#Crested screamers

[skyradiant]

Some more animal photography from the zoo.

[photographe-a-roulettes]

Kamichi à collier - Si l'envol est difficile, il vole très bien malgré sa taille et son poids relativement élevés (près de 1m et 4 à 4,5kg). Il peut planer pendant des heures. Ils se rassemblent en dortoir où ils dorment debout dans l'eau peu profonde.

Lieu : Zoo de Maubeuge et Zoo d'Amiens Métropole

[specimentality]

Love this bird, the Crested Screamer

[proton-wobbler]

Duplicate Submissions

Alright, here is the list of duplicate birds that were submitted to this poll:

American Robin, Canada Goose, Dovekie, Eurasian Jay, Hoatzin, Blue-bellied Roller, Smew, Hoopoe, Dark-eyed Junco, Painted Bunting, Spoon-billed Sandpiper, Rifleman (Titipoumano), Archeopterix, Hooded Crow, Roseate Spoonbill, Northern Lapwing, European Starling, Steller's Jay, Great Auk, Eclectus Parrot, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Spotted Towhee, Resplendent Quetzal, Vermilion Flycatcher, Kaua'i O'o, Ivory-billed Woodpecker, Hooded Pitohui, Rainbow Bee-eater, Long-tailed Tit (Shima Enaga), Sunbittern, Varied Thrush, Pied Currawong, Rock Pigeon, Domestic Chicken, Northern Gannet, Diederik Cuckoo, Yellow-headed Picathartes, Temminck's Tragopan, Greater Lophorina, Parotia, Grey Butcherbird, Green Jay, Horned Screamer, Magnificent Frigatebird, Spinifex Pigeon, Gorgeted Puffleg, Zebra Dove, Common House Martin, Swordbill Hummingbird, Greater Roadrunner, Rufous-crested Coquette, Wallcreeper, Racket-tailed Roller, Himalayan Monal, Crested Pigeon, Inaccessible Island Rail, Brown Creeper, Tufted Titmouse, White Wagtail, Bobolink, Shoebill Stork, Australian Brushturkey, black-throated magpie-jay, Greater Blue-eared Starling, spangled cotinga

This list will continue to be updated, but I'm not going to pin it to the top since technically these guys are not the focus of the poll (I just think they're neat :3). The tag placed on pics of these birds is ELIMINATED, as someone asked about tagging them and I figured out how to use the Mass Post Editor >:3

[jojoseames]

I don't think I ever shared these life-drawing sketches from the Reid Park Zoo? These are from November.

1. Chilean flamingo, rhea, giant anteater, capybara, crested screamer 2. Baird's tapir, squirrel monkey, meerkat, giraffe, peacock 3. Giraffe, southern white rhinoceros, East African crowned crane 4. Grizzly bear, African elephant 5. African elephant, Speke's gazelle, peacock, ostrich 6. Domestic goat, African spot-necked otter, lion, African wild dog, Aldabra tortoise

JoJo Seames, 2023

[inquisitorius-sin-bin]

Have you ever heard of a horned screamer?

I am very familiar with Horned Screamers. I used to work with their very close cousins, the Crested Screamer/Southern Screamer. They're neat birds, very stabby.

Check those wing spurs, yeah? Feels like getting his with a paintball, except the paintball is a tiny dagger that can punch right through your khaki work pants.

[the-last-outpost]

The Crested Screamer (Chauna torquata) is a distant relative of ducks and geese. #crestedscreamer #anhimidae #birds #birdsofinstagram #waterfowl #sedgwickcountyzoo #zoos #zoosmatter #zoophotography #zoophoto @zoos_aquariums https://www.instagram.com/p/CkimNhzuymu/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[strigwrites]

Prompt #16: Deific (Gwendolyn)

The red eye of Dalamud hung low in the heavens, omnipresent as I unbuttoned my uniform shirt and pointed to my left breast. “Here,” I said, circling a stretch of sun-touched skin above the admittedly-nervous thrum of my heart. “Can you place a crest of the Twelve here?” The air was filled with the tinny buzzing of levinpens inking other arms and backs in the room, peppered by the occasional laugh or yelp. The unfazed tattooist, oblivious to the malevolent star visible through the window, gestured at the leather chair just behind me with a sweep of her hand. “As good as done, sweetheart, so long as you aren’t a squirmer, a screamer, or a bleeder.”

