Shifting Their Natural Camouflage From Season To Season, Rock Ptarmigans Are Native To The Subarctic

Shifting their natural camouflage from season to season, Rock Ptarmigans are native to the subarctic region and can blend with their rocky surrounds almost perfectly. Unfortunately these clever disguiseurs can never resist adding fantastic eyeshadow to their ensembles, leading to intense predation by foxes and particularly ambitious Least Weasels. To date, efforts to provide makeup in more neutral tones have been met with disinterest.

A year or two after reaching sexual maturity, Balding Eagles begin to lose some of their stunning plumage. Rather than recognise that bird society’s ideals of beauty are ultimately toxic, they will often resort to crude prosthetics in an attempt to hide the feather loss. Above: a Balding Eagle conceals a moderate bald spot on the tail with a large clump of grass and twigs, crippling its ability to effectively hunt.

Able to cover the mind-boggling distance of thirty-two thousand meters in the span of an hour, Greater Roadrunners are one of the fleetest-footed birds in southwestern North America. This nigh-physically-impossible speed is not without consequences however as the buffeting winds wick excess moisture from the eyes, eroding a channel into the feathers along the side of the head. Efforts to prevent this disfigurement by donating miniature aviation goggles to these speed demons are currently stymied by a lack of funding.

Of the few extant fixed-wing bird species, the Hermit Warbler is perhaps the most intriguing. Where other flapless birds are content to catch strong winds in order to take flight (thus limiting their habitat), these plucky warblers will climb coniferous trees as tall as two Robosauruses stacked atop each other before leaping off and gliding. It is currently unknown why they do this however, as their diet primarily consists of spiders and other crawling insects that do not require being airborne to catch.

Prone to displays of balletic elegance, Grand Blue Herons outshine their merely Great cousins with ease. With graceful footwork and perfectly-coiffed plumage, these artful dancers will eagerly perform complexly choreographed routines with but a moment’s notice. Above, a Grand Blue Heron revels on a patio to the delight of a garden party out-of-frame.

The aptly-named Grosbeak Weaver possesses a rather unusual baleen-like structure in place of a crop, allowing it to filter out vital nutrients, bits of seed, and water from the faecal matter of larger animals. After being ‘wrung dry’ the Grosbeak will cough up the now-desiccated pellet for use as nest lining. Recent studies have confirmed these foul-mouthed birds are (perhaps mercifully) lacking any sort of tastebuds.