#got the new java sparrow!

[iron-sparrow]

our new friend, Chrysanthemum 「菊花」

[bsky]

[tinylongwing]

Top five small birds go

PICKING ONLY 5 is CRUEL but I don't have time for 10. Species names will have the links to photo sources where applicable.

Long-tailed Manakin. They take like 4-5 years for the males to learn their dances and each year they look a little more like adults to match their experience! They are little and yet have very long tails!! And cute little caps! Very elegant tiny birds.

(Photo by me, bird handled and released on site with permits as part of MoSI, a long-running collaborative research program).

2. Wrentit. Look past the plain gray exterior, let me teach you some BIRD FACTS because these guys are basically aliens. They live in a very small part of the west coast of North America in scrub/chaparral, and we still don't really know how they got there or where their nearest relatives are or what birds they're even related to, though recently they think maybe it's parrotbills, which are otherwise mostly found in SE Asia.

During the breeding season, most female birds develop a brood patch, a section of bare skin on the belly for aiding in heat transfer to the eggs, and most male birds develop a swollen cloaca to facilitate sperm transfer. In some species where males help incubate, they also get brood patches. This is fine. Male Wrentits get brood patches. A little weird but not too crazy. Female Wrentits, however, get a swollen cloaca? Why?? Nothing else in North America does this? I don't.... understand.

Also they're cute, they have a song that's like a bouncy ball going down stairs, and males and females have slightly different songs, so even though we can't determine the sex in the hand like with normal birds, at least if they sing you can tell. Normal birds don't sing when being handled. Wrentits definitely sometimes do. I don't get it. But I love them for it.

(Photo mine, bird banded and released on site with permits as part of MAPS, a long-term research program).

3. Calliope Hummingbird. Itty bitty tiny creature, would absolutely spear you to death with its face if it thought it could pull that off. Hummingbirds in general are territorial and aggressive and these guys are no exception. Also they're beautiful. Look at that starburst of a face!

(I have photos but don't want to go dig them up, I'm lazy)

4. Java Sparrow. Help, I'm hopelessly charmed by how adorable they are. Unfortunately, apparently everyone else is too, and these are now critically endangered in their home range of Java due to habitat loss and poaching for the pet trade. The good?? news is they're also super invasive in places like Hawaii, so they're not about to go globally extinct, so that's cool, I guess.

5. Micronesian Rufous Fantail, formerly just Rufous Fantail, aka chichirika na'abak because look I don't know proper indigenous names for everything but I do for my study birds and I support their use. Chichirika is CHamoru for "showoff" and na'abak is "the one who will lead you astray", after the local stories of kids trying to follow these delightful little low-flitting creatures through the jungles and getting hopelessly lost, leading to village search parties.

Anyway, look at that tail!! Go listen to their cute little squeaks! I'm absolutely in love. I've banded literal hundreds of these and they never ever get old. Every single one of them is a treasure to me.

(Photo by me, bird banded and released on site as part of my very most beloved own tropical forest bird research program in the Northern Mariana Islands).

[nature-nerd-sarah]

I got two new birds, to keep my two old ones company. They're the two wild-coloured Java sparrows in the back. The smaller one I named Jambalaya, and the bigger one Biryani. Jambalaya also has some small but distinctive white feathers behind her eyes.

[anonsally]

Day 5 of Maui vacation

In which we explored the further south areas of South Maui.

Pretty much all vacation I’ve been waking up early with anxiety. A lot of that has been focused on snorkeling, but I wonder if there might also be a hormonal component.

Anyway, on Day 5, I woke up at 6am (much earlier than planned) and gave up on sleep at 7am. I ate my breakfast on the balcony and birdwatched at the same time. I saw a family of gray francolins (including an adult and a few juveniles), zebra doves, spotted doves, a warbling white-eye, and a few rosy-faced lovebirds having a bit of a tiff with some Java sparrows over territory. There were also some lizards (brown anoles, probably). 

We tried a new beach for snorkeling, and this one was slightly more sheltered. That helped a bit, but it was still a bit of a swim out to clearer waters and I wasn’t sufficiently confident to go far enough out to see the turtles. But I saw some great fish and didn’t have to adjust my equipment as much as in previous snorkeling outings. After I had had enough, I took off the equipment but got back in the water to play a bit longer. 

We went home to shower and change and eat lunch, and then set off to explore further south. After a certain point, the road got progressively worse. Narrower, with poorer paving. 

