This hornbill is surprised that you are still using such a simple password.
Might be time for a change.
Parrot
This parrot has a secret, but isn’t going to tell you what it is.
Abdims Stork
Stork pondering that, while we know Rome was not built in a day, we don’t know how long it did take.
Atlantis
I promise I’ll get back to posting animal photos soon. In the meantime, here’s this.
This is a space shuttle orbiter. Back before the United States became afraid of aliens*, we used to send these things up fairly regularly. We made six of them. As of a couple months ago, I’ve seen them all.
1) I saw the Enterprise when I was very young and the family visited the National Air and Space museum in D.C. I barely remember it.
2) I saw the Columbia from afar one evening while at an outdoor concert. It was long enough ago that I don’t fully trust my memory, but I remember it going overhead on the back of a plane, the musicians and audience going silent as it flew by.
3) I saw the Discovery a few years ago at the National Air and Space museum annex in D.C.
4) I saw the Endeavour earlier this year at the California Science Center in L.A.
5) In early May, I saw Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center, which I visited because it was too windy to go kayaking that day**.
6) The only launch I saw was Challenger. I was eight years old. My mother and brother went off to school, my dad staying home with me. Since I felt awful, my dad decided to cheer me up by letting me watch the shuttle launch. I was pretty interested in space, and we had been paying attention to this particular launch because it was to be the first in a line involving civilian teachers. My mother had told us about the program and mentioned that she was going to apply, but that she’d withdrawn her application because my brother and I were so young. She hoped to try again when we were older. I was excited as I watched the launch prep on the TV, thinking about how cool it would be when I got to see my mom go to space and see a real-live launch.
Through the static of our small television, I watched the launch begin. Minutes later, I saw something that, at the age of eight, had never crossed my mind as a real life possibility.
A few months after that, NASA canceled the teacher in space project.
My mom never went to space.
She did, however, come home from school later that afternoon.
Fair trade.
———
* Yes, I meant it that way too.
** Kayak photos from the following day to come later.
Tree
I really didn’t expect the dappled bark to show up in infrared.
Infrared stop sign
Driving in infrared can be quite dangerous.
Infrared Bronx
Even in the concrete jungle, life finds a way.
NYC InfraRed
This photo has nothing* to do with animals. I just wanted to show you that, in infrared, Times Square is off.
* Well, little to do, anyway. NYC does have interesting similarities to a termite mound.
Galapagos Tortoise
It’s not that tortoises don’t swim. It’s that they *ordinarily* don’t swim.
Alligator Snapping Turtle
It’s no use trying to get his attention. He’s got turtle stuff to do.
Spider Monkey
After you make the mistake of reading the comments on a political think piece.
Ocelot
“Folks on the Internet say that the end of the world is right around the corner, but I don’t see it.”
Marmoset
“And far away, as Frodo put on the Ring and claimed it for his own, even in Sammath Naur the very heart of his realm, the Power in Barad-dûr was shaken, and the Tower trembled from its foundations to its proud and bitter crown. The Dark Lord was suddenly aware of him, and his Eye piercing all shadows looked across the plain to the door that he had made; and the magnitude of his own folly was revealed to him in a blinding flash, and all the devices of his enemies were at last laid bare. Then his wrath blazed in consuming flame, but his fear rose like a vast black smoke to choke him. For he knew his deadly peril and the thread upon which his doom now hung.”
Wood Duck
You can’t tell because he’s in the water, but he also has killer rims and a lift-kit installed.
Egret
Must be an adult
Sign
Huh. Wonder why.
Black Necked Swan
Swan wondering if Democrat leadership actually understands that you can’t win a nation the same way you do a game of Reversi.
Minneapolis
I know how badly you all wanted to see the Minneapolis skyline in infrared.
Eagle
___How eagles respond to concerns___
Concern: “I’m worried that something bad is going to happen to me.”
Concern: “Can you do this one little thing to make sure it doesn’t?”
Eagle: “Bad things happen all the time.”
Concern: “OK, I’m worried that this specific thing is going to happen to me.”
Eagle: “It’s not going to happen.”
Concern: “Well, but it did happen in that country all the way over here.”
Eagle: “Sure, but it can’t happen here.”
Concern: “But it did happen here too, elsewhere in the country sure, but it happened.”
Eagle: “That was several states away. That wasn’t, like, ‘here’ here.”
Concern: “What about that time it happened right in this city, several years ago?”
Eagle: “That was when we were kids, that didn’t count.”
…time passes..
Concern: “So, that bad thing I was worried about that you said couldn’t happen here, happened last night.”
Eagle: “We need to wait until all the data is in. There’s no reason to be concerned yet.”
Concern: “I was there. The specific bad thing happened to me last night.”
Eagle: “Well, okay, maybe. I’d still like to see proof.”
Concern: “HERE ARE PHOTOGRAPHS, VIDEOS, RECORDED TESTIMONY. LOOK AT MY BRUISES AND SCRATCHES. SEE MY CAST?”
Concern: “SEE THIS LIST OF THE INJURED AND DEAD? IF YOU HAD JUST DONE THAT ONE LITTLE THING, THIS WOULDN’T HAVE HAPPENED!!!”
Eagle: “… it didn’t happen to me.”
Barn Owl
A key skill to being an avian consultant is to be able to hear things like …
– We want to outsource our nest building, but need to maintain strict quality controls in all aspects of design, material selection, and placement, while also gaining new features like automated egg rotation meeting our species’ ideal, two bathrooms, and a walk in closet.
– Yes, my plumage is old and I really should have molted a few years ago, but I’m just really busy, you know. I was thinking that, since growing new feathers takes so long, that maybe I just spruce myself up with a bit of paint. What do you think?
– I have this awesome entrepreneurial idea! Just in time on-demand prime worm delivery for all the birds that don’t want to be early! Can you put together a business plan, risk analysis, vendor sourcing review, ROI calculation, and marketing plan? I’ll be able to pay you next year once the business is successful.
… and still make this face.