You could accuse birders of many things. Pedantry, for one. Obsessive tendancies, sure. Social awkwardness, probably. But one thing you can definitely not say about birders is that they're not creative when it comes to colours. 🧵🪶

It's pretty tough to avoid the inevitable pun on Steller's Jay. You see, it works because the English word 'stellar' is very similar to the name 'Steller', and suggests the jay's many positive qualities. It's really very clever. I'm pretty sure I'm the first to think of it. 🪶👇

The Harlequin Duck is both known and named for the patchwork plumage of the male. He's a dapper fellow no doubt, but the handsome female brings much to the party, as this elegant trio demonstrates. 🧵🪶

The Horned Grebe is a petite picture of poise and perfection. Not a feather out of place, she glides and dives with the grace of a ballet dancer. Until, that is, the children arrive. 🧵🪶

Oh to be an otter on a log. Swims to do, mussels to crunch, naps to take, and not a damn care in the whole world. Nice work if you can get it. I'd take a turn. 🧵

The woodpecker rulebook is not complicated. You creep on the tree, you smash the tree, you eat the bugs that live in the tree. Simple enough, but apparently the Northern Flicker HAS SOME TROUBLE WITH READING. 👇🪶

Oh how sexy is the Sinuous Snaketail, smartly clad in subtle sage and soft tangerine. Snaking through sedge and shrub, its sky blue eyes searching for smaller insects to snap up and devour. Sitting for but a moment in the stillness of the morning, soaking in the drenching sun. 🧵

Surely there was never a handsomer slug than the Leopard Slug, undoubtedly the handsomest slug ever to glide gracefully about the Earth on a slime wave of its own making. It is truly a vision in brown, grey, and a sort of pinker brown. 👇

Summer is baby bird season, but you can keep your fluffy ducklings and scampering plover chicks. I'll take a baby raven any day. 🧵 🪶

A Bonaparte's Gull in its summer finery is just about gull perfection. Dainty and elegant, with subtle eye makeup and an unexpected pop of colour...what more could you want? Plus it makes funny noises. 🧵🪶

New on the blog: NEW BIRD CHECKLIST, WHO DIS? "You’d imagine, if you stopped to think about it, that somewhere there’s a group of expert bird nerds maintaining a master list of all the birds. You’d be right, save for one small caveat: there are four." Read on at: seagullblog.com/2025/07/14/n... 🪶

Wasps don't get the credit they deserve for being the most badass of all the insects. This little lady is on a mission with her new friend grasshopper, but only one of them is having a good time. Bet you can't guess which one. 🧵

Dragonflies are the best-named creatures in the world, and Grappletail is surely among the cream of the crop. Obviously from the moment I learned it existed, I knew our paths had to cross. 🧵

Recently, a tourist with a thick German accent asked me about the large animals she was seeing in the rocks. "They're marmots" I explained, "a kind of big rodent". She thought about that for a moment, then offered "They seem to have gotten very fat". 🧵

I have mixed feelings about PDAs by humans. Like on the one hand, might as well get it if you can, but on the other hand maybe you don't need to aggressively grope each other while you wait for the crosswalk light to change. PDAs by parrots though, I am totally for. 🧵🪶

In the nestbuilding championship of the world, Team Dove stands little chance. In competition with virtuousos like the weavers, oropendolas, hummingbirds, and eagles, the doves' flimsy stick piles look downright ill-conceived. Haphazard, even. 🧵🪶

The gaudy, glittering, glamorous garb worn by so many male hummingbirds is just a big sign that reads "have my babies". The impression of these iridescent feathers is influenced by light, so it's important to get the right angle for inquiring females. 🧵🪶

🐢 In honour of World Turtle Day last week, check out these turtle-themed reads: 📘 "Turtles of North America" by Kyle Horner – a beautifully illustrated guide. 📗 "Saving Turtles" by Dr. Sue Carstairs – a kid-friendly intro to turtle conservation. #WorldTurtleDay #TurtleBooks