We parked at Ahihi-Kina’u Natural Area Reserve and took a short hike on a trail along the shore. It was short and pretty flat but still somewhat hard work, because the terrain was all lava rocks and coral. The views were spectacular in every direction--ocean, lava fields with mountains in the distance--and the water was so clear that we could actually see yellow tangs swimming around from the trail above. We also saw a blood-spotted crab! Nobody else was walking on this trail, but there were a few people on the beach or snorkeling in the water (which is supposed to be fabulous but it’s quite difficult to get into the water--and in fact, there should be a state park employee there to enforce the access point as there is literally only one tiny spot where you are allowed to get in [otherwise you will damage/injure the reef and wildlife], and we saw people who weren’t using it). It wasn’t too hot until near the end when the sun came blazing out. 

After that, we continued driving south until the end of the road at Keoneʻōʻio Bay (more commonly known as La Perouse Bay). The road got even narrower on the way there! It was beautiful, but we only took a short hike there too because we were low on water and there isn’t any there. 

We ate dinner at Coconut’s Fish Cafe again. They always ask if you’ve been there before, so I said “This is our fourth time this week!” However, it was also our last time, as we were leaving South Maui the next morning and moving to a condo in West Maui for the rest of our vacation.

[demethinkstoomuch]

Deme Rates Villagers, Part 4: Birds

Disclaimer: Images are from the wiki, all good dogs, my ratings are mainly just there because “Deme gives her abstract thoughts on villagers” is hardly a catchy thing. 

Let’s get to the birbs! Are there borbs? No, not really, Animal Crossing birbs have a pretty straightfoward and uniform shape, they are most likely not borbs.

Ace

Another villager time forgot! Without seeing a clear shot of his eyes (they’re not perma-closed), a big element of his design is sadly lost on me. Otherwise, he’s pretty cute. Nothing fancy, but cute.

2 (Hidden Eyes) /5

Admiral

Eyebrows. Angry. Eyebrows! 

...What’s with his stomach not being the same color as the underside of his face, though? It makes them feel disconnected, which honestly loses some of the appeal for me. On the other hand, angry eyebrows for a grumpy bird. 

Eyebrows... /10

Anchovy

To be honest, I don’t know what to make of Anchovy. On the one hand: I like his simple, bird-like color scheme. I like his square eyebrows... But his expression, his pupils so very, very tiny... Kinda weirds me out. Which, spoiler, is going to be a thing with the birds. Not good eyes, the birds. But once I started looking at other screenshots, with his beak a bit more closed, I came to like his look of mild surprise, in a sort of flickering fondness.

A decent bird, perfectly cromulent. 

I don’t know but it swings between 4-6/10

Flash

Oh man, look at this bird! It’s a crying shame he hasn’t returned since the gamecube days, what with his little swirly little hair-feather, sleepy rectangle eyes, and jaunty little hat, and a cute blue coloring. We are robbed of his revival, and I, for one, will weep for this little bird.

Blue Bird Lamentation / 10

Jacob

What is it with these birds and looking tremendously surprised by existence? Jacob is apparently sort of Brazil-inspired, which is an odd choice of country to make into a charmingly tropical bird, but alright. He and Pave can enjoy carnivale festivale together.

6 /10

Jacques

Look at this fantastic little hipster! He has a beard even if it’s absurd for a bird to have a beard! Blond eyebrows! The green beanie! If he’s come out before the existence of Smug, I’d say he’s a cute little lumberjack, but smug officially marks him as a proud resident of... Maybe Portland, but I’m thinking Seattle. Walks around in the rain, goes hiking in the woods on the weekends, sure, but during the week he goes to an independent coffee shop that does artisanal, free-trade coffee. He used to go to Starbucks, but then they got mainstream. Do hipsters of a certain type play the harmonica? Well, they do now because he is one and he does. Look me in the eyes and tell me I’m wrong. You can’t, can you? He’s so wonderfully a thing. Also, he’s got nice eyes, good, big pupils, and does a nice job tying his beanie color into the rest of his design. A good, good boy.

He would only accept a rating if it was ironic. I have no way of telling if my ratings are ironic or if they’ve looped back to being semi-sincere or if they’re just dumb gags and that’s not irony, you guys, so let the fact that he’s a serious contender for my New Horizons goals list be enough.

Jay

He’s really more of a swallow than a jay, looking at his coloring. Specifically, he’s got the red head and blue body and white underside of a Lesser Striped Swallow. So, now you know. That’s a plus for me, though not a super powerful one, and his eyes have that sort of strange staring quality I noted about Anchovy, but the eyebrows are less good. A rather run-of-the-mill bird.

