golden eagle having a relaxing time
PRECIOUS EVOLVED FLYING DINOSAUR
This is the world’s largest flying Engine of Murder marveling at the fact that it can actually have its tummy rubbed.
I feel like this is the next step up on “loose your fingers” roulette from petting a kittie’s tummy, but just below belly rubs for say a lion.
Can someone who knows birds better than I do tell me whether this eagle is as happy as it looks? Because I want it to be happy. It looks so happy. Bewildered by having a friend, but so happy.
Just popping on this thread to confirm: yes, the eagle is happy about the belly rubs. Golden eagles make this sound when receiving allopreening and similar affectionate and soothing treatment from their parents and mates. It’s the “I am safe and well fed, and somebody familiar is taking good care of me” sound. Angry raptors and wounded raptors make some pretty dramatic hisses and shrieks; frightened raptors go dead silent and try to hide if they can, or fluff up big and get loud and in-your-face if hiding isn’t an option. They can easily sever a finger or break the bones of a human hand or wrist, and even with a very thick leather falconer’s gauntlet, I’ve known falconers to leave a mews (hawk house) with graphic punctures THROUGH the gauntlet into the meat of their hands and arms, just from buteos and kestrels way smaller than this eagle. A pissed off hawk will make damn sure you don’t try twice whatever you pulled that pissed her off, even if she’s been human-imprinted.
If you’re ever unsure about an animal’s level of okayness with something that’s happening, there are three spot-check questions you can ask, to common-sense your way through it:
1. Is the animal capable of defending itself or making a threatening or fearful display, or otherwise giving protest, and if so, is it using this ability? (e.g. dog snarling or biting, swan hissing, horse kicking or biting)
2. Does the animal experience an incentive-based relationship with the human? (i.e. does the animal have a reason, in the animal’s frame of reference, for being near this human? e.g. dog sharing companionship / food / shelter, hawk receiving good quality abundant food and shelter and medical care from a falconer)
3. Is the animal a domesticated species, with at least a full century of consistent species cohabitation with humans? (Domesticated animals frequently are conditioned from birth or by selective breeding to be unbothered by human actions that upset their feral nearest relatives.)
In this situation, YES the eagle can self-defend, YES the eagle has incentive to cooperate with and trust the human handler, and NO the eagle is not a domesticated species, meaning we can expect a high level of reactivity to distress, compared to domestic animals: if the eagle was distressed, it would be pretty visible and apparent to the viewer. These aren’t a universally applicable metric, but they’re a good start for mammal and bird interactions.
Pair that with the knowledge that eagles reserve those chirps for calm environments, and you can be pretty secure and comfy in the knowledge that the big honkin’ birb is happy and cozy.
Also, to anybody wondering, falconers are almost single-handedly responsible for the recovery from near-extinction of several raptor species, including and especially peregrine falcons. Most hawks only live with the falconer for a year, and most of that year is spent getting the bird in ideal condition for survival and success as a wild breeding adult. Falconers are extensively trained and dedicated wildlife conservationists, pretty much by definition, especially in the continental USA, and they make up an unspeakably important part of the overall conservation of predatory bird species. Predatory birds are an important part of every ecosystem they inhabit. Just like apiarists and their bees, the relationship between falconer and hawk is one of great benefit to the animal and the ecosystem, in exchange for a huge amount of time, effort, expense, and education on the part of the human, for very little personal benefit to that one human. It’s definitely not exploitation of the bird, and most hawks working with falconers are hawks who absolutely would not have reached adulthood without human help: the sick, the injured, and the “runts” of the nest who don’t receive adequate resources from their own parents. These are, by and large, wonderful people who are in love with the natural world and putting a lifetime of knowledge and sheer exhausting work into conserving it and its winged wonders.
Tag: video
A BURGLAR!!!
This is so cute
This is such a cute crab ngl it lives in a hole right beside our stairs.
“Guy’s trying to break in to my house. What are you doing?!?! Hooligan! Stop! Are you stealing my spinach?! What’s wrong with you?!”
