Mock Me All Night Long

In Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus tells his children that they can have all sorts of fun with their new pellet guns (it was a different time, huh?), but they can’t shoot something beautiful and simple like a mockingbird. In fact, it’s the one thing Scout can ever remember her father calling sinful.

And, the mockingbird is beautiful and innocent…until it decides to sit outside your apartment window every night at 1 a.m. and sing to its ADHD heart’s content. Then, even the most loyal of bird lovers (that would be me) might wish for Scout’s pellet gun.

Of course, I did not shoot that little mockingbird outside my apartment window—that would be a sin (and illegal). And now, with a couple years of more restful sleep between me and the guilty bird, I am ready to tell you about how awesome it really is.

Your BOTW is the Northern mockingbird.

Fact: The Northern mockingbird is a medium-sized songbird with a long tail and legs. It is a pretty, pale gray above and white below. It has two white wingbars set against darker gray wings. And big, bright white patches can be seen while it is in flight.
Fact: The Northern mockingbird is best known for its talent of mimicry. A male’s song is long and complex, incorporating the songs of several other birds and sometimes the sounds of barking dogs, meowing cats, or machinery.
Fact: As I discovered in Victorville, the Northern mockingbird often sings well into the night, especially around a full moon.
Fact: It is believed that most of these nighttime singers are unmated males. I like to think of them as adolescent boys who will try any come-on to impress the girl.
Fact: The Northern mockingbird often combines its elaborate songs with wing flashing displays, jumping a short distance into the air and showing off its bright white patches. You’ll see the bird do just that right at the beginning of this video.




Fact: The Northern mockingbird is also known for harassing cats and dogs. Scientists debate whether it’s a form of play or actual nest defense. Whatever it is, I can’t believe how many videos there were on YouTube of mockingbirds teasing cats. This cat seems way to calm, by the way.



Fact: Song obviously plays an important role in the life of the Northern mockingbird. Not only does the bird establish territory and pair up through song, males actually sing before, during, and after copulation. (Females are a bit more genteel about the whole act, but they do quiver their wings afterward.)
Fact: The Northern mockingbird is also known for its “boundary dance,” where two males square off along some unseen territory boundary and basically try to “dance” each other away. I've never seen this before, but I like to imagine it’s a lot like the movie You Got Served.
Fact: The Northern mockingbird isn’t the only mimic from the bird world. In fact, its skills seem pretty amateurish when you watch this video of the lyre bird from Australia. (Sorry, embedding isn’t available for this BBC video.) It’s worth watching until the end; you won’t believe some of the sounds it can make.

This has been Your BOTW.

Yellow Fellow

With just a couple of weeks before my company's big international convention, I am ready to pull my hair out. (As are my coworkers, who make up the majority of my blog readers.) So, I thought I'd post a very special Bird of the Week that my husband, Tim, wrote a few months ago. It's great for two reasons: One, I don't have to take the time to write it. Two: it's short and funny, so you don't have to take much time to enjoy it. Everyone wins!

And while this special bird is familiar to all of us, you might learn a few things!




Your BOTW is Big Bird.

Fact: Sesame Street’s big yellow bird can roller skate, ice skate, dance, sing, write poetry, draw, and ride a unicycle.
Fact: Big Bird has a teddy bear named “Radar.”
Fact: While Big Bird is generally thought to be a canary, when he visited the Neighborhood of Make-Believe in Mister Rogers' Neighborhood he shared with X the Owl that he is a Golden Condor. (Highly endangered.)
Fact: Big Bird's birthday is March 20.

This has been Your BOTW.



Ah, gotta love Big Bird. Now, I could end this with a cute little video of the big yellow guy so we could all reminisce about our younger days watching Sesame Street. But we're all stressed and tired and probably mad at someone in another department, so I thought an angry spoof about Big Bird catching bird flu would be more appropriate. Enjoy!

Wild Goose Chase

Several weeks ago, my dad sent me an e-mail inviting me to join him for a day of goose banding with Utah Division of Wildlife employees.

What is goose banding? And, why would I want to do it?

Well, I can answer the first question. But the second will remain a mystery to all of us, especially my husband.

