Aafke, wishing you a wonderful, healthy, happy year!!!

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/solitary_crow_on_fence_post

I'd say that the onion is on an avian roll, but it sounds so...dunno...culinary...

yeah, they say that fish oil stuff makes you smarter

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/bald_eagle_tired_of_everyone_just

posted this as "OT" because...uh...birds don't write, huh?
Must be fiction.

are those the same finches I posted about in mid-Jan.sometime? That was great!

Linda -

Wishing a VERY VERY happy birthday to one of my very favorite people and without a doubt my favorite all-time chicken owner!

Have a healthy, happy, strong year!!

Love, dale

No kidding, charmingly written!
That's great!
"tacit promises of intra-species companionship," indeed!
Thanks, Gayle!

Article and video on crows recognizing / remembering individual human faces for a long time:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18429-if-you-think-a-crow-is-giving-you-the-evil-eye.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news
or
http://tinyurl.com/y8qs4l9

other news:

hawk expected to recover:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-0128-injured-bird-20100127,0,4594382.story

http://tinyurl.com/ycba8xk

They're like the Vlad the Impalers of the bird world.  Yikes!   

ahhhh, Vlad the Impaler. You're not the only one to think it - I found a website that calls shrikes that!
Reminds me of a great Romanian restaurant I was at in Dublin a number of years ago - not sure if it's still there. You got to dine under the watchful image of Vlad the Impaler, which added ... something ... to the dining experience. Not sure how to describe what exactly it added.

"The diet of these shrikes consists of large insects and small vertebrates that include songbirds, reptiles, rodents and even mammals . . . there were instances when they caught and killed animals up to five times as large as their own body size."

and impaled them.
 
"...Like raptors, owls and a few other birds, shrikes cast pellets consisting of indigestible parts of the prey like bones, fur, skin and feathers."

dude.
I'm reconsidering the beer plans after all.

[bazoinkers]

Seriously though, to make this thread fully crypto-"OTHER nature discussion," those lovely little shrikes are bazoinkers. Apparently they hunt down and slaughter airliftable lizards, mammals, and insects, as per the links I posted, and then IMPALE them on sharp sticks, barbed wire, and the like. I found video of this. It is apparently considered sexy behavior in the shrike kingdom. Go figure. 

Oh, and Carol? If you buy the beer, they provide the hors d'oeuvres
http://www.birdsasart.com/loggerhead%20shrike.jpg
http://animals.timduru.org/dirlist/bird/misc/GrayShrike_03-Hunted_a_mouse.jpg

My remark apparently ruffled a few feathers.

betcher titmice it did.

I'm afraid this thread has taken a tern for the worse.

You're saying no one deserves this kind of tweetment? Come on, it's a mynah problem. I have no egrets.