I have recently learned that falcons are, genetically speaking, closer to parrots than they are other raptors, and thus from now on I shall refer to falcons solely as "tactical parrots"
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We have a bunch of them in Berkeley. This guy posted up after I interrupted him eating a crow in the middle of a kid's birthday party in a park. Crows screaming at him. He stands above it and waits to finish
Another one they learned from genetic testing is that Guinea pigs aren’t rodents. I feel like they’re less tactical than other small, chewing chewing prey animals, so I don’t know what to call them.
That one was based on early analyses from the 90s that were subsequently shown to be flawed: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1027314112438 All recent studies on mammal phylogeny support the traditional view that guinea pigs are indeed rodents.
We had a sweet little Senegal parrot who didn’t bite us, but definitely bit anyone else. We liked his beak size because it was too big to pinch like a budgie and not big enough to amputate a finger.
Yep. It was quite the calculus. And then of course you bring a baby into the house and realize you did all of that thinking around adult sized digits. 😬 Luckily our kid was well-trained by the time they were tall enough to reach the cage.
Ours (Dante) loved people, he just did not understand the strength of his beak. A playful nip could take a piece out of your hand. But he loved to be wrapped up in a towel and held like a baby. Birds are so weird.
I used to be in a relationship where we each had a Senegal parrot. With our "own" birds we could close our eyes and tickle them and they would giggle like a baby. But if you tried that with the "other" bird you'd pull back a bloody stump. You learn to choose wisely. ;)
That kinda makes sense, falcons deal is aerial hunting where they dive bomb the other bird in the air at high speed. It doesn't really work on land and they don't crack nuts with their beak.
This repeated for 4 cycles, as the parrot repeatedly escaped, allowed recapture, got bored, escaped. I only knew it was the same bird cuz my kids had friends in the successive neighborhoods. So funny seeing the same bird appear in posters across town! 2/
Eventually it got to a neighborhood with a pet shop owner who took care of folks’ parrots when they traveled. She knew this parrot, who was picky about its living conditions, and was such an escapee that its original owner had given up on it. It had done the serial “Found bird” thing before 😂
I was so tickled that I was aware he was a serial escapee who would find a new household when he felt like it, and move on when he wanted, and few people had realized it was the same parrot over and over!
Our area also has big flocks of feral green conures. What a racket they make!
We had one when I was a teenager. One time my stepdad was holding him, and he leaned down, latched onto my stepdad's hand between his fingers, locked eyes and said "hurt." Calvin was a jerk.
No wait, I never really thought about it.
HOW do parrots speak? Is it just vocal cords? Or do they need to shape sounds with their tongue, too?
Does the interior of the beak get used as a resonance chamber at all?
yeah, parrot beaks > falcon or hawk beaks for strength & crushing potential, and hawk/eagle feet > parrot feet for damage potential. I'll admit bite damage was a consideration when I was breeding psitticines! Conures rock!
When doing a wildlife lecture, I'll point out the raptor's hooked beak and extremely strong feet and ask the kids "What other bird can you think of with a hooked beak and really strong gripping feet?". Then segue into how despite the similarity, hawks are NOT parrots, not good pets, etc.
But, no matter how many fun hawk facts I shoehorn into a presentation, the thing the kids will go away excitedly talking about is how big the hawk's poop splat was, and how far away it shot.
It's answered the question of why many hawks will hybridize sometimes even across genus lines, and falcons hybridize readily amongst themselves, but attempts to cross Falco sp with Buteos or Accipiters doesn't produce viable eggs.
stop using the alt-text for comedic purposes, puns or anything similar. the picture description is for blind and visual impaired people and should only contain a brief summary of what is shown in the pic.
Overloading alt-text gets people used to looking at it, which makes them aware of and more likely to add it to their own posts. Creating a pro-alt-text mentality is a good thing. Provided the text does describe the image, what’s the harm in providing more content there that everyone has access to?
imagine having to navigate the app with a screen reader on a daily basis. you will always have to listen to all the text no matter what, because you never know if there's some important information hidden at the end. and this everytime there's a picture.
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I can appreciate that, but to me the content in the alt-text is additional to the core post, not required for it to make sense, and if the post's understanding is dependent on the image, then you're going to want to listen to that alt-text anyway. 1/2
I absolutely agree in a non-social media context, alt-text should be short and to the point, but social media is a different animal altogether, and if you're on a social media site, I don't think it's problematic to expect people to adjust their expectations of the conventions. 2/2
And it starts over again. we had this on twitter at least 2-3 times. remember the "click here"-meme?
and still people think, they know better than those who have to rely on that feature to be able to participate.
you've peaked my curiosity. why are parrots not considered raptors? They have hooked beaks, they are omnivores, talon scary, they have the feather separation at the end of the wings. I'm frustrated.
pet store owner: sir can I interest you in the F-9000 Tactical Strike Parrot, seen here in the urban camouflage 'Peregrine' variant
or perhaps the newer model Armored Assault Parrot 'Gyrfalcon', just the thing for your home
Parrots as the falcons that wash out of the military and end up in beach town dive bars. Wait are parrots the Jimmy Buffett of birds? No wonder the Margaritaville crowd are parrot-heads! 🤔🤯
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Tactical Parrot and Winter Soldier.
For now on, Talanah has a tactical parrot.
“Deploy the tactical parrots!”
Is used
To be fair, though, parrots think about murder a lot, too.
source: https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-raptor-research/volume-53/issue-4/0892-1016-53.4.419/Commentary-Defining-Raptors-and-Birds-of-Prey/10.3356/0892-1016-53.4.419.full#
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seriema
Falcons should feel be blessed to be counted among their numbers.
(Thomas Dolby gif)
The absolute precision of "too big too pinch ... and not big enough to amputate"
A few weeks later, someone else found the same parrot, a mile west. More “Found” posters. 1/
Our area also has big flocks of feral green conures. What a racket they make!
No wait, I never really thought about it.
HOW do parrots speak? Is it just vocal cords? Or do they need to shape sounds with their tongue, too?
Does the interior of the beak get used as a resonance chamber at all?
Kākāpō
as a cuddle falcon.
anything else is just ableist af.
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and still people think, they know better than those who have to rely on that feature to be able to participate.
Why do those disabled people 'have to adjust'?
Is this your idea of inclusion?
So, are we feeding them wrong, or did parrots, Odin-like, sacrifice meat for the wisdom to speak?
or perhaps the newer model Armored Assault Parrot 'Gyrfalcon', just the thing for your home