie you covet. You can’t just take it from him because he’ll defend his Twinkie. But if you thwap him on the back of his neck and then dash around to snag the Twinkie while he investigates, you stand a decent chance of enjoying spongey goodness. This is basically that in birb form.
Except corvids don’t only do this as a distraction. Sometimes they seem to just being doing it to mess with other animals/birbs. But to use my lunch room analogy, there are times you might thwap someone sneakily on the back of the neck just for amusement. Primates exhibit behavior that appears to be just be annoying other animals for amusement. Given how intelligent crows are, its not unlikely that this is a manifestation of an innate desire to just fuck with someone else for the fun of it. Such as this from the link above:
THANK YOU FOR THE BIRB KNOWLEDGE
BECAUSE IT IS FUN
This speaks to me on a molecular level.
birbs just wanna have fun
Sorry to hijack a little, but to put it bluntly, corvids are also pretty BALSY. They are more than prepared to harass other huge birds of prey which could deal them a lot of damage. There’s plenty of cases of corvids ‘riding’ other birds as well. It’s often to harass the larger bird out of the area, but as @red3blog said, they quite often (in layman’s terms) enjoy fucking shit up for fun.
‘Where the hell is the seatbelt on this thing?’
I mean they deserve a medal for having such huge bird balls imo
Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes
for love, joy and celebration. Like a hummingbird, we aspire to hover
and savor each moment as it passes; embrace all that life has to offer
and to celebrate the joy of every day. The hummingbird’s delicate
grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every
personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life’s sweetest
creation. –Papyrus
I…Ah…hmm.
Look, it’s a great photo. The photographer kicked butt. They should be very proud of this photo.
But hummingbirds are not carrying your hopes for joy around. I am sorry. Have you met hummingbirds? Hummingbirds believe strongly that they should be eighteen feet tall and have flamethrowers. They are a half ton of pugnacious wrapped up in a half ounce of feathers. Given the choice, hummingbirds would fly around with “Ride of the Valkyries” blasting out of tiny speakers on their wings, putting the eyes out of their enemies.
They do not fear humans, but if they learn that humans will provide feeders, they will become very demanding. They are fiercely territorial. They are…kind of jerks, actually.
Also, there are papers indicating that female hummingbirds engage in what can only be termed “nectar-based prostitution” where they trade sexual favors to males in return for access to particularly rich nectar sources.
If your hopes for love involve nectar and your hopes for joy involve crushing your foes, seeing them driven before you, hearing the lamentations of their nestlings, etc, then possibly the hummingbird may carry them around, otherwise…uh…have you considered vultures? Vultures are very pleasant, affectionate, and social birds. You should probably give them your hopes and dreams. They would be better at it.
Did I mention it’s a great photo?
VULTURES, NOW.
this is Jack.
Jack (full name: Jack Sparrow) lives at the Hawk Conservancy. (He’s missing some toes because he was rescued from Vulture Smugglers.)
When you interact with Jack, you can tell he’s at about the level of … something between a ferret and a dog. Funny short little attention span, and a weird face to look at, but a human reads him as curious, friendly and interested in people.
When you meet a working vulture, you realize that they are definitely a wild predatory animal and very instinctive, but with a
consciousness that extends to interest in their surroundings; like, he’s
very much focused on THE SNACK, but before and after the SNACKTIME he
also wants to have a chat about your day and look at your face and peer into your camera and ask to look at the pictures you took and then say “hey now take one where I’m doing duckface” and you’re like “ok Jack go ahead”
Contrast with owls, which are typically pretty, but which are basically as interactive as a pop-up ad. They exist to land on things and eat them. They are not complicated. Vultures are hey-whatcha-doin. They’re yeah I’m a psychopomp but my real hobby is DJ-ing. They’d like to couchsurf next time they’re in town. You’d let them.
I would give Jack my dreams to carry. He would hold them well, in his big black lovely inky eyes, in his broken gentle feet.
I didn’t know the answer to this so I sent the question to Pete Makovicky, our Associate Curator of Dinosaurs, and this is what he said:
All living reptiles including birds (phylogenetic definition of reptiles) excrete uric acid – the white part of bird ‘poo’ – from their kidneys as a product of protein metabolism. The uric acid is excreted from the cloaca together with the feces as noted by galavanting-grandly. Since dinosaurs slot next to crocs on the tree and include birds, they too would have had uric acid excretion and likely excreted the same way. The advantage to uric acid is that it can be excreted as dry crystals – we mammals excreting urea that needs to be dissolved in water and thus have a far worse water balance than reptiles.
MY BIRD IS SITTING IN THE TOP CORNER OF HER CAGE CALLING MY DOG’S NAME AND ASKING IF HE WANTS A TREAT AND IF HE WANTS TO GO TO OUTSIDE AND HE’S TOO STUPID TO REALIZE IT’S HER SO EVERYTIME SHE SAYS SOMETHING HE LOOKS AT ME LIKE
SHE LAUGHS EVERYTIME TOO AND NOW HE’S JUMPING ON ME AND BARKING AND GETTING MAD AT ME LIKE OLIVER TURN AROUND AND LOOK IN THAT HUGE ASS CAGE AND BEG HER FOR A FUCKING TREAT OR SOMETHING.
