I am beginning to wonder if CJ (link here) is right on a previous post comment wondering if the epoxy fumes in the Nightmare Lab are starting to affect me. The last post I threw out the standard “holistic” approach to birding posts and simply zeroed in on one feature – the Night-Heron’s chicken foot galoshes. Now today, I am featuring this!
Granted this particular specimen looks kinda cute and for the record that is why I bothered to even take a picture of it. The issue is, I rarely bother to feature domesticated and likely hybrid birds here at Intrigued. Sure, like this one I’ll spend some digital capital and tin a few shots for my personal collection. Those images will never go to print and up until today would not be placed on the post queue – I know some of you just chuckled “he has a three year plus backlog of images and that’s with taking shots off the table – good lord, get that man an intern!?!”. Not to go too far off track, but one of my favorite authors is AJ Jacobs. One of his works, My Life as an Experiment: One Man’s Humble Quest to Improve Himself, covers his attempt to outsource his daily life to India. Every time I bring this “opportunity” up to Linda she smirks and sarcastically declares “I’m already your personal secretary you dufus”..sooo is that a yes?
Hit the jump to read a bit more about this rarity here at Intrigued.
Sorry, clearly the epoxy fog. Where was I – ah, yes, today’s “domestic” featured feathered friend of the day. I suspect you will not be seeing that sentence again anytime soon. I originally put this post in the contingency queue for those rare (chuckle) times when I’m struggling to get my self-imposed blog quota in before the month ends. This first specimen is at least pretty for a “what the hell is it” category of bird.
Although you never really know what you are going to get when these creatures come out of the shell, they do all fall in the category of a Greylag Goose. Some turn out essentially white, others an overall dark morph with mottling of greys, browns and blacks. The ones I tend to come upon the most look more like this one – mostly white, with a darker splotch on the head and smattering of color somewhere in the body.
Typically they all have a reddish/orange bill and a surprisingly pretty eye. This one had a light blue eye accented by orange eyelids. All sport a rather beefy frame. Although this one was self-conscious about its legs, they tend to match the coloring of the bill.
The previous post is really the reason I went with the Greylag today. I happened to find it at the exact same place as the Black-Crowned Night-Heron (still hating that second dash) – Virginia Lake in Reno, NV. I was trying to take a shot of what appeared to be a Brewer’s Blackbird when this fat Goose creature waddled up to it and began honking directly at it. I guess that is what you call it – sounded more like a donkey trying to belt out a Van Halen song. Needless to say, the Brewer put its feet over its ears and headed for quieter waters. The Greylag plopped down, buried its bill in its feathers and went to sleep. Did I mention these domestics tend to be a bit bossy?
Remember how I laughed to myself while I was watching the Night-hate the dash-Heron slo-mo its way across the rocks, well that wasn’t the only laugh I got that day. Standing not far from the “pretty” Grelag was this beast.
Now, I’m not one to go around body-shaming Geese, but damn, that bird has some junk in the trunk. For a bird that primarily eats grass, this one must be keeping a stash of Ding Dongs buried in those feathers. A stark contrast to the adorable one featured earlier. For reference, this one does have the darker morph I was alluding to earlier.
Hope you enjoyed looking at another find from cRapENO. Definitely not high on the list of “interesting” birds (at least in my book), but I went, I saw, I tinned, I thought I’d share.
Now for some fantastic news. I promised you a surprise if you all behaved – well, the word back to me is everyone did just that and now they can have their pudding. In this case your pudding is our first Guest Post! Stay tuned, coming your way soon.
Life Intrigued 