Icon by @ThatSpookyAgent. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. The X-Files. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
Prepare for bird puppet spamming! These puppets are used in rehabilitation and captive breeding programs to prevent human imprinting in young birds.
San Diego Zoo & Safari park’s well known California Condor puppet that aids in the California Condor Recovery Program.
African Raptor’s Centre’s hyper realistic Bearded Vulture puppet used for propagation.
Saint Louis Zoo’s King Vulture puppet used for captive rearing of a King vulture chick.
Denver Zoo’s vulture puppet used for captive rearing of a Cinereous vulture chick. “Mmmmmmmmmm…” Sorry, just a Dark Crystal reference..
Liberty’s Owl, Raptor & Reptile Centre’s Falcon & Turkey Vulture puppets used for captive rearing.
Raptor head puppet used at Beijing’s Raptor Rescue Center for rehabilitation. *Extends Xenomorph baby feeding tongue.*
A childhood favorite! A sock puppet! Used at the Jersey Zoo for captive rearing Javan Green Magpies. (Cue Lamb Chop’s song!)
Last but not least, Philippine Eagle Foundation’s hyper realistic Philippine Eagle puppet used for propagation. This amazing puppet was made by Nambroth who makes spectacular bird related fursuit/cosplay pieces.
help i’m thinking about people writing hello on walls and putting smiling photographs in bottles and heart emoji anons and the way we wiggle at each other in games to say i am friendly and we call it dancing and the robot we sent into the unknown called perseverance or “percy” that can sing happy birthday to itself i’m thinking about that poem that says “mostly we don’t want to hurt each other” again
thinking about when i was small, how my mom told me that pipe cleaners were just a tool until people started idly shaping things with them and it grew so popular that they were marketed as crafting materials. and that story about how the original frisbees were disposable pie plates that students flattened to throw. and how when i was a child i had a wooden mancala set with shiny, colorful stones, but on invention it was played with rocks and grooves dug into the dirt. and middle school, paper football and tic-tac-toe and mash and mad libs, games that just need pen and paper. and before that, games of pretend with pirates and princes and masked marauders. how at slumber parties after lights out, we used to whisper storytelling games, i say one sentence and you say the next. and shadow puppets. and the way all the kids in the neighborhood used to divide into teams and throw fallen pine cones at one another. and the floor is lava game, and the quiet game, and the games i play with my coworkers that are just words and retention. and “put a finger down” on the high school bus. and little girls clapping together, and how the first jump-rope was undoubtedly just a length of rope who knows how long ago, and how natural it is to play, how we seek play at every age and with any resources we have and with whatever time we can squeeze it into in a day. i’m not an anthropologist or a psychologist but i think after food and shelter and water and air what comes next is games and stories and laughter. i think that there is nothing – not sex or fighting or forming unlikely bonds with animals – there is nothing more human than to play.
im having feelings about the uffington white horse again
so essentially there’s this cool horse drawn into the hills in england made out of chalk and it’s like 3,000 years old.
people carved trenches 3,000 years ago and filled them with chalk in the shape of a horse but what’s interesting is that if you fail to maintain the horse by adding new chalk regularly, it will disappear. for 3,000 years, we’ve been filling in chalk in this horse so it doesn’t disappear.
we’ll never know what the purpose of the horse was originally. we’ll never know if it had ritual or spiritual significance or if it was just art. but we do know that people maintained it then, and, even though the meaning of the horse has long been lost to time, we continue to maintain it now.
the people who made this horse are long dead, but they live through us still, don’t you think?
“humanity is inherently selfish and bad” bbbrrrghuhjfkg. humanity is seeing a stranger’s grocery bag break open on the sidewalk and harvesting fruits and veggies from the branch-like cracks of the asphalt for them, just because you can. humanity is helping a lost child find their mother on a crowded beach, looking for the ladybug-patterned parasol with their hummingbird-small hand in yours. it’s an elder’s fingers wrapped around your arm as you help them up the stairs because the elevator is broken, and feeling like you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing, like this is what you would’ve been doing had you been alive centuries or even millennia ago. there will always be a heavily pregnant woman who will smile at your when you give up your seat, a nice blind man in the fruit aisle who will ask you to please pick the riper plantain for him, a tired cashier whose face will light up when you compliment their tattoo sleeve. humanity is connection