It was my fourth summer in the military when real catastrophe loomed. We’d dealt with all manner of thassalocratic business from slavers to sahagin, but this was our first real taste of all-encompassing mortal danger, and it made even the most seasoned sergeants set their teeth on edge with each passing day that the moon drew closer. As I positioned myself in the recliner with my shirt dangling open, waiting to be emblazoned with a sigil that would either deliver me from death or deliver me to a glorious one, I closed my eyes and tried to picture what it would be like to confront a legion of armed and trained Garleans instead of the homegrown organized brigands we were accustomed to slaughtering. 

I admit I took a little too much pride in drawing my cutlass out of the freshly-dead, and the thrill of triumph over one life at a time never lost its appeal. Every close-quarters melee became a miniature moral play, a struggle between the righteous and the wicked. I firmly believe that I have been tested through my life’s suffering and found sufficient by the Twelve. To live is to be a messenger of what can be accomplished through perseverance, and I believe I can pass that gift on to others in need in the way it was given to me through the kindness of neighbors and most especially Brother Leon. To be chosen and lifted from the darkness by the gods themselves to become their striking arm in a troubled world is to be unflinching when the enemy bears down as surely they must be now under this crimson sky. The needle threads my skin and I pray my devotion will be enough.

[deathisanartmetzli]

TIMING: A few days after Blackout

PARTIES: @deathisanartmetzli​ @eldritchaccident​

SUMMARY: Metzli finds a monstrous Teddy in distress.

WARNINGS: Descriptions of excessive gore, Emotional Abuse, Physical Abuse mentions

Deep down below the streets, a foreboding smell of rot permeated the already existing stench of sewage and filth. Mixing with the putrid pesce-presence of maggot ridden fish that seemed to have blown into White Crest as of late. Already, a small pile of corpses had been amassed. It’d barely been a few days. But there was a bloodlust to be quenched. A beast born this time of rage and grief. Out of perceived betrayal and abandonment rather than hope and protection. The form took the shape of the context it was created in. Lithe where the other was hulking. All tooth and claw where the other kept it streamline for swimming. 

Another femur crunched between the jagged maw of what once was the florist. The demon was not searching for anything but food this time. No creator, no special man. It was its own beast now. It would do as it pleased. Teddy, the man who refused it, the one who denied it, wasn’t in control anymore. It wanted blood and meat and the screams that predated them. It wanted the chase. It wanted the sinking sweetness of the first bite. The rest was just candy. Cleaning up its own messes. Not leaving a trail. If something wanted to find it they would have to find it fresh upon the kill. 

Rows of teal blue eyes peered out between barred concrete. Another darkened street. Good. The thing didn’t quite understand that it was the cause of the blackout, only that it made the night all the more easy to hunt in. A pair of feet wandered past its first viewport and it felt that hungry growl rise up from its chest. The thing scuttled on all its limbs toward the next. Watching the same pair of legs get dangerously close. This wasn’t the right one though. Two down, the bars were missing. If the prey waltzed that close to its doom, it was its own fault. 

— 

The scent of blood permeated in the air, reaching Metzli’s nose long before it painted the scene downtown. The drumroll of hearts thundered, crescendoed together to increase the saliva in their mouth at the smell as they made their way through the streets. They had been running a few errands before heading home when that crimson was exposed and hunger hit Metzli like a semi-truck. Their stomach tightened, begging to be filled with what was spilling only yards away. They hugged their stomach uncomfortably, trying to walk away from the delicious and intoxicating smell, but they stopped in their tracks when they spotted the beast and registered Teddy’s scent. It was faint, but it was there, mixed with the teal-accented giant. 

Eyes widened, full of fear that the blood that was enticing them so much was his. Metzli shuddered, at the idea, wanted to hope that the dripping blood and ravaged sinew couldn’t be his, but they couldn’t even begin to find evidence until the beast was taken care of. “Hey!” They shouted without thinking, “Hey! Over here!” Again, they exclaimed, with a little more confidence. Waving their arm, Metzli hoped to persuade the monster to go after them instead of the helpless humans. Maybe they wouldn’t make it out alive, but they hoped they could at least buy people enough time to run away. 