NOW SHE ASKED IF HE WANTS TO GO FOR A WALK
SOMEONE HELP.
NO OLIVER, IGNORE ECHO. NO ONE IS HERE
I PROMISE.
I’M 1000% DONE.
“OLI GO CAGE.” NO OLI
DON’T.
GO.
CAGE.
birds straight-up fuckin with other pets is my jam
I’m going to preface this by saying that I am not actually responsible for pelicans and their multitude of weirdnesses, so I will be explaining on behalf of someone else, not myself. Just…. to clarify.
SO, PELICANS. They’ve actually got the longest beak length of any bird (not beak-to-body ratio, of course, because hummingbirds have got that one under control) and their gular pouch, as it is called, is not just a floppy sack to scoop dinner up with – it’s actually got a super complicated network of muscles spread throughout. Mainly to force water in or out while scooping up fish or whatever. Like any functional body part, periodic stretching and moving of the muscles and skin is needed to keep it in excellent working order.
tl;dr this pelican is doing pelican yoga before going out and wreaking havoc
Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes
for love, joy and celebration. Like a hummingbird, we aspire to hover
and savor each moment as it passes; embrace all that life has to offer
and to celebrate the joy of every day. The hummingbird’s delicate
grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every
personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life’s sweetest
creation. –Papyrus
I…Ah…hmm.
Look, it’s a great photo. The photographer kicked butt. They should be very proud of this photo.
But hummingbirds are not carrying your hopes for joy around. I am sorry. Have you met hummingbirds? Hummingbirds believe strongly that they should be eighteen feet tall and have flamethrowers. They are a half ton of pugnacious wrapped up in a half ounce of feathers. Given the choice, hummingbirds would fly around with “Ride of the Valkyries” blasting out of tiny speakers on their wings, putting the eyes out of their enemies.
They do not fear humans, but if they learn that humans will provide feeders, they will become very demanding. They are fiercely territorial. They are…kind of jerks, actually.
Also, there are papers indicating that female hummingbirds engage in what can only be termed “nectar-based prostitution” where they trade sexual favors to males in return for access to particularly rich nectar sources.
If your hopes for love involve nectar and your hopes for joy involve crushing your foes, seeing them driven before you, hearing the lamentations of their nestlings, etc, then possibly the hummingbird may carry them around, otherwise…uh…have you considered vultures? Vultures are very pleasant, affectionate, and social birds. You should probably give them your hopes and dreams. They would be better at it.
Did I mention it’s a great photo?
VULTURES, NOW.
this is Jack.
Jack (full name: Jack Sparrow) lives at the Hawk Conservancy. (He’s missing some toes because he was rescued from Vulture Smugglers.)
When you interact with Jack, you can tell he’s at about the level of … something between a ferret and a dog. Funny short little attention span, and a weird face to look at, but a human reads him as curious, friendly and interested in people.
When you meet a working vulture, you realize that they are definitely a wild predatory animal and very instinctive, but with a
consciousness that extends to interest in their surroundings; like, he’s
very much focused on THE SNACK, but before and after the SNACKTIME he
also wants to have a chat about your day and look at your face and peer into your camera and ask to look at the pictures you took and then say “hey now take one where I’m doing duckface” and you’re like “ok Jack go ahead”
Contrast with owls, which are typically pretty, but which are basically as interactive as a pop-up ad. They exist to land on things and eat them. They are not complicated. Vultures are hey-whatcha-doin. They’re yeah I’m a psychopomp but my real hobby is DJ-ing. They’d like to couchsurf next time they’re in town. You’d let them.
I would give Jack my dreams to carry. He would hold them well, in his big black lovely inky eyes, in his broken gentle feet.
[Woman: *kisses raven’s beak* Even though you are naughty, I still love you, aye.]
#goals
Stop everyone! These are the Knaresborough Castle ravens, and this ‘naughty’ raven is probably Izzie: the only bird in the UK to have been given an ASBO (a criminal conviction for anti-social behaviour).
Izzie pretends to get her head stuck in trash, so that when people get up to help her she can fly off and steal their sandwiches. She can mimic human speech, but does not do it often and when she does speak it’s usually rude. When we met the lady in chain mail in July 2013, she told us that Izzie had once flown up to a tourist and said “who the **** are you looking at?!”. The tourist was very offended and assumed it was the chain mail lady who had spoken. The birds are not on chains for their own protection, but for their bad behaviour. They are literally on the naughty step.
I went to Knaresborough on a day the ravens weren’t there, and I was disappointed. I asked the castle attendant when they would be back, and he said he didn’t know. The Raven Lady isn’t associated with the castle. She’s just someone with pet ravens who comes and goes when she pleases and likes to wear chain mail. Life goals or wife goals?
Thank you for adding this, I was going to reblog it again with some info tonight and you beat me to it! Yes this one was Isobella! She also steals cameras from people, she pretends to have her foot stuck in an old water bottle and then goes and nicks stuff from the people who try to help her omfg
Kimchi and Justice 