Sunbittern (Eurypyga helias), family Eurypygidae, order Eurypygiformes, found in Central and South America
- This bird is the only member of its family. Its closest living relative is the Kagu of New Caldeonia.
Photograph by Erisvaldo Almeida
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#birds #sunbitternMore you might like
a rare closeup of a black swift, found throughout north america and small parts of south america. swifts are rarely seen up close; they spend more of their life in air than any other species of bird - they eat, drink, mate and sleep while in flight. they are incapable of perching like other birds; they must cling to vertical surfaces.
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I had to look this up because “sleep while in flight” ????
but yeah, apparently completely true. these birds stay aloft for as much as 10 months nonstop, feed on insects, spend more energy at night (when there aren’t warm thermals to ride) and at dawn and dusk climb to 10,000 ft altitude where the 30 min slow descent is probably when they catch their sleep.
they’re unusually long-lived for such active critters (20 yrs) and they may be limiting energy expenditure by being extremely aerodynamic and narrow bodied. Also a single bird travels the distance of about 7 roundtrip journeys to the moon in its lifetime (>3 million miles).
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Ever needed to hear about mad dad birds with enormous feet? Try THESE on for size:
What’s that you say? These are clearly the feet of a dinosaur, not a bird? WHY NOT BOTH?
This is Australia’s very own dinosaur, the second-largest bird in the world, the emu. Say hi!
They roam around Australia making ‘wonk-wonk’ noises under their breath and glaring at everything. And the dads take care of the babies! They sit on the eggs…
They look after the tiny stripey adorable things….
They look after the less tiny less adorable things…
And they even look after the great big menacing things that are almost as big as they are.
But here’s the catch. All emus look pretty much alike. Especially when you are a tiny stripey adorable thing. All you can see of your dad is is great big dinosaur feet (see picture #1). So there is one very unrealistic thing about all the adorable terrifying dinosaur family photos above:
I have never seen an emu family in the wild where all the babies are the same size.
Here is the reason!
Emu dad and his emu babies are roaming about wonking and glaring at everyone. Suddenly emu dad sees another emu dad! A threat!
Emu dads do some display threats with dancing and bouncing and fluffing and… look, it’s very serious business, okay?
If this does not work to see off one emu they might progress to actual fighting.
Oops, sorry, you wanted the dignified version. Here, have some ART:
MAGNIFICENT.
Either way, this encounter will end up with one or both adult emus zooming away as fast as he can run. This is very fast.
This is the other thing they do besides wonking and glaring, by the way. They run. Fear the running emu.
Anyway, this leaves all the tiny and medium-sized and semi-large stripey things milling around making confused tiny “cheep? wonk?” noises and basically just following whichever pair of large feet they can find.
HI DAD
And so mostly when you see a male emu with a gaggle of youngsters at heel, they are all different sizes. Who knows whose they are? Not him! But he’s going to look after them anyway.
Fear him.
How else a gotta purchag the snack a nest? Buy a sweagder? PLEASE Miz Bank allow a hold thee money
Anonymous asked:
Give us a bird fact.
biologizeable answered:
Avian respiratory systems are absolutely bonkers and allow for unidirectional airflow through the lungs, unlike the bidirectional, terrible mammalian system. A complex series of air sacs holds fresh or spent air, meaning that birds have constant gas exchange even during “exhalation”.
On the first inhalation, air flows into the lungs and posterior airsacs. On the first exhalation, fresh air moves from the posterior air sacs into the lungs. On the second inhalation, the spent air in the lungs moves to the anterior air sacs as the lungs fill again. On the second exhalation, the air in the anterior air sacs is finally exhaled.
It’s all very complicated and ridiculous, as is expected from birds, so here is a handy gif made by Eleanor Lutz:
tl;dr: due to secret air compartments that likely double as classified equipment for covert operations, it takes birds two “breaths” before the first “breath” is exhaled.
I almost forgot to mention: this woman came into the penguin enclosure with a KESTREL??? I said “oh my god is that an American Kestrel?” and she said “Yes! She was outside doing raptor education for the kids, but she doesn’t like to get rained on.”
#she was watching the penguins with what I will anthropomorphically project as skepticism
kestrel: i hate rained on!!
human: here is birds in water
kestrel: ……no…..
name one difference between birds and children
CHILDREN HAVE EYEBROWS
think again
“What’s wrong?”
[three birds outside and one of the birds is laying down sadly] bird: “what’s wrong? want a kiss?” [bird proceeds to kiss sad bird with small kissing sound]
Birds, birds, and more birds!
Because I love bird so much, I doodled all of the Steven Universe’s characters as bird (For some gems, based at my two old doodles). Bonus, I wanted to draw the creator of SU playing her guitar, and singing.
All doodles must credit by me. Enjoy!
“What’s wrong?”
[three birds outside and one of the birds is laying down sadly] bird: “what’s wrong? want a kiss?” [bird proceeds to kiss sad bird with small kissing sound]