The legs hadn’t wandered close enough to the opening, so the beast had to clamber up after them. No dangled decadence for it to rake into the sewer where it was hiding. It would be a hunt. The thing could be surprisingly quiet for something so large. The human didn’t even realize something was wrong until he felt the monstrous hand upon his arm. Before the man even had a chance to scream though, something else jumped the queue. A voice ripped through the deadly focus the creature had on its dinner. Beckoning it to look. To chase. 

Well, okay. 

It turned fully to face the screamer. The waving arm catching the majority of its eyes in the back-and-forth of a cat watching a laser. There was one that didn’t seem to follow, however. The upper right side of the thing’s face wasn’t as twisted up and torn as the rest. It held the last of the visage of the man it used to be. Teddy’s eyes over its mouth. The maw dripped, its hunger only fueled by its missed meal. It stepped forward, lumbering on its legs and one arm to hold the shifted weight. The arm not concerned with keeping the thing upright was its own flavor of fucked up. Torn in two at the elbow, splitting off into a pair of gnarled hands that were both soaked in filth and caked in dried blood. Behind that, on a stretched and scorched ribcage, another arm had grown in, that one still holding onto a piece of whatever kill it’d completed last. 

“Owe us…. Dinner.” A voice that was not quite human called out. Dripping with malice and teal ichor. “Not… picky.” Its intentions weren’t that hard to pick up. But it had been learning the ways of human speech. Gleaned from a dreamstate lesson by a boy named Jake. Of course it’d been much happier then. Now all it could feel was the anger, the pain, and the hunger. 

–

“’Ta madre…” Metzli’s eyes widened in a mixture of shock and disbelief, catching a glimpse of Teddy’s face attached to the beast. It wasn’t like the rest of the marred pieces of the humans it consumed, but it was actually a part of the creature itself. Whatever part of Metzli that was scared of the thing before no longer existed. Instead, they were scared for it because it was no longer just that. It was Teddy. The other side of him that they’d only seen a peek of once, but the markings and color were the same. 

Based on what they were seeing, they were able to deduce that Teddy had shifted much like a werewolf would during a full moon. Only, it was a hundred times worse, and he had a thirst for blood much like Metzli did. Knowing Teddy, the real him, this was the last thing he truly wanted, and that meant they had to stop him.

Surveying the wreckage as their throat tightened with the hand of hunger wrapped around it, Metzli found their resolve, and stepped forward. “Teddy, hey, it’s okay.” They reached him within a few steps, holding out their hand carefully to place on what could probably be his face. “You want dinner? I can get you dinner, but you gotta stop attacking people okay? The wood’s got animals. Loads of ‘em” Swallowing, they reached Teddy, and gently caressed his face, avoiding his many eyes. “Do you remember me? It’s Metzli. I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help. We’re family, remember? Familia. Tu y yo, mijito.”

The thing was agitated when the specter in front of them didn’t run. Didn’t scream. Instead it calmed and started talking in soothing tones. In a way that dug deeper than the fresh wound of a mind the creature ruminated in. It tried to bound forward but neither that act nor the snarl that followed inspired any kind of fear in the person in front of them. Soft words confused it. But they were ones it understood. It wasn’t the fool it had been the first time it became. Hapless and joyfully playing with those who would eventually leave it. Its creator, the man with the leather jacket. It had stayed conscious in the archives of the florist’s mind. Watching and absorbing everything Teddy consumed. Feeling everything that the man pushed down. Each repressed emotion was coal on the fire, it was only a matter of time until it was big enough to spread. 

Even if it seemed they were at odds most of the time, the demon was there to protect the pact wielder. It was him. It was everything the florist couldn’t be. Couldn’t let himself be. Given form and spurred to action whenever Teddy was in trouble. This time at his own hands. At the mercy of his own emotional overflow. But that meant it understood what Metzli was saying. Understood that it was Metzli. 

Unfortunately, it understood doubt and loss just as well. 

The creature yanked itself back. Growling lowly and snapping at the hand that had so gently pressed into its face a moment ago. Biting at but never into. A warning. As its head turned this way and that to get a better look at the vampire, the human-ish patch seemed to remain catatonic. Eye open only due to a lack of tension. It didn’t move in step with the creature. Just out of sync. Even after several days of this. Like Teddy was catching up on the sleep he’d missed ever since the sleepwalking began. 

