Beautiful Animals

No, I am very familiar with them. If these are night herons I'll eat my hat. They occupied my neighborhood, for much delight and shitteroo dismay. Those might have been some other type of night herons though, so I'll have to do some looking online.


My hat - the one made of tortillas.

Yes, but it took a while.

osso, Tortillas sound good.

Black-crowned night heron:

Right, like I said, they were in my neighborhood. As in on the ficus tree at the end of our street (six houses down, by near a hundred birds. That poor house owner was encased in heron ****. (This was after a grove of eucalyptus was cut down for a new Marina del Rey hotel)

I'll buy they might be herons.

You're buying? Somebody owes dj a dollar and me a nickel. Thanks for the offer.

Violet-bellied hummingbird:

that's a awesome lookin' boid, B...

Glad you like it, RH. Love dem hummingbirds. Love dem. Little jewels. With wing power and energy hard to understand.

Well, if proven to be true. I still think they are boobies.

enjoy your hat.

proves listening to me is never a good idea.

I'm a man, everything is boobies to me...

pffft, pffft, not black crowned, even if they are herons.



Mumbles, I'll have to get out my bird books.

They're in the bathroom..

osso bubbele, Boobies are sea birds. They have webbed feet. The birds in the picture do not have webbed feet. Herons are waders. Their feet ain't webbed.

Honest!

I'm ok with them being herons. But they are not black crowned night herons.

I just found a photo in my audubon western bird handbook, not the bird in that photo.
I think that ours (the hundreds) were actually green backed herons, miscalled by the neighborhood. What I probably remember is - green night herons.

Osso, even birds of the same species don't all look alike. I have been looking at dozens of pictures. They are black-crowned night herons. Here's a description from a bird site.

Adult:

Red eyes, legs yellow
Black bill
Black crown and back
White face, throat, foreneck, chest and belly
Blue-gray wings
Two long, white, filamentous plumes extending from back of head in alternate plumage

I just checked out black-crowned night herons on youtube. Many many films. The birds do not all look exactly alike, but they have many similarities. These birds are all over the world.

Ok, ok, I suppose they can show up with blue hats, though I tend to demur with unresolved disbelief.

Delicious taco, by the way, though I had to grab it off of my head and comb out the salsa.

Glad you enjoyed the taco.

Salsa is good for the hair. (I just made that up.)

Well, it's the oil in it, innit?

Must be.

For the above pic, I googled "Mutt, wonderful face." Makes me smile when I see it.

Hummingbird moth:

I think it's the jalapeños that invigorate the scalp and seep through to invigorate the brain.