11/2 Today Goofus the Peacock killed a mouse and instead of eating it right away, decided to wander around the pasture carrying it in his beak. The feral cats always appreciate dead-rodent-based performance art, so they followed behind Goofus single file to make a Very Exciting Dead Rodent Parade.
At one point Goofus stopped and put down his rodent and one of the feral cats dared to sniff at it, and Goofus unleashed The Most Terrifying Honk, something along the lines of I WILL END YOU AND EVERYONE YOU LOVE AND YOUR BONES WILL BE FORGOTTEN ON THE FROZEN EARTH WHEN I SNUFF OUT THE SUN AND SING THE STARS TO DARKNESS I AM THE DEVOURER AND DESTROYER OF ALL THINGS
The feral cats, previously unaware that the Death Of The Universe And End Of All Things is currently living as a peacock, ran off at about fifty miles an hour and hid under the barn for the rest of the day. They didn’t even come out at milking time to beg for goat milk, which is a first.
We probably should not have named the Death Of The Universe And The End Of All Things “Goofus,” actually.
Are you kidding that’s the Prefect name for The Death Of The Universe And End Of All Things.
The extremes of red-tailed hawk color morphs. White to very, very dark. Both are the same species, Buteo jamaicensis.
The bird on the left has an extreme lack of melanin production and the bird on the right over-produces melanin. Melanin is produced by cells called melanocytes, which also produce pheomelanin, which results in a reddish-brown color. Note that the bird on the left has a red tint to her tail even though her melanocytes aren’t functioning normally, this could be due to porphyrins and/or carotenoids contributing to the red color in red-tailed hawk tails as well.
Both birds still exhibit the common trait of being total derps (as demonstrated in the third set of photos).
Sometimes it is hard to remember that owls are incredibly dangerous predators seen by cultures throughout the world as ill omens. Especially when they look like toasted marshmallows.
My boss once described them as flying pillows filled with seething hatred.
wupacing 