Upon many unfamiliar limbs it paced, unsure of what to make of all this. Needing more than just words. Words had failed them both so often. Words hurt because words gave you hope that actions often tore to shreds. 

—

 Lives like Teddy’s and Metzli’s were a battleground, and to survive, they had to bite back. Much like he had just done, but he didn’t dare sink his teeth into them. His warning was founded on pain and apprehension. As people who believed no one would love them, who were attacked with words as well as punches, Metzli knew their gesture wouldn’t be enough to dissuade Teddy or convince him that they meant no harm. Their ingrown lives metastasized despite how people tried to cut them out, and that was the type of growth that never ceased. Pain that transcended time and took root from a rotted log. Despite this though, they wouldn’t give up, and they wouldn’t flinch. Not when so many had done so already. They would make sure Teddy would get everything he needed.

“Ya, ya…vente para atrás. Come here.” They cooed, soft and careful like they had always wish their parents had been. Full of love and sincerity that Metzli had made just for Teddy. Again, they walked toward him, monitored the way he paced and stood in his path to stop him and try to give him the affection he deserved, and so obviously needed. “Remember what I said before? I’m going to be here from now on. I’m keeping to my word.” They traced around Teddy’s eyes and marveled at the gore and beauty that mixed together so effortlessly now that he’d calmed a little. It made it easier to focus. Teddy alone gave them a strong reason to hold on, but the fact that their efforts may prove to be effective and helpful, made that reason stronger.

“Let’s get out of here. I can take you to my home—it’s yours too. Got lots of blood and meat there. I promise. You just gotta promise to me you won’t eat our pets.”

Hope was a vicious and fragile thing. The scorpion poised to excise its deadly sting the moment its source fell through. Didn’t really matter if you were on the shore or halfway crossing the river. Hope could grab you by the throat and drown you if you let it. The creature and Teddy had been burned far too many times to count. Frustrations of the past and concerns for the future kept it as still as the lightning inside it would allow. A stone alight with crackling plasma just beneath the surface. Heaving a harrowed breath through jagged teeth, it reclined and sat on its haunches. Deliberating was a harder affair than it liked to admit. 

Promises made meant something. 

Or at least they were supposed to. Hadn’t everything and everyone they’d hoped for made promises too? And hadn’t they been broken like a ship's hull upon the rocks? “...blood.” Teddy repeated. Grunting and snorting like a bull that didn’t know whether to gore the farmer or let them feed it. “Meat…” Enticing. Sure. But there was plenty of that to be found on the streets. The word that caught it off guard had come before those though; “...home?” That layered voice, his and not his. Theirs. Together. 

The closest they’d come to being one thing. 

Maybe the shattered psyche of a sixteen year old that’d grown and molted into its own being could come back home. Maybe the prodigal son’s return marked a moment of growth. It could learn to be a part of the florist, and the florist could learn to be a part of it. Maybe that’s what Metzli’s offer of home and family really stood for. And maybe that’s what made the beast lean into the comforting hand. Pressing a firm but comfortable weight against their body as it breathed in their scent. After all, should the vampire break this promise, its teeth would work just as well there as here. It could rend and tear if it needed to… but wasn’t it better to see if it could be true? If one promise would finally take hold. 

A dandelion in the concrete. 

[abeautifulpathtocross]

Wolf took me to the coast yesterday.

We set out early morning after coffee and homemade breakfast burritos.

We stopped at the disc golf course, playing the last 5 holes.

We went to our hot tubs.

Wolf wanted to take me to a burger truck but they were closed on Sundays. I recommended either Mexican or pizza and wolf found a pizza place in the next town over. It had turtles, a blow fish and an axolotl painted on the windows. There was an arcade in the back with a pinball machine, a few arcade cabinets, a few sticker and temporary tattoo machines and 2 claw machines. Wolf and I both attempted the pinball machine, me picking up after wolf as he won a few free plays. I also played the racing game, attempted to get a beanie baby from the claw machine, and collected 2 temporary tattoos. Both unicorns! We both shared 2 medium pizzas and had plenty of leftovers.

