Snow Goose

Snow Goose
Richmond Marina, Richmond, California, USA
January 2019
Member of the Ducks, Geese, and Swans Family
§A String of Geese§

~true bird fact~ A canny, tough goose to be reckoned with. Well known for their long migratory flights to and from the arctic, these geese are also no joke on foot, where they can outrun most of their predators. Even the baby geese might walk 50 miles in a day to find better nesting ground. And those babies? Largely safe, because the geese prefer to nest near Snowy Owls and Rough-legged Hawks, which prey on their main predators, Arctic Foxes.

Cross this goose at your own peril
A well developed sense of honor
Hardened by battle, prepared for the long winter to come



How Endangered Are They? Not endangered at all, I'm happy to say. But they were, at one point, quite endangered. At one point in the 1900's there were only 2000 birds or so left alive, mostly due to hunting. However strong conservation laws were enacted, and they recovered. Maybe a little too well.
Now there are 5 million of these bad boys, and their population is growing by 5 percent a year. There's so many of them that they're actually sort of damaging the habitat of other animals now in the tundra. New, less restrictive hunting laws have done little to slow their growth, probably because a lot of land that used to be forest is now goose-friendly farmland. Oopsa doopsa, we messed up again, but good for the Snow Goose I guess. I welcome out new Goose overlords.

Our Planet, your .gifs pt.1

Oh Hi Bird Fans! I didn't see you come in. I was just sitting here, making some beautiful .gifs from Our Planet, the Netflix nature doc taking the world by storm. I was inspired by all the amazing bird action, and of course, by the friendly presence of one D. Attenborough, who we are... acquainted with. It's a great series, I highly recommend it. Alright, see you later! Oh.. wait, you're right, it WOULD make sense for me to share these great .gifs I made with you, along with some suggestions about when you might want to use them. Today we'll be focusing on the colorful manakins and birds of paradise from the first episode and the Jungles episode respectively, because, folks, there's a lot there.

Use this .gif (above) or a Red-capped Manakin: When you want to indicate that a humorous, sudden entrance has been made. Maybe replace your Kramer-from-Seinfeld sliding into the room .gif because Seinfeld hasn't been on TV for a million years, and Kramer is super cancelled.

Use this .gif of a Black Sicklebill: to indicate a stretch or yoga pose (ex. I'm going to yoga after work [insert .gif here])

Alternate .gif use: "Weird flex, but ok"

Use this .gif of a Golden-collared Manakin: For athletic triumph, or when talking about parkour

Use this .gif of a Western Parotia for: #relationshipgoals 

Use this .gif: When you've gotta flip it on them aka. go flip-mode

Use this .gif: When you're backing out of a situation. Perhaps a twitter thread or slack chat has taken a conversational turn that you are uncomfortable with, or, more literally, you are leaving a social gathering quickly and awkwardly.

Use this .gif: When you're really impressed by your look, you want to show off.

Use this .gif of Blue Manakins: when someone asks you how online dating is going
Alternate usage: when being mansplained-to on Twitter

For more great bird .gifs, click here, and for more Attenborough action (Actionborough?) try this. And watch the series on Netflix! We'll be back in a bit with more great .gifs