Fancy and I have been working our way through an 8-hour bird video for cats and she especially likes these handsome little guys. I can’t keep calling them LRBs (Little Red Bastards).
I do not know the bird but you remind me of my grandpa. He’s a birdwatcher and he calls all those interchangeable small brown species LBJs (Little Brown Jobs).
I understand that’s the technical term among birders! I’ve heard LBB as well, for Little Brown Bird, but I like Little Brown Jobbies best.
Also the bird is a Eurasian Jay! So handsome!
The Eurasian Jay is simply called the “Jay” by English speakers in Europe. They are a type of corvid, like crows and ravens and magpies, but Jays are quite shy. They are big and anxious, with soft fat bodies that blend in to their surroundings, apart from a sudden flash of blue when they fly. They hide quietly in deep trees, and are usually invisible. They love oak trees particularly, and they hoard acorns like squirrels. They are powerful planters of trees, and can carry acorns for great distances, with each bird able to plant hundreds of trees a year. They hate leaving trees and are basically NEVER seen outside of dense tree cover, so this is probably their attempt at conquering Eurasia by means of forests.
This may be surprising to people who know the Blue Jay. The Blue Jay is a North American bird and was named by colonists after the Jay, though they’re only distant cousins. (still corvids but not close relatives.) They’re a a Big Yeller and just…. very Much, all the time. They are smallish and made out of volume and boldness. They shout at cats and Start Shit and are very brave and clever. They don’t worry about trees half so much.
happy Friday everybody, it’s time for another installment of Weird Biology! and today, you’re going to learn about a goddamn dinosaur.
(yes, I know all birds are technically dinosaurs, but this one is… dinosaurier? dinosaurien? DINOSAURIEST than the rest)
meet the Hoatzin, relic of ages past
*raptor screech*
the Hoatzin is the only member of the family Opisthocomidae, an ancient line of birds that branched off from the rest some 64 million years ago. this would have been just shortly after the event that murdered the shit out of all non-avian dinosaurs. to death.
Hoatzins are the very last survivors of this ancient line. (I wanted to make a joke here, but that’s actually really fucking tragic)
shit I made myself sad, MORE JOKES
Hoatzins are common pheasant-sized birds that live in the riverside forests of South America, where they survive on a diet of *drumroll* leaves. yum.
seriously, they are one of exactly two known bird species to specialize in leaf-eating, having evolved past their shame trait some 30 million years ago. (the other one is the Kakapo, who mostly just seems confused)
Kakawho?
their love of delicious delicious leaves gives them a very… distinctive odor, shall we say. this is due to their fermentative digestive process. it has earned the Hoatzin the local name ‘Stinkybird”, which for any Hoatzins reading this, is really more of an affectionate nickname. honest.
but what truly sets Hoatzins apart, and proves their saurian nature, is this.
HOLY SHIT A DINOSAUR
the hatchlings have fucking claws on their wings. remind you of anything? like maybe, oh I dunno, this guy?
HOLY SHIT A BIRD
Archaeopteryx up there bears a striking resemblance to our Hoatzin friend, which did not go unnoticed by the scientific community (who was actually paying attention this time, they swear). in fact, this uncanny resemblance helped finalize the theoretical link between dinosaurs and birds, which we now know are the same fucking thing. (more or less)
but anyway, the baby Hoatzins use those scientifically-groundbreaking claws to scramble around in trees and avoid predators. also apparently the claws just kind of… fall off?.. when the bird becomes an adult. like, imagine if your fingers all fell off at puberty, how weird would that be? jesus.
(Hoatzins definitely aren’t the only birds with wing claws, but DON’T TELL THEM THAT. they like to feel special.)
thankfully, it looks like these evolutionary weirdos will be with us for some time to come, as Hoatzins continue to be plentiful in their range. we hope they and those weird dinosaur claws stick around for a long, long time.
I felt like I needed to clarify some things before we could continue any more conversations on this godforsaken website.
I’m very proud of the European Robin, I think I really captured it.
ALSO A DADDY LONG LEGS is different in the UK vs USA. I learned that by arguing with some Brits because they said there was a daddy long legs on the wall, i looked and only saw an insect, argued with them all for 45 minutes until we all looked it up and saw that we were both correct.
British badger: jovial fellow, eats toast and jam. Might invite you in for a cuppa with the Mrs. Agricultural nuisance.
American badger: pallas cat of a wolverine. Very defensive. Fuck immediately off.
Bonus African badger: Silverback gorilla of mustelids. Should be a cryptid. Bro, don’t even. You are nothing to him.
an extremely good post addition
uk animals: softtttt
us animals: danger spite
au animals: scary doom
honey badger: run
Any other parrot: colourful, chatty, a gaudy, happy fellow
NZ parrot:
Dull in colour, bright in mind. Will eat your tires and steal your earrings. Just in it for the laffs
European pigeon:
What ho, good chap, dapper fellow, neat, tidy, a bit silly
NZ pigeon:
Hefty boi, dumb as bricks, LORGE
Bold of you to assume all pigeons everywhere across the world aren’t dumb as bricks.
you do this enough and they’ll just follow you home, bud. are you sure you want that kind of commitment?
(flamingos are filter feeders; this flamingo wants to swallow water with its food. Some food probably escapes the tooth-like internal filters of its beak, where it is of great interest to the fish and turtles.)
Those appear to be bird tracks rather than bunny tracks! Ergo, it was a bird hopping and then taking off, not a bunny getting taken away!
oh my god thank you phoenix wright
yeah those aren’t bunny tracks.
Forgive my sceptism, but why would a bird with a supposedly wide wingspan hop around in the snow in the first place when tree branches would suffice in the beginning?
Feel free to explain that.
I’ll be real I don’t know much about Phoenix Wright. But! I do know a lot about birds.
The mighty ptarmagin! Practically a feathered rabbit, these magnificent creatures are built for the snow.
Look at those boots! Wonderfully feathered. They spend most of their time as little snow lumps.
In fact, they’re very well known for the above phenomenon.