Each summer, between mid-June and late July, Canada geese shed and re-grow their outer wing feathers, also known as primaries. During this four- to five-week molting process, geese cannot fly. This flightless period presents the perfect opportunity for biologists to catch the geese and place a small metal band on one of their legs (see picture). The bands have unique numbers etched on them, which will help wildlife experts years from now learn about any geese that are caught, killed, or found dead. Basically, a biologist could trap one of these geese two years from now in Canada and by looking up the number on its band find out that it is a 3-year-old male born in Utah.

There are several methods used by the Division to catch geese during the molt, but I was invited for an especially exciting day, when the geese are chased down by airboats in shallow water (we’re talking two feet). The geese dive to get away, but by hanging off the edge of the airboat you can basically scoop the geese right out of the water.

It’s sort of like COPS, but with birds.

How could I pass that up? So, I took the day off work, got up early, and met my parents for a day at the marshes just outside of Corinne, Utah. When I got there, I discovered that I wasn’t the only son or daughter invited by a Division employee—but I was the only one over the age of 13. This bird stuff can be tough on the ego at times.

My embarrassment subsided a little, though, as soon as we took off from the shore. The day was absolutely gorgeous, and seeing the marsh from an airboat was spectacular. We flew by avocets, stilts, herons, and grebes in our search of the geese. Actually catching a goose took some practice, though. Hanging off the airboat, I consistently managed to touch the birds, but I lacked the nerve to get a really good grip on one. I was terrified of hurting one and nervous about falling off the boat. But after watching Seth, a 6th-grader, handle geese that were almost as big as him, I realized I needed to man up.

With a little practice, I soon was hauling 6-pound geese out of the water. I got smacked in the face several times by flapping wings, but the geese and I seemed to survive it all without any major injury. The only clip I could manage to post is a little long, but you can get the picture within the first minute or so. (Thanks to Timothy for figuring all of this stuff out for me.)



Once our boat’s crates were full of geese, we headed toward shore where the geese had a couple more indignities in store—sexing and banding.

Sexing is almost as dirty as it sounds. Basically, Division employees flip the geese over, hold them between their legs, and then turn their cloaca inside out. Now, surprisingly we haven’t gotten into the cloaca on Bird of the Week yet, considering how much we talk about bird sex. The cloaca is basically a multi-purpose organ, used to poop, have sex, and lay eggs. For birds like Canada geese, which do not differ in gender by color or size, you have to actually look at the small sex organs located within the cloaca to determine whether they are male or female. A few helpful Division employees tried to show me the difference between a goose clitoris and a goose penis, but to be honest with you, they all looked the same to me.

Once a goose’s age and sex were determined and a band was placed on its leg, it was released back into the marsh. I wasn’t surprised to see a few geese hang back to honk their disapproval at the lot of us. Don’t get me wrong, banding serves a real scientific purpose and can help determine all sorts of information that ultimately helps birds. But you put yourself in their situation for a minute, and you can’t help but feel a little sorry for them.

If it makes you or the geese feel any better, I suffered my own indignities on the trip:
First, there was the whole "30-year-old kid with a bunch of actual kids" thing to contend with.
Second, the video of me catching geese can only be described as extremely unflattering. Really, no woman should be filmed with her butt as the primary focus, unless she is paid adult-industry wages to do so. (Being willing to post this video proves that I love birds a lot).
Third, I quickly discovered why it was pretty much all men and a few pre-adolescent girls doing the capturing when I looked down to discover my thin t-shirt was completely soaked and sticking to every part of my body.
Finally, if that weren’t bad enough, I brought a second shirt to change into after banding, but realized too late that it didn’t really work with a still-wet bra. I attended a post-banding lunch with my new Division friends with a look that can only be described as "lactating."

And now, I will end this very long blog with a couple of quick facts about Canada geese:

Fact: The correct name is Canada goose, not Canadian goose. Not sure why this is the case, but you will be corrected by obnoxious editors and bird aficionados if you say or write it incorrectly.
Fact: Canada geese feed on a variety of plant material, including grass and grains, as well as the junk people throw out to them in city parks.
Fact: Canada geese have become an increasing nuisance in cities. Many of them have stopped migrating and make permanent homes in city parks and golf courses, where they leave behind a lot of waste. (Which you now know comes from their cloaca!)
Fact: Canada geese take on child-rearing in a sort of hippie, communal way. It is quite common for adults geese to gather up all of the hatched goslings into one big group and help each other raise the young.

This has been Your BOTW.

