250 Follower Giveaway!

250 Follower Giveaway!

Beyond all reason, over 250 accounts are following me which I reckon puts The Academy of Bird Sciences solidly at a whole 100 non-spam followers! In honor of this occasion, I’m going to raffle off some of the infocards the Management forced me to fill out by hand and give to strangers! 

First Prize (1 Available): A full set of ten (10) cards laboriously filled out by yours truly!

Second Prize (2 Available): A set of three (3) cards. I wish I could be whimsical and say they were randomly selected by an adorable budgie hopping upon them, but alas I do not have a bird companion.

Third Prize (3 Available): One (1) card. I really don’t have much else to offer, sorry!

The rules are simple: You have to reblog this post, and you have to send me an ask with your favourite bird or bird-like entity by 8 November 2015. One entry per person, please! Winners are selected randomly, and I am pretty sure I can swing postage worldwide.

Prized for the soft, marrow-like flesh in its ‘horn’, the Cassowary is native to the forests of Northeastern Australia. These vibrant turkeys live on a diet primarily of fruit which gives their horn-meat a light, delicate flavour reminiscent of the fruits the bird ate in life. Unfortunately, this frugivorous diet also makes their eggs a sweet treat for any feral hogs in the area, so Cassowaries are an endangered species.

With a storied history of warfare, Gorgeted Blue Herons are so named for the protective ‘ruff’ covering their breastbone. Fossil records imply these now-decorative feathers were once much heavier and interwoven, so as to deflect or soften otherwise lethal blows to the sternum. While it is true these fierce warriors can still be found engaged in brutal combat, the nature of conflict has changed to a decidedly non-lethal approach, thus reducing the gorget to a largely decorative role.

/!\ DO NOT APPROACH THIS BIRD /!\

This is a Gross Blue Heron, one of the most vile and disgusting birds to stalk the Earth. Over the past few weeks there have been seven confirmed fatalities of small children and under-informed dogs who have mistaken these fell beasts for Great Blue Herons in fancy dress for Halloween. When you are out and about trick-or-treating this year please be wary and change your route should you encounter one; losing out on full-size candy is a small price to pay for keeping your innards from becoming outards.

A close relative of the Osprey, the Sassprey hunts by the novel method of witty cutdowns and biting sarcasm in order to thoroughly demoralize their prey. While ordinarily this would not be so unusual, what sets the Sassprey apart is the choice of prey: they only hunt animals with inflated egos and undeserved authority.

Perhaps the least-suave members of the Heron family, Tricoloured Herons are just a mess. Unable to coordinate more than one physical activity at a time, it is not an uncommon occurrence for these awkward birds to spectacularly fail even the simplest of exercises. Above, a Tricoloured Heron falls face-first in the mud after tripping into a hole obscured by recent rainfall.