I have a theory about jays. I think you can divide them into two basic groups. On one hand you have brash, bold, screamy jays like Blue Jay and Steller's Jay. They look gaudy, they make lots of noise, and they always seem to be doing mischief of one variety or another. 🧵 #addbirder

The phrase 'creepy-crawlies' is everything that's wrong with the world. Let me explain. 🧵

What's the best bird name in the world? There are over 11,000 to choose from these days. Plenty of good arguments to be made, and surely everyone will have their own opinion. If we're honest though, there's a significantly non-zero chance that it's Bushtit. 🧵

I'm not a glutton for cute things. In this day and age of adorable cat videos and baby capybara memes, I can get my fill pretty quickly. But also I'm not a monster, you know? Like, I have a heart. 🧵

If you saw me walking down the street with a potato chip bigger than myself, you might rightly assume I was headed home to recline on my couch and nibble my way through it like a delighted squirrel with a sheet pan of peanut brittle. The leafcutter ant, though, is different.

I'll never pass up an opportunity to spend some time with a Turkey Vulture, truly the greatest of all birds. The greatness of this particular Turkey Vulture was attested by a persistent swarm of worshipping flies, clearly enraptured by its regal magnificence. 🧵

Ok, hear me out here. You know when you're in a dark theatre tossing popcorn into your face-hole? And you know how at the end of the movie you're surrounded by a carpet of popcorn that has deflected off your face and down your body to the sticky floor below? 🧵

Sparrows get a pretty raw deal, on the whole. Universally labeled as small, brown, and unremarkable, they are often ignored and always underappreciated. If you're a birdwatcher with taste, though, you know that sparrows are some of the handsomest birds out there. 🧵

The Violet-tailed Sylph is really pretty gratuitous in every way. Just profoundly unnecessarily ridiculous. Is there nothing to be said for modesty and restraint? Pretty nice though. --- Violet-tailed Sylph Mindo, Ecuador

A two-potoo day is a good day, a fact which I recently had the opportunity to verify. The more potoos the merrier, I always say. No such thing as too many. 🧵

Lots of people go crazy for hummingbirds. Me? I go crazy for hummingbird names. On the whole, these little monsters are easily the best-named family of birds on the planet, with barely a stinker among them. Other birds could take a lesson. 🧵

Let's talk harvestmen, shall we? The harvestmen - or daddy longlegs (yes they have not one but two strangely gender-specific names) - are arachnids, but not spiders. They have 8 legs and a special ability that spiders don't have: they can eat solid food. 🧵

Is shag carpet too dated a reference? I think I was just old enough to catch the tail end of the shag carpet era, having spent my earliest years in a home with a remnant shag carpeted basement. One where, in fact, this creature would have camouflaged perfectly. 🧵

Y'all may have been obsessed over the Grammy Awards this weekend, but I'm all about the Goatee Awards. Granted, the competition is much less fierce...very few that are even worthy of nomination, if I'm honest. But I think we can all agree the tamarin is a clear winner. 🧵

When you're big - like an eagle or an airplane - flying is hard. Everything needs to be just right. You need rigid wings for lift, and hefty muscles or fuel-burning engines for power. When you're very small, though, the rules of flight become a bit more nebulous. 🧵

Been a lot of bird around here recently, seems about time for some bug. Katydid will do the trick nicely. The katydids are basically grasshoppers that heard "you are what you eat" and took it way too seriously. Like if I dressed as a giant Dorito (not a sponsor...yet). 🧵

It's hard to think of a group of birds with less chill than the tropical tanagers. Each one is basically a neon sign that says "have my babies" in a slightly different language. Someone should tell them there's such a thing as coming on too strong. 🧵

I love a caracara. Fun to say, fun to look at, fun to think about. Overall just a really excellent bird. This particular caracara is carunculated, and I think we can all agree there's nothing better than a good set of caruncles. 🧵