P.S. Thanks to all the people who patiently waited for me to get the hang of catching geese, showed me the art of "sexing", and tried to ignore my sole entry in the goose-banding wet t-shirt contest.

Who…who...who…is old?

Creak.

Crack.

Those are the sounds of my 30-year-old bones, people.

Yes, this week I left behind my wild and crazy 20s and joined the ranks of the sort of old. I realize that 30 is not ancient, and, if I’m honest, my 20s were never all that wild or crazy. But, I still can’t help but feel that life has changed. I rarely get ID'd anymore. I watch sports and am consistently shocked to realize that the athletes are YEARS younger than me. And Tums are no longer a foreign product.

It’s not over the hill, but it’s 100 percent in the adult world. Yikes.

Of course, there are some good things about being older. I can rent a car without too much hassle. I'm closer to fitting the market profile of Audubon Society and NPR members. And, there’s the whole wiser thing, right?

So in the spirit of acceptance for this, my fourth decade of life, I thought I’d highlight a bird that is often referred to as old and wise, but is also awesome.

Your BOTW is the Great Horned Owl.

Fact: The great horned owl typically has a brown and gray body with dark barring. It can be identified by its bright white throat. It has an orange facial disk with bright yellow eyes and a dark bill.
Fact: The great horned owl is named for its big ear tufts, which are widely spaced on its head.
Fact: The feathery ear tufts don’t cover actual horns (Do I need to specify that? You can never be too sure with this group.) They also aren’t actual ears. But I think we can all agree that they’re cool looking!
Fact: The great horned owl has exceptional night vision, but its hearing is even better. Its facial disk helps direct the slightest sounds to its ears.
Fact: The great horned owl has a wingspan ranging from 3 ½ feet to nearly 5 feet! Standing, it is almost two feet tall. Females are generally 10 to 20 percent bigger than the males.
Fact: The great horned owl is a bit of a bad ass.
Fact: It can take prey that weighs three times more than itself. It kills using its incredibly strong talons to sever the spinal cord of the prey in one quick squeeze. (I know I sound like Napoleon Dynamite.)

Fact: The great horned owl generally hunts at night and is particularly effective because it flies so quietly.
Fact: The great horned owl hunts rodents and rabbits, but is also known to take porcupines, raccoons, water birds, other owls, and even the occasional miniature pony. (Maybe not on that last one.) It is also the only animal known to regularly eat skunks.
Fact: Pet lovers beware. Great horned owls will be happy to take Fluffy or Roxy if given the opportunity.
Fact: The great horned owl will often eat its prey whole, crushing bones with its beak. Several hours after a meal, it will hawk up little black pellets of indigestible parts as well as the occasional entire skull. An owl can be found by spotting its pellets on the ground around a tree. Look up and you’ll often see the owl roosting silently above your head.
Fact: Great horned owls are extremely territorial when nesting. They will dive at your head with those nasty talons if they see you as a threat.
Fact: Speaking of nesting, great horned owls do not build their own nests. They take over abandoned nests made by hawks, crows, and other birds, and generally raise one to three owlets together.
Fact: Despite being bad asses (or maybe because of it), great horned owls often get mobbed by American crows. Crows really don’t like great horned owls roosting in their area, and when they find one they will gather up a big group and harass it until it moves on to quieter territory. See video.

Fact: Native Americans in the Sierras believed that great horned owls captured the souls of the dead to take to the underworld. So, now that I'm nearly over the hill, I should probably watch out for that.

This has been Your BOTW.

I Got the Blues

Before we get started, let me apologize to all seven of my loyal readers. I realize that I set up the Your BOTW blog with much fanfare and then disappeared for two weeks with not a single post. A tad bit rude. In my defense, though, I:

A. Went on a family trip to Yellowstone

Here we all are at a "bear jam."

B. Was struck down by an embarrassing skin disease caught while at Yellowstone (from a hot tub, grossly enough)

C. Served as matron of honor at the wedding of the season (while still suffering from said embarrassing skin disease)

Me at the wedding trying to look "matronly" with my husband.

It was a crazy couple of weeks. So, please forgive me (and feel a slight bit of pity for me). Now, back to birds.

While at Yellowstone, I was reminded of one of my all-time favorite birds. I saw this bird throughout the park, and proudly watched as its startling color and sweet voice caught the attention of even non-birding folks. And, when you’re competing for attention with wolves, bison, bears, geysers, and German tourists—that’s saying something.