Switch off your sperm with this new male birth control
Experience the sinking feeling, that anxious self doubt of “did I leave my balls on?” (a sensation similar to the nagging feeling you’ve left the iron on or the stove but with fewer house fires and more unintended pregnancies)
this looks crazy painful
id rather just have the kid(s)
if i witnessed someone turning their balls off like this id jump out the nearest window tbh……
this is disgusting i don’t want machinery inside my ballsack
Yeah no who’d want this amazing reversible birth control? Let’s just keep forcing birth control on women, making them take pills that literally include side effects like hormonal imbalances, blood clots, heavier and longer bleeding which can lead to anemia, and literally “sudden death”. Because birth control should definitely be the responsibility of women only.
Men are so weak that they can’t stand the thought of something inside their ball sacks. I have an IUD, motherfuckers. I HAD SOMETHING METAL PAINFULLY SHOVED THROUGH MY CERVIX INTO MY UTERUS TO TRY TO PREVENT PREGNANCY. No anesthetic, no numbing. Just a rod right up my cervix. Wanna know what that feels like? Not pleasant. Oh! And I got an IUD because hormonal birth control pills were causing migraines and heart palpitations. But something in your balls? Nah fuck that shit, that sounds invasive.
Y’all over here saying you’d rather have the kids then take the burden of birth control and family planning off your woman and let her continue to suffer with the current forms of birth control that don’t even work 100% of the time? You’d literally rather have to be responsible for a human being for 18 years than get a simple 30 minute procedure on your fucking saggyass ballsack? Are you fucking serious?
I’m just saying it’s better to be shot at by a gun with no bullets than be shot at wearing a bulletproof vest. And the bullet proof vest might kill you even when you’re not being shot at.
Science has been trying to push male birth control for ages and I’m fucking sick and tired of nothing ever getting funding, or getting FDA approval, or getting recognized as a responsibility for everyone, and certainly not just the responsibility of women. Fuck this patriarchy bullshit.
“Hey, take this potentially lifethreatening medicine for literally the next 40 years of your life, because I don’t want to touch my own balls for a half second.”
Yes, men have fewer options for personal birth control, because literally almost every single form of it is rejected by them for ridiculous reasons that are far less than or equal to the discomfort or side-effects involved in birth control methods that involve solely women.
It all boils down to men not giving a fuck about the women they have sex with as long as they aren’t inconvenienced. They would rather a woman take ~40 years worth of pills that can cause a heap of life-threatening health problems, or have invasive surgery, or have an IUD, or or or anything as long as it means they don’t have to do shit. Look at how many men don’t even want to use a condom. I mean, hey, a 30 minute outpatient surgery to install an invisible switch that doesn’t affect their long term fertility at all is too much trouble or too painful. But fuck knows these are the same guys who would tell their girlfriends or wives to go get an IUD or have a tubal ligation like it’s a mani-pedi. Assholes.
I’m close to six months off of my hormonal birth control and I’m still suffering from the side effects. When I brought condoms home and expressed how this was the form of birth control I was leaning towards now my partner spit out, “oh I don’t really like wearing condoms.”
Oh. I’m sorry sweetie, I didn’t realize I chemically forced my body back into the hormonal state of a nine year old girl all this time just so you could best optimize your nut.Let me also add: You’d rather have the child. Well you don’t have to go through pregnancy which has potential complications like morning sickness, hemorrhoids, gestational diabetes, anemia, hypertension, mental health issues like depression and that whole death thing. It also just affects your body in general. I have a friend whose belly is still distended from the hernia she got carrying her second child, and she has to take time off work to get it repaired, because people constantly ask her if she’s pregnant (she’s not)
And then there’s the whole loss of income because at some point most women have to stop working thanks to complications with their pregnancy.
^^^^
Anyone who’s like, I’d rather [the person I fuck without contraceptives] have the child!: Yeah, no, *you* aren’t having the kid, you’ll just fuck off on your merry way leaving the mother to deal with all the work. Hell, even if you show up, you’ll still be doing the bare minimum. Can’t even wash dishes without being asked, think taking care of your child is ‘babysitting’, need your man cave to run off to…Men are so pathetic.
https://vine.co/v/i3PYtPaEZYX/embed/simple//platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
“When you try to do all your tricks at once”
(Source: https://vine.co/)
Dirby woke us up at 8 AM with another impromptu ukulele serenade. this little one brings so much happiness.
queerhomestuck 