Birds (and other commo things you may take for granted yet suddenly appreciate because you're stoned

[zor]

So here I am puffing on some tasty Dakini Kush on my porch, enjoying the low 80s lull in a 90+ degree humid heatwave, set up a bird feeder given to us by my girlfriend's mom an hour or so ago. We live in an urban environment but are adjacent to a park, so we actually have a backyard. After spilling birdseed everywhere (yeah, I used the DK before starting to get properly motivated, you see) I took a moment to actually think about the damn creatures this food is for, and it kinda blew my mind to suddenly hear all of their calls and sounds around me).

I've known passionate birders but never found the appeal, yet now I feel this sudden appreciation for birds. I'm curious to see if this carries over tomorrow and later.

Well, I did see a hawk swoop down and pluck a shrieking rabbit last summer, that was pretty awesome.


So yeah, what epiphanies or (re)discoveries have you experienced?

 

[ginolicious]

It’s the little things that matter in life. I’m out by my pond right now about to pack some NY DIesel. Also I have a Blue Jay that comes around a lot. Haven’t seen him in about a week.

 

[howie105]

Being high when straight and being straight when high. Its that grass and fence thing.

 

[grampa_herb]

Always cracks me up to see small birds pester hawks.

 

[seaofgreens]

Live in a valley of sorts, wide open meadow lands surround, and daily I see hawks, eagles, and buzzard circling above, looking for prey. Love just laying down and watching the show in the sky.

Everyone here has had to take down their feeders this year though, even hummingbird feeders. This is because the bears have had a rough go of things the past couple seasons, and have been getting into what little is left out. (last year a late frost killed the acorns they rely on, and this year we have a massive drought and not much at all to eat... so they are fucked.) Climate change in action unfortunately.

 

[Seek]

It's also mindblowing to look at these birds and acknowledge they're actually the only living descendants of dinosaurs.
Yes, they had over 60 milion years of evolution, reshaping the little surviving branch of dinos into all the birds we know, from hummingbirds to ostriches.
But in their core, they're dinos. o_O

And since they have spent so much time on evolution, they have moer advanced "evolutionary tech" in their DNA than us. They evolved efficient flight, tetrachromacy, very efficient brains, a lot of bird species are very smart. Just not human level smart as that is very rare and not usually pressured on by evolution. A good analogy would be that our brains are like massive high-spec pentium architecture proccessors, while bird brains are like modern core architecture from smaller more efficient transistors. More advanced technology, but less specs.

And insects are even more evolved than anything big. Because of their small size and short lifespan, they took much more evolutionary steps than us in the same time. And always had to pack that "tech" into very small space, so all of it has to be extremely efficient. Insect evolution has completely mastered all of nanotechnology long time ago. And they brain are insanely smart if you account for ther really tiny pinhead size.

 

[grampa_herb]

There was a group of Turkey Vultures who were blown off course during Summer migration more than a dozen years ago. They ended up in a large tree on the hill near the old cemetery in Boulder. Now they come back every year to the same exact tree.

 

[macbill]

I am on a river, and I see a lot of osprey. The osprey and Canadian Geese hate one another, and it is not uncommon to see osprey dive down and act as if they are going to grab the goose, and on and on, until the osprey tires out. I have 3 hummingbird feeders on my deck, and next door (condo), they have 3 feeders. There are enough for each hummingbird to have their own feeder, but they are very territorial. We have wars daily. It's fun to watch the ospreys fish for food. They'll hover high, and dive straight in.

 

[GetLeft]

For a handful of years I had a thing for going on bird watching hikes with my bird manuals and binocs and a pencil. I did a list for each outing. It was very cerebral and relaxing, otherworldly almost ('cause you gotta pay pretty close attention to your surroundings which by and large we drive right by without noticing…). It gets addictive. I got pretty good at knowing a lot of local birds by sight and/or sound and was always excited for new additions to my life list. Time got tight as it tends to at certain junctures and eventually I stopped. Also declining vision got me worried as I thought that perhaps all the viewing through binoculars was associated with my newly developing need for eye wear. Been messing with a beginner telescope recently. Kind of like bird watching for me, since I tend to spend a lot of time looking for objects that I may or may not find . I'm gettin' better each time though.

 

[crawdad]

look for an audubon society chapter in your area. i much prefer to hike on my own but also appreciate a guided stroll with someone who can identify every flying thing by sight or sound.

 

[grampa_herb]

My wife will not let me kill things, so I trap the occasional mouse with a live-trap. Couple months back we let one out on our favorite walking path. The mouse ran across the parking lot into the bush, when a hawk came down hard on it. The hawk gave us a "back off mofo, this mine" look and we obliged.