He then took me to the local zoo! The zoo was nestled inside the red woods. The first animal we saw was the crested screamers and a cavy, as well as flamingos and orinoco geese. Then we went through the aviary, where we had to be as quiet as mice to not disturb the birds. But they were hiding. Luckily we did see a few scarlet ibis. They were a beautiful bright red color with very long beaks. We walked the sky walk and it was amazing. The bridges were attached to the red woods themselves and even though we were feet from the ground, we still weren’t halfway up the trees. The walkways seemed to be made of red wood themselves. Looking down we saw the new exhibit for the black bears, and there they were: 2 black bear cubs exploring their new home. They were 15 months old. The chain bridges were wobbly, as if we were walking on a boat out at sea. Some of the red woods had burls, which is what our coffee table at home is made out of. Even though I wasn’t allowed to touch the trees, I wanted to. I wanted to rest my palm against them, feel the energy from them. My heart clenched in awe, as I stood on the bridge, looking up and being surrounded by their enormous height.

At the end we found the gift shop, who was a home to turtles!!! He bought me a red panda plushie and I got a pressed penny.

We went to the course again and played the full course.

We were stopped at construction on the way back, giving us an opportunity to stretch and eat another slice of pizza from the trunk of the car.

[notmuchtoconceal]

bro, what should i say which would consecrate this day?

what ought i may which would impress upon the trees, brah?

by foam and by spray, bleeding runes staining furrows from bark :-- of lance-edge stripped to words you carve -.- of your body, all i see, what is splendid of your work -.- yet by your hands, i am this defacement unknown :-- evidently untimely, more pencil-necked than knot, i would be hanged by your every word, had you anchoring to speak.

by your ballast, my hankerings sire hangmen and i am guaranteed, by this silence, another line for the notching -:- when a letterman denies his letter, for his felt would deface his hide, by what right has he to tiger his stripes, earned them though he has by gashes to the referee?

you'd bring that up here and now, bro? what does it matter, man? the ass of our jammers got eaten away by the years. our goggles snapped in half. the chlorine which kept the scum from the pool petrified our skin and corroded our gear. i'd have hair green as haylofts on emerald streets had i gall to bristle night Angkor morning, auf jeden fall yet i, yeti white -/~

my limbs were not heavy, your bleariness weighed leaden, upon brow-ridges wan snowbanks bore through you in memoriam every spring, yet heaved on your traps we carved icefloats in flowers, and all was glass which lashed when it shattered -/'

(shatter-proof theroux as <\> / this half-mask could never be.)

you are a beast, and i am an arteest --

what sweet refuge we sought in the lie of the feast.

why yes now i can see, it's plain as the day is slight, behold you in the approaching night, all blackness which i beckon, for blackness burns brightly in me! i who was uprooted, yet sucked nourishment from the soil! bootlicking brethren! pompous and porous thing! a sponge spewing yolk in which to fester its gut, stream screamers rut codes of corruption!

crawling in the luminous night, as spiderwebs of gossamer cross galaxies in distant blight, what is plain as scum yet still so clearly you see --:--

i am all which glimmers, as i am all which impresses upon your eyes. colors between colors as i am spheres orbiting funnels of skies, the terminal point you will never reach, glass ceilings of the mechanism of time ) ( all billiards clamoring without bounds in their spheres, as atoms collide neither here nor there, some zoetrope of things which lime.

where dusk falls, every luminance radiates twilight, the dream kingdom i spread with every step, as all things long to find union in me .- i which am all-giving and consuming which spit back so much more than i chew yet in one bite i'm up to the elbow of a hand which will feed me still more for i will strip from the floor all of what copious flow we have lost

get down and lick in advance of his step :--

( )

my brother is a king and i am his maker!