Your BOTW is the mountain bluebird.

Photo Credit: Mac Knight

Fact: Mountain bluebirds are blue, brilliant blue. (The males, anyway.) When I look at them in my binoculars, I can’t help but think of Crayola words: Azure, Cerulean, Pacific, Indigo, Denim. Seriously stunning.
Fact: A male mountain bluebird is bright blue across its back, head, wings, and tail. The rest of its body is a slightly more muted blue. A female mountain bluebird is a brownish-blue overall. It’s pretty, but the male steals the show. (You regular BOTW readers should not be surprised by this.) See the video below. It's not super exciting, but if you watch long enough, you’ll see both the male and the female.

Fact: Mountain bluebirds can be found throughout the Western states, in high meadows, ranchlands, and even the occasional golf course.
Fact: The first pair of mountain bluebirds I saw in Yellowstone were copulating (that’s having sex, Patrick) over one of the Fountain Paint Pots. I felt a bit intrusive watching them, actually. Once satiated, they managed to charm a host of tourists (with whom I was happy to share my binoculars).
Fact: Speaking of sex, mountain bluebirds tend to be monogamous throughout the breeding season. (Although both sexes are known to do a little sneaking around if given the chance.)
Fact: Mountain bluebirds are cavity nesters, meaning they nest in holes they find in trees, buildings, and banks. Just the right cavity can be hard to come by, though, so more and more often they are making nests in manmade nest boxes.
Fact: Whether nesting in a natural cavity or a nest box, the female mountain bluebird gathers up dry grass, pine needles, dry bark, and even horsehair to construct a proper nest within the cavity.
Fact: Males mountain bluebirds rarely help in this nest construction. Oddly enough, they will pick up nesting materials while following their mate around, but they always drop it before reaching the nest.
Fact: Female mountain bluebirds get their revenge once the babies hatch, though. The first few weeks, the male is allowed to bring food to the nest, but the female will not allow him to feed or touch the hatchlings.
Fact: Mountain bluebirds eat mostly bugs (and occasional berries). They typically hunt insects and worms from a perch like a fencepost or tree limb. They are also known to hover above the ground before diving to catch insects.

This has been Your BOTW.

P.S. Stay tuned for a full report on my exciting day of Goose Banding!!

Daddy Dearest

Growing up in the idyllic town of Ferron, Utah (insert your joke here, Kelly), I would wake up every school morning to a big, home-cooked breakfast of pancakes, French toast, or omelets. My schoolteacher mom reserved cold cereal for days we didn’t have to pay attention in class.

Not surprisingly, at some point mom started to feel a little frazzled trying to make breakfast, get herself ready for work, and send four children off to school. So, my dad agreed to get up and prepare breakfast for us.

This was an exciting time for me and my siblings. Not only was it unusual for us to have dad at the stove, we also found his food choices much more exotic! One morning we woke up to banana pancakes. Sure, they were a mucky gray and weighed in at about two pounds--but they were different!

Alas, this little “dad makes breakfast” experiment lasted about a week and a half, and mom was soon back in the kitchen. In all, she spent about 15 years making sure her little darlings had enough complex carbohydrates to power through math and spelling. Yet, what do my siblings and I tend to recall when it comes to school mornings? Those few days my dad made breakfast for us. Kind of sick, huh? In our defense, breakfast at my house was much like mealtime in the bird world (aside from the eating bugs part). When moms usually do the hard stuff, people take notice when dads take on a bigger role.

In light of Father’s Day later this week, I thought I’d tell you about one of those exotic fathers of the avian world. And it's a bird worth remembering. (Just don't forget about all of those hard-working, unsung mothers out there.)

Your BOTW is the Wilson’s phalarope.

