The Flickr Random Image Generatr

Had a lot of fun, a lot of smoke ingested but so worth it

Screenshot

Ackerdistel-Tanzfliege (Empis livida)
(c) Lothar Fassnacht

Australian butcherbirds are medium-sized passerines (perching birds) that belong to an Australian family that includes the currawongs, Australian magpies, and the woodswallows. Though the song varies among species, all have laughing, rollicking notes that make them a distinct part of the Australian landscape. Somehow butcherbirds give the sound of grating metal a pleasant melody. The song isn't the only thing that's metal though. Using their strong hooked bills, butcherbirds get their name from their habit of impaling or wedging prey into forked branches, thorns, bark crevices, and fence wire. Like a butcher preparing meat, they tear it apart or store it for later. As I accidentally discovered, reviewing videos of butcherbirds is not for the faint of heart. Prey is often alive as it's impaled. For example, I watched a live mouse get a thorn shoved through it's skull while in another video, multiple prey items were stored close together on the same branch where an arrangement of remarkably perfect skeletons hung off various thorns. In this way, they are a striking example of convergent evolution with shrikes, which are colloquially also called butcher birds, at least here in North America. Although the two groups are not closely related, both evolved similar predatory lifestyles, hooked beaks, lookout-perch hunting, and the habit of impaling or securing prey—basically arriving at the same solutions to a predatory lifestyle. The species in this photo is the Gray Butcherbird which can be found across much of Australia except in the northern part of the country. Glen Davis, New South Wales, Australia

Tourism 101:
Manarola / Manarôa / Manaea,
Cinque Terre,
Liguria,
Italy / Italia,