;3 ( o ) ;3

babes he will batter, froth all he will whisk!

in steel cages he mangles fluidity in friction

--. ( o ) -.-

sped-up in a slurry swirling corkscrews through tongues.

tap to tip to root uptrod plunging with eager wile to steal suction lip pressed to lip in embrace here i am bled of nothing but sloth which hardens my veins upraised in crags of radium fool's gold vierzehn karat filth i see the sun shining cross cresting hillocks of verdant greens all the more healthful and hopeless for sloughing off the shrubbery whole!

brah?

yeah, bro?

i don't care. if it has to be bad.

bro.

you're my brother. you mean everything to me. i never want anything to come between us again.

in your arms all is right, and yet your arms so warm leave me cold, for i ache for the substance of what lies still unknown.

i who live in dreams and sow discord by what i leave unseen, i hear all loud and clear, though i mire with omission all these things which i state, so they come to compose a cage -- a yoke, a shell, a fin, a bowl -- as what i green burnest reddens when moisture still clings to its folds.

you're my brother.

you're in my arms and nothing, no matter how sleek or how slender, how wyrd or how wearisome, could press once more through our cleave, to pin us by pearl ta flaps partnerin the other.

what is that? do you see?

over the waters, the light and the mists?

what beckons there brightly?

spectral and silver?

the mists are her gown, strutting chandeliers of star!

some veil which conspires by conjurers conjoined, to find themselves hoisted in sneer, hooked pinky and nose, as a skirt glimpsed betwixt legs of a table you crawled for the shelter of some drapery and cold?

throw back your swords, the lady is coming!

though over water, not in, you lie a dog for the resurrection, dramas our sacraments the mother of escapes, more numinous than the years we've consented to age, I lean on my death, as one must inevitably leave.

she is here!

her form coalesces clamshell on pearl!

the nymph, she can strut, and the ice does not shatter ~

her delicate touch leaves me wanting and lost.

though hearts i see in the head of every vein, branching from their axes, a pick to the surface, each fracture is broken by its proximity to shape ~

into fissures the mirror of the whole ,~, burning dim as the embers of my whispering bowl!

invisible sister, you've ununinvited yourself! what an entrance you've made, it would surely make do -- if you unmade it as quickly, might we may chug a brew! libation and station, we know our cross well, and so wear bearskin rug, to trod gleefully with cleats, just to see what punctures we'll pierce by brail with the lappings of our feet!

~ My invitation, i'm certain, was lost in the mail-room. It must have slipped your mind, curtain as it crossed my drink! O, Semi-Transparent Brother, seeing you once more has me simply tickled pink! Sing brightly once more of those oils you mink? A buck's plenty good for way more than a shuck if you can keep his guts hoist-up long enough to get the cadaver unstuck?

darling, if for a few hundred pounds of carcass you seek, turn away from my brother, and to me kindly now speak -- bright though he shines, insubstantial he is, for he blinds by a radiance which leaves him scalding to the touch, over a shade we must mount him, to shield our eyes from his much -- a pity though it leaves him in darkness as such.

~ Opaque and Immovable Brother, you speak fondly, though coarsely. As the sun blisters sands, the sands scald the feet, calloused though they are by stone and by peat. Your fractures, though myriad, twist and bite as bone shards serrated knife-edged in sinews, twisting for sheer love of a deepening touch, as we all three know well, I'm sure -- Semi-Transparent Brother and I, sharing a need to know more.

a writing desk i leave raving, a schreibtisch stands screaming, as all the while my memory roars racing, thought though i thought i was!

-/- Grounding and grinding, you refine your grains as you quicken your gains, soothing these things by frictions methodical. An embroidery stitching itself to a letter which longs to be, emblazoned so curtly upon your sleeve! Speak kindly of him and you will reward him well, for you are the light he needs to navigate himself -- a fiction tautological, merely mermen and me, diving always headfirst towards the dark off the shelf!

corkscrewing's for duckies, in a petri-dish we now meet.

i have not, now nor i ever, the tiniest feet

spikes ring my collar pollen blackens my cilia

as my veins we sing que sera to the sweet

bounties left rotting for splendors which knew what grotesqueries we ought make

as splendid were the wounds we made of our stake

Do You See How She Me

( )

~ A tongue I confound, a stem I'll knot. Through fields I leap, to the ball I am bound. A frontispiece, an engraving. A plaque sterling as teeth!

Brother, do you see? Do you see?

This infinitude of things which'll always be?

I was not speaking. I had not a word.

What I left unsaid, I saw would never be sawed.

Brother, see?

you know

(i'm sorry i was blind)

i'm not a blind man

you were always on my

(but truth is the hardest thing)

you see

We Are One And The Same

This multitude I gift the fields.

Of all the things I bequeath the trees.