Fact: The Wilson’s phalarope is a slender, medium-sized shorebird with long legs and a long, needlelike bill.
Fact: Among Wilson’s phalaropes, like all phalaropes, the sex roles are reversed when compared to most birds. Females are prettier, bigger, and more dominant.
Fact: Breeding females have a reddish-black stripe running from the bill down the neck, a gray crown, gray upperparts, and white underparts. Males lack the beautiful stripe, but otherwise look similar.
Fact: Female Wilson’s phalaropes court the males and will often mate with two of them. They’ll also throw down if other females get too close to their guys. (Sounds a bit like junior high, huh?) After laying two or three eggs in the sand, the moms take off, leaving dads to construct a nest, incubate the eggs, and feed the hatchlings.
Fact: The vast majority of female Wilson’s phalaropes end up at the Great Salt Lake in mid-June (they’re probably arriving as you read this). They settle in for several weeks of feeding on brine shrimp and brine flies to prepare for a non-stop, 5,000-mile migration to the Andes, where they spend the fall and winter. (The males arrive at the Great Salt Lake for the same reason in July, after ensuring their chicks are hatched and fledged.)
Fact: Hanging out and fattening up for a long migration like this is known as “staging.”
Fact: It’s estimated that during peak staging season in late July, there are more than 600,000 Wilson’s phalaropes along the Great Salt Lake.
Fact: Besides brine shrimp and flies, Wilson’s phalaropes feed on small bugs and aquatic plants. In shallow water, they are often seen spinning as much as 60 revolutions per minute, which is thought to help them stir up food lodged in the mud. To watch this, see my very first embedded video below. Exciting!

This has been Your BOTW.

P.S. My dad may have failed at taking on breakfast, but he rocked the late-night, waited-til-the-last-minute science projects. He also made me the proud bird geek I am today. Happy Father's Day, Dad.

The Basics on Birds

Originally sent: 02/21/08

I had an interesting conversation last night while hanging out with my gals at the Delton Lanes. (Note: you must refer to women as “gals” while participating in a bowling league.) Anyway, the talk turned, as it so often does, to Your Bird of the Week.

When I told my gals that I didn’t know what bird to focus on this week, Amber (in one of her Bamber moments) told me I should write one on bats. When informed that bats are mammals, Amber asked, “Birds aren’t mammals?”

When informed that no, birds are not mammals, Amber answered, “Oh yeah, because they don’t have bones, right?”

Sigh. Now, I admit, I might have felt superior for a minute. But Amber bowled a few 130s last night, whereas I barely managed to break the 80s. And, considering that bowling skills are far more valuable than zoology knowledge, I realized I had little room to gloat. Still, I concluded that maybe we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves with the Bird of the Week. Maybe some background knowledge is called for.

So, without further ado…Your BOTW is the, um, bird.

Fact: Birds are not mammals. They belong to a biological class known as Aves. However, birds and mammals do belong to the same sub-phlyum, vertebrata, which is made up of animals with backbones or spinal columns. This leads us to our next fact…

Fact: Birds do have bones, however the bones are very lightweight, with large air-filled cavities that are connected to the respiratory system. Basically, birds add air to their skeletal systems, which helps them fly. This leads us to our next fact…

Fact: The ability to fly does not necessarily make an animal a bird (e.g. bats, insects, hang-gliding humans); and the lack of ability to fly does not necessarily mean an animal is not a bird (e.g. ostriches, emus, penguins). In fact, around 60 species of birds are flightless.

Fact: All birds, whether they can fly or not, have forelimbs modified as wings. They also lay hard-shelled eggs, have a four-chambered heart, and are lucky enough to have a high metabolic rate.

Fact: Feathers are unique to birds and help them fly, regulate their temperature, blend in with their surroundings, and attract mates. It is estimated that, on average, birds spend 9 percent of their day preening or grooming their feathers.

Fact: Birds lack teeth, but swallowed stones in their gizzard help grind up food.

Fact: Birds are made up of generalists (which eat a variety of things like bugs, seeds, small mammals, etc.) and specialists (which concentrate their time and efforts on specific food items).

Here’s an idea: Read the Bird of the Week in the future and determine for yourself whether you’re reading about a generalist or a specialist! Fun!

This has been Your BOTW.
P.S. Love ya, Bamber. Thanks for always being a good sport.

What Kind of Bird Are You?

Originally sent: 03/24/08

Which member of the avian kingdom are you most like? It's a question on everyone's mind, I'm sure. So I've composed my very own Cosmo-esque personality quiz to help you find out.

Please answer five questions below relating to fashion, food, friends, conflict and communication. Then, scroll down to see what kind of bird you are and why. It’s all very scientific, I assure you.

Please select one answer under each category that best describes you.