He’s wearing a 6, however, so 6/10.

Jitters

Oh god that is unsettling. The dark-ringed eyes that are just the wrong sort of wide and staring... I feel like he’s seen Things. I don’t want him to show me Things. (What is funny is that I feel like, given the opportunity, I would probably loop back around and love his thousand-yard, sleepless, burnt-out stare. But I haven’t, so it creeps me out.)

Aaaaaaaaaaah! / 10

Joe

This bird is too small and dark for me to really see, but that might be a nice purple. Look, some villagers from the foggy shores of the past just cannot merit comment.

-/10

Lucha

I wonder why Nintendo keeps looking at luchadors and going “You know what this needs to be? A bird.” This is clearly Hawlucha’s little brother, and the effect could be more dramatic or detailed, but it does rather get the job done! 

Lucha Libre / 10

Madame Rosa

Well, well, well, a villager with a form of address in their name! How interesting! I like her face, what little of it we can see, and I think her color is appealing. She looks suitably fancy. Honestly, another villager it is a shame to lose.

Admiral Gets To Come Back And That’s Fine But Why Not Rosa? / Villagers Who Didn’t Get Amiibo Cards

Medli

So, here we are. The first of the Amiibo specials! This one is obviously meant to be Medli from Wind Waker, and as an emulation, she’s cute, but please, understand... It’s creepy when fur or feathers or something on an animal character goes for that fair-toned flesh look. The naked mole rat look, except not on a naked mole rat. It’s creepy when custom ponies do it, it’s very creepy when Animal Crossing villagers do it. Please stop.

No Seriously I think about this every time I wanna make a pony of a specific fictional character and then I shudder in deep distaste / Please For the Love of All That Is Good And Holy, Stop. Let Them Have Fur! Or feathers!

Midge

Awwwwwwwwwww! Midge is so cute! Look at those cute little swirls on her cheeks! Her precious little tadpole eyes! She’s a pretty, rosy sort of pink, too. I approve, even if honestly there is no rhyme or reason to her, she is just cute. 

(@ o’  v o’ @) / 10

Otis

Who is this guy, and what do I think about him? He looks... Like a bird. That covers that, I think.

-/10

Peck

Peck has a nice Java Sparrow look to him, though not entirely. The eyebrows are such a bright red that I don’t quite dig it, but I have to admit, he is a cute. Not my favorite vaguely Java-Sparrow-y person, though. That will always be Azami!

Drives Safely / 10

Piper

Man, Piper just does not have cute eyes, this image is a lie. She’s got half-circle eyes that make her look kind of bored. And given that she has so little detail, she really needed cute eyes to make me pleased.

3/10, an actual rating that isn’t just me giving a numerical shrug.

Robin

Robin’s pretty rockin’. I like the subtle blush, assuming that’s not a trick of this one screenshot. The little bit of blue “hair” up on his head ties together his tail and.  Shame his stomach’s not red all the way down. Commit, Animal Crossing designers! Commit! 

Rockin’ Robin: Tweet / Tweet Tweet 

Shoukichi

Oh man, it’s a little daruma doll bird! That’s so good! Look at him, he got his wish I guess! Not much else to say, save that I am sad no one has seen him again. I wish he’d come back one day.

One Eye / Two, for that unfilled wish.

Sparro

This is a pretty cute sparrow. You know what he could use? Bigger eyes. I feel the eyes have been an issue with the birds, and I intend to solve this puzzle. ...I think, considering my reactions, it is that they have big round bobble-heads, and so need a big eye to not look weird. Anyway, I appreciate the big dark rings, but not the weird little blush. He looks like he had a little beard, also good.

W(hy is there a missing W?) / Z

Twiggy

Twiggy sure is. The blue on the cheeks and the tail is nicely tied, and I like the very dark stripes on the legs. I have no particular other feeling, but these are good eyes.

5/10, the rating that is me giving a numerical shrug.

Twirp

Oh, I see Nintendo once considered the matter of bird eyes. And making their pupils ginormous. I see. Hm. Well, I guess I do like it better That said, I have no idea what is going on with this creature. Is it meant to evoke a shaved head? Is this creature naked? He looks very naked. Look, just. I respect your saying farewell to me, Twirp. Goodbye.

??????? / 10

The birds have some fun motifs, and we’re seeing a lot of realistic-ish birds, which is fun, but I think we’ll definitely have more enthusiasm-inducing species. Not new time, though. Next time is cows and bulls, and my expectations are low.