\

/

\

When he reclined, and his head was neither level nor adjacent, he could see the grass, and his eyeline was level with the palm of his hand.

Semi-Transparent Brother stood watching them. Proximate to the lacerations which marred the surfaces of his skin, the heat of his blood crystallized into solar cells, refracting dermatological webbings of his sublimated processes, his own solidified light mass so subtle beside the greater mass of his brother, his orbit was catastrophe in embrace.

Before his eyes, they rose. Before his eyes, they stilled and joined.

Slight in his hollow cheeks, his own shoulders tapering, holding himself spine-aloft as the skeleton of a steel girder in the warm knit of his winterclothes, his wool cap and the flannel beneath his leather, his denim so neatly cuffed, the stubble gaunt on his face blended him more evenly with the soil, notes of bark roaring over silences, cicadas chirping winter choruses at dusk in the bellies of the honking geese; and yet he could hear nothing as hell was the only season he knew, pallid as his wanting was, wanton for the slighter substance of himself, something which crawled through the chambers of his bones demanded kneading -- though he had only sugar molecules, his brain ketone-deprived from the saccharides he took, and would have gone so much further without, fed off nothing but the detritus of his own tank, some bottom dwelling cocksucker implacable but for its mount was always stuck.

Opaque and Immovable Brother, face twice dopey as broad, settled into its stoicism as it arrested under her glaze. The flush of his flesh, the stolidity of his features, dry, heaving, knobby, the bones of his face vaulted as halls in which debates would never be held, for he ruled with arbitration, opened to her and she stood beside him, mingling with the columns which strutted him, a silhouette in her own statuary, spectral and marbled with the patina of a glamor neither emerald green nor fatty meat, yet dazzling from haloes of bronze napalm to oxide iridescence, what fires burnt brightly as burnished walls in silver and smog, as all was mirrored in what surfaces she clogged -- for as broad as he was, a dish she would serve, olives to be skewered on every branch she extended, to lime and to bitter the swill which would poison, as scorpions barb the kisses of every cipher she'd pose, black as the mirror of her obsidian rose.

He was watching. He was watching still.

The moments passing. What of them would pass.

She stood watching, she did, her eyes bright as aether through stars, suctioned all up, brightly silvered as milkglass in porridges we drop, oilbright as lamps burning dark as the cane, candystripped as streamers of drool dire for firewalls breached, and all the while more, the stockings net and tweak. What more could be said, there is nothing unsubtle to speak, for all the fingers she's wrapped around thumbs we will peek.

For with a glance of her eyes, a tilt of her chin, she realigns spheres as he rolls like a boulder, the landmasses alight, the mountains cradling suns, to torch stormwinds at night, desert masses upheaved by crowns of the advancing shrike. There is more to say, yet not more to say now, for what moves up and down through singsongs galore are looking always to shirk, gored on his antlers once more. Halo-like is her hair, shining laurel-bright in the dark, she is tickling him now, and he laughs through grit teeth, his every pleasure so painful when it's not yours to cow.

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[professionalunprofessional]

Apparently this bird is known as a Southern Screamer, also known as a Crested Screamer, what a fun name!

[cmipalaeo]

A guanaco Lama guanicoe and a pair of greater rheas Rhea americana (plus a pair of crested screamers Chauna torquata behind them) wading in the water on a hot afternoon

Audubon Zoo, May 2022

[erinthepirate]

crested screamer eating fruit

[dansnaturepictures]

10 pictures from my Slimbridge trip which weren’t included in any of the blogs about the days away 

As I took so many pictures whilst in Slimbridge and from the guest house whilst away from Sunday to Wednesday I thought I would put 10 together that haven’t yet been posted on Tumblr as I took well above 10 pictures on Monday and Tuesday when we went into Slimbridge so could not include all the pictures I took those days in the photoset on the blogs. It also meant alongside my last post they could be two things I posted this Saturday evening when I normally post stuff as I am doing a football trip to Manchester so do not have a blog or photos from a wildlife trip today or anything. 

The photos are; flamingos, Woodpigeon, Lapwing and two views including a sunset in Slimbridge on Monday, two views from the guest house we stayed on Tuesday and some early snowdrops, my first Fieldfare of the year and Crested Screamer in Slimbridge on Tuesday. 

[crudlynaturephotos]