YUMMY

See this bird? Isn’t it cute? It’s called a delicious manakin (Machaeropterus deliciosus).

Where has this world come to? I mean, how is this bird delicious? Do people eat it? I mean, it’s so small, it would be a turkey dinner to the Biggest Loser (or maybe an evil gerbil)

I guess it’s cute? But why would they call it that? How could they be so cruel?

It also makes "mechanical sounds with its remiges." This means its feathers make robotic noises when it's displaying.

You know what? I'm going to just call it a club-winged manakin like the slightly more sane scientists do.

SO…SPARKLY +3+

This is a splendid fairywren (Malurus splendens), which is great. It’s native to Australia, especially Queensland and New South Wales.

They eat bugs. If bugs make you this awesome-looking, I honestly will take to eating bugs.

Apparently crickets taste like apples! So it shouldn't be too hard to change my diet like that

Bats aren’t the Animal of Dracula…

This picture just struck me as funny. Lol.

Okay, okay, I know I said that the Ifrita kowaldi bird was the most evil bird in the world (Evil Birds of Evilness, December 8, 2014), but I was wrong. Way wrong.

Meet the hood mockingbird (Mimus macdonaldi). Also known as the Española mockingbird or Macdonald’s mockingbird, this thing lives in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, and Española Island, and it is so terribly evil. It is similar to an equally evil finch (yep, FINCH) called a vampire finch (Geospiza difficilis septentrionalis) in that part of its diet consists of sucking the blood of wounded birds.

Wait. What? A finch does that?

The rest of its (grisly) diet includes…

• baby seabirds/eggs
• baby sea turtles/eggs
• random dead animals
• berries
• grass
• seeds
• leaves
• fruit
• all kinds of bugs
• blood (did I already say that?)

Not visiting the Galapagos any time soon. Or ever. :(

Hands—er, Wings—up!

This is the tiny little rifleman (Acanthisitta chloris), also known as the titipounamu, chloris wren, military wren, and New Zealand wren. It is from…

New Zealand. *Gasp!*

Though called wrens, riflemen are actually not related to either common wrens (Troglodytidae) nor the fairywrens (Maluridae).

New Zealand’s smallest endemic bird, the rifleman is a tiny creature, growing to a “measly” 3.14 (not π!) inches (8 cm). It lives all over the place (yay!) in New Zealand (nuuuh, better plan a move there) and they eat yummy things like ice cream like worms.

They live in lush, lowland forests full of podocarps (Podocarpaceae), a type of Northern Hemisphere conifers, comprised of 156 species and 19 genera! Yay!

The &.

KoC Fact: This Bird is Extremely Tie-dye

Rainbow lories (Trichoglossus haematodus) are stunning Australasian parrots from Australia (gasp!), Indonesia, Tasmania, New Guinea, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands. They have been introduced to Perth (Purrrrth if you’re a cat), Auckland in New Zealand, and Hong Kong.

This species has twelve subspecies in total, and they do not have any immediately noticeable sexually dimorphic (different coloration, size, etc. in the two genders) traits, but males do have more orange on their breasts and is more stocky and robust, with a more square head.

Shockingly, the beautiful tie-dye birdehz you perceive above are PESTS! Um, WHAT? This is because they eat large amounts of crops and fruit that are grown commercially.

I still consider these beautiful parrots as an awesome thing to see at a zoo. Australian farmers may not agree with me, but wutewa*. (I spelled that right! See? Yes.)


*Whatever.

Evil Birds of Evilness

This is the blue-capped ifrit (Ifrita kowaldi), an absolutely EVIL bird that is endemic to the rainforests of New Guinea.

Wait. Why is it evil?

Because of the batrachotoxins it hides in its skin and feathers, that’s why! This causes tingling and numbness on the hand of the person holding it. The toxins are acquired from Choresine beetles which the species eats.

Yum!

They’re evaluated as “Least Concern” by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

These things are EVIL. 

Magical Mangos (Wait…What?)

Dis is da cute, weirdly-named green mango (Anthracothorax viridis) from Puerto Rico, mostly in the El Toro Wilderness. It’s a large species of hummingbird, described in 1801 by Louis Jean Pierre Vielliot (1748 – 1831), a French naturalist.

Green mangos enjoy hanging around flowers of the lobsterclaw (my favorite lobsterclaw is the parrot lobsterclaw, Heliconia psittacorum).

Go mangos! They taste good.

Meaning the fruit, of course. Heh. Heh heh.

LOOK!! It's the Bluebird of Happiness!

One of my favorite songs is Birdhouse in Your Soul by “They Might Be Giants.” It’s an awesome song making fun at an old product, which is a blue canary nightlight that looked insanely stupid.

Now, we have found the ACTUAL BIRD! It’s the blue chaffinch (Fringilla teydea), and okay, it’s not actually the bird the canary nightlight is based off.

This beautiful, adorably fat creature lurks (lurks?) on the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands. The male is a beautiful sky-blue, while the female shows a darker, more homely shade of gray. This is an example of sexual dimorphism.

This animal’s habitat is primarily dense Canary pine (Pinus canariensis) forests, in the highlands. They usually eat the seeds of the pines.

Happy Black Friday from the Magpie-Shrike!

These cute, very pretty little birds, magpie-shrikes (Urolestes melanoleucus), have a very scary and disturbing habit that I’m going to save for the end. For now, don’t hate these pretty little creatures.

Until the end. I’m going to stop being so repetitive now.

Magpie-shrikes are found chiefly in parts of Africa, such as Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Namibia, Botswana, and Kenya.

Now for the scary, gross, horrifying, disturbing part. What do magpie-shrikes eat?

Not scary, eh?

Eh?

Eh.

Animals impaled on thorns.

They impale them themselves, you see. First they kill it—it can be anything from a small bird, a grasshopper, a treefrog, or a mouse to SMALL KITTEN—and then impale it on a thorn to save for later.

And it does this ALL DAY.

Oh, yeah. Why “Black Friday”? Two reasons: A) Magpie-shrikes are black and B) it gets tons of animals, just like shoppers get tons of stuff.

I know. I’m so clever.