Clothes
A. My mantra: when in doubt, wear black.
B. I prefer to pair classic neutrals with rich, eye-popping color.
C. It doesn’t matter what I wear. My size and striking eyes make people sit up and take notice.
D. I’m not flashy, but I usually look nice. I prefer not to call attention to myself.
E. I’m pretty practical when it comes to clothes. I wear what’s best for getting my job done, whether it looks good or not.

Food
A. I’ll eat just about anything. Meat? Good. Vegetables? Good. Bread? Good.
B. I eat on the go, so fast food is my friend!
C. Give me meat! A well-cut steak, roasted chicken, fresh sushi, fried pork chops—it all makes me drool.
D. I’m a carb fanatic.
E. I love leftovers. If it’s good at dinner, it will be even better warmed up the next day.

Family/Friends
A. I’ve got a large circle of acquaintances, but I usually hang out with family.
B. The more the merrier. A crowded house is a happy house.
C. I like to be on my own unless sex is involved.
D. I think every meal is made better by sharing it with others.
E. People assume I’m solitary, but they would be surprised to see the number of friends who might show up at my birthday dinner.

Conflict
A. When attacked by others, I rely on the strength of my family and friends.
B. I’m rarely aggressive except when it comes to matters of love. Then, watch out!
C. I seem tough, but you’d be surprised how little it takes to scare me off.
D. I hate confrontation! If things look rough, I beat a hasty retreat.
E. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, I won’t do to defend myself. If you choose to mess with me, you may not like the consequences.

Communication
A. I like to talk, and people usually hear me when I do.
B. My sweet voice masks a darker side.
C. I’ve been known to scream when frightened or turned on.
D. I chatter and chitter away all day. Who wouldn’t with a cheerful voice like mine?
E. I’m pretty quiet, but I do hiss when I get upset.

Now, add up your answers, and find the letter you picked most. Then scroll down to see what kind of bird you are. (Note: you might be a mutty mix of birds. Sorry, I'm no quiz expert.)

Mostly As: You are an American Crow

A medium-sized black bird, you eat whatever you can get—from road kill to fruit to insects to grain. You are close to your family, living with your parents for many years and helping them raise your younger brothers and sisters. You call on that close family when feeling threatened, and every crow within hearing of your harsh, cawing call will come to your defense!

Mostly Bs: You are a Barn Swallow

A small bird with an iridescent blue back, caramel-colored body, and forked tail, you eat flies on the fly. You roost with often thousands of other barn swallows, building your own nest out of mud and grass on highway overpasses, bridges, barns, and USANA’s parking garage. You’re little, but can be aggressive in matters of mating. Unmated male barn swallows are known to kill another pair’s nestlings in order to “break up” the couple and mate with the female. Meanwhile, females select males based on how long and symmetrical their tail is. This questionable behavior is masked by a sweet, warbling call.



Mostly Cs: You are a Red-tailed Hawk

A brown bird with a brick-colored tail, you eat meat, including mice, squirrels, rabbits, fish, small birds, and even insects. Like most birds of prey, you’re largely a solitary animal, but you are believed to mate for life. While you are a large predator, everyone from song birds to crows will gang up on you and chase you out of their area. When this happens, you usually give up and go find less obnoxious hunting grounds. You are a quiet bird, but you use your piercing shriek to warn predators away from your nest and to attract mates.




Mostly Ds: You are a Chipping Sparrow

A small sparrow with a black and brown back, gray body, and rusty red cap, you prefer seeds above any other food. You are known for your highly social behavior, welcoming the company of other chipping sparrows and even the occasional quiet human being. Like all sparrows, you use rapid retreat to high ground to protect yourself from cats, hawks, and other predators. You are named after your happy little “chip, chip, chip” call. It’s not beautiful, but it’s a constant, somewhat comforting sound in most gardens and parks.

Mostly Es: You are a Turkey Vulture

A large, blackish-brown bird with an ugly, unfeathered, red face, you use your incredible sense of smell to find carrion. (Your unfeathered face comes in handy when diving into a rotting animal carcass.) Although often seen flying alone, you’re actually fairly social, roosting with other turkey vultures and gathering at smelly carcasses for an intimate meal. Predators be warned. You aren’t afraid of vomiting partially digested roadkill to warn others away and will even aim for the eyes if something gets too close. It’s all accompanied by a warning hiss that you learned as an ugly, little vulture chick.




This has been Your BOTW.