Wetland retreat
There’s plenty of evidence that this wetland was once filled with trees, such as the stand of decaying snags remaining, but there is new life emerging and wildlife making this quiet space their home – the nest of a prey bird is setup in a prime location to hunt fish to feed its young.
Vautour fauve - C'est un oiseau planeur : il utilise les courent ascendant pour planer sur plusieurs centaines de kilomètres à la recherche de nourriture.
The Bearded Vulture is the only known animal whose diet is almost exclusively bone.
The bone-eating giant bird which coats itself minerals like copper to get its rusty hue for unknown cosmetic reasons, most likely to show dominance. The brighter the hue, the more dominant the male.
They probably need the copper because its anti-bacterial properties. useful if you’re a carrion eater.
The bird has a 9 ft wingspan.
Bearded Vultures provide an indispensable service to the ecosystem, checking the spread of disease by consuming corpses. But the bearded’s diet is 95 percent bone. It can wait for the other scavengers to strip the body clean, then stroll in at its leisure to take its fill.
So I'm leaving work and something darts in front of me, maybe 10ft away, too fast for me to see what it is. Peek around the tree blocking my path and I see this
Just like... a whole ass hawk. Dude's gotta be about 1.5ft tall. Massive fucking bird. And it's just staring me straight in my soul like this, even as I try to move ahead. It didn't budge. And there's only this path back to my car unless I want to walk on a busy highway. So I have the option of Death By Raptor or Death By Truck.
So I walk in the poison ivy filled patch off the sidewalk. Guy still isn't moving. Still staring me directly in the eyes. And I do this thing when animals are behaving strangely where I'll talk to them, so I'm just like, "Hey, man. I don't know you. You don't know me. This feels really threatening. I'm just trying to get to my car, dude. Can I get some space please? You're a big fucking bird. I see those claws. You could kill me right now, but I'd appreciate if you didn't, ok?"
It didn't move until I was about 2ft away. Again: I'm as far from it as I can be without walking into the street. It clearly wasn't going to budge. I walk past, thing flies up (silent, btw. Scary) and lands on a brick wall a little further ahead
Anyway. Weird guy. Nearly shit my pants when I noticed a bird big enough to carry off a fully grown cat was just... there, staring me in the face, unwilling to move away from me, a human, something it should see as a threat. I watched behind me the whole rest of the way to my car, just in case this bird decided to help me shed this mortal coil. 10/10 experience. Super cool guy.
Wetland retreat
There’s plenty of evidence this wetland was once filled with trees, like the stand of decaying snags remaining, but there is new life emerging and wildlife making this quiet space their home – a nest of a prey bird has a prime location to hunt fish to feed its young.
I heard it's Superb Owl Sunday so I have prepared some superb owls for you.
The barn owl is the most widespread species of owl, living on every continent except Antarctica. Their faces are shaped like a disk to help their hearing, giving them some of the best hearing of any owl. They mostly hunt by sound.
Snowy owls are the largest arctic predatory birds, They are born with black feathers and get whiter as they age. Females usually have more dark feathers than males.
Eastern screech owls have a few feather variants that make them look like completely different species.
The southern white-faced owl can increase its metabolic rate during winter to compensate for the cold and lack of food. They lay their eggs in nests built and abandoned by other birds.
The great grey owl is the largest owl by length, but a lot of that is feathers and they're actually very light for their size. Their hearing is good enough to hear rodents burrowing through snow and they can break through hard-packed snow to catch prey.
Blakiston's fish owl is the largest owl by mass and eats mostly fish. Despite the name, they may be more closely related to eagle owls than fish owls.
The elf owl is the smallest owl species, barely larger than a sparrow. They hunt bugs and play dead when caught. They like to live in holes in saguaro cacti.
Burrowing owls live in underground burrows. While they can dig, they mostly take over burrows from other animals. Farmers killing prairie dogs has severely reduced burrowing owl populations. They decorate their burrows with feces to attract bugs to eat.
The barking owl is called that because
youtube
Its nice to have a day to appreciate superb owls. Feel free to spread the love by reblogging with some more owl facts.