SI, 'Beloved' - July 12

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and SI… continues to underwhelm, ditto. This week’s episode, ‘Beloved’, has Talos, (the male Skrull that impersonated Fury in Tom Holland’s 2^nd ‘Spider-Man’ film), killed, and whoever gives a damn about that? Whereas AoS at least tried to build its’ characters up so that their death would matter and/or impact the audience, SI does not. Pause?

Let us try again. As it was said the last time, AoS appears to overshadow SI in quantity at the very least, but still, as Tom Holland’s ‘Spider-Man 2’ movie showed, SI has the advantage of having its’ characters appear in the rest of MCU’s franchise; unlike AoS, SI is an official part of MCU and as such it can use this status to ‘pull out’ characters from other corners of MCU to flesh itself other. Indeed, it appears to do so with the character of Rhodes, (War Machine)… who appears to become mostly AWOL himself since the CA: CW film, (the ‘What If?’ cartoon series do not count, as they are more of an alternative to the main MCU plotline)… The point here is that SI is also underwhelming on top of its’ other issues; it has its’ own advantages vs. AoS, which is does not use, or rather does not use them very well… or very much at all. AoS did not have them at all, or at least – not very many, but it still used them…

Ok, to be fair, what AoS also did was cannibalize/assimilate discarded plots of such discarded Marvel shows as ‘InHumans’ and ‘Ghost Rider’ and ‘Most Wanted’ in order to keep itself going. But, again, both it and SI were TV shows, not RL – Disney/MCU could abort them instead of running them full time, or else get rid of them before they aired – but no. Disney/MCU went through with AoS, even though there were multiple behind the scenes issues in it, and it is going through with SI, even though there are multiple issues with it as well. The result is that S.H.I.E.L.D. is gone from MCU on one hand, and SI is going to join it too, it looks like on the other. Sad, but that is real world politics for you – like the rest of reality, they suck.

Moreover, speaking of reality… It is only mid-July here, in the southern Canada, (which may sound like an oxymoron, but is a reality fact instead), and already fruits, berries, nuts and seeds are ripening, the leaves are turning red, and the flowers are going away. The insects are still out in force – we are talking pollinators here – but squirrels, grey and red, as well as their cousins the chipmunks and marmots, are already preparing food for winter. Guess living in the north – and not being a human – has its’ restrictions and rules overall. The local cicadas, however, are singing, meaning that it is mid-summer here after all…

(Oh, and the carrion is all gone now, washed away by the heavy summer thunderstorms – the vultures and condors are out of luck after all).

This is it for now. See you all soon!

SI and real life - July 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks… but we will be talking about it regardless, it looks like.

Why, you may ask? Because SI continues to… not deliver: whereas AoS was all about ‘pieces solving a puzzle’, to quote Skye, SI is just mostly about Nick Fury, running around the world trying to stop the deviant Skrulls, yet almost never engaging them directly. Meanwhile, both Talos and Ms. Falsworth seem to be doing their own thing and so does G’iyah the Skrull-girl… who seems to be a rip-off of Skye/Daisy Johnson/Quake. Pause.

Let us try again, without going too far into an AoS-rant. Initially, AoS was supposed to be a big deal, as the above-mentioned character of Quake was an important character in the Marvel comics for a while, she even ran S.H.I.E.L.D., in one of the comic universes. Sadly, whatever the show’s intent was, it quickly went off in a completely different direction and from S4 onwards it became an outlier of MCU; now, there is no mention of S.H.I.E.L.D. or S.W.O.R.D. in MCU – but we have discussed that earlier. Now, let me just stay that it is MCU’s loss, as out of the two shows, SI is the lesser one, and not just because it is 6 episodes long, while AoS had been 7 seasons long instead – both quality and quantity matter here.

AoS issues aside, so far SI seems to be mostly laying a groundwork for the upcoming MCU… elements, making the deviant Skrulls the main villains of MCU to come, as team Fury still doesn’t appear to have gotten their shite together, while the ‘evil Skrulls’ appear to have done just that. Therefore, let us leave them for now, go, and face reality.

What do we have there? As a California condor has proclaimed – “Carrion, of course!” The dead squirrel/skunk is gone from the road, the dead Norway rat/house mouse is… mostly gone from the street walk, but while those remains are few in number, (mostly the tail and some bones), they still fill the streets with the stench of ripe rotten meat… and since we got wild coyotes, (red) foxes and raccoons going around the neighborhood on one hand, and pet dogs, as well as cats, and human children on the other… the locals should really go an extra mile here and get rid of all the carrion, before something bad happens – but that’s just a condor’s perspective.

Done with the dead, onto the living. We have seen a couple of eastern cottontail bunnies feeding around, and they are both adorable and super-fast. However, quite a few people have seen rabbits or hares in their lives, either wild, pet or feral, so let us leave them aside, (for now, maybe). What we have also seen are mergansers.

What are mergansers? They are ducks, just as the mallards are, only not. The mallards are an example of dabbling ducks: they feed on the water’s surface, their bills are long and broad as they filter food from there; the Shoveler duck has a bill that is especially adapted for filtering; maybe not as derived as a flamingo bill, but still there.

A diving duck, on the other hand, dives. A dabbling duck may briefly turn downside up on the water surface before returning into the air, but a diving duck can soundlessly slide beneath the water’s surface just as a loon or a cormorant does. Moreover, just like them, diving ducks, such as mergansers, have long, thin bills designed to catch fish. Unlike loons or cormorants, however, a merganser’s bill, (there are several species, but all look similar enough to each other not to be distinguished without a bird guide), has serrations in it to better grasp and hold onto a slippery fish, while loons and cormorants don’t have them. Moreover, as in all of the ducks, male and female mergansers look different from each other, (though the female mergansers are much more colourful than mallard females are, for example), while loons and cormorants don’t have that. Put otherwise, the mergansers were amazing as they fed in shallow waters, (it was a female with ducklings, though a male was nearby – maybe a father of the family, maybe not), submerging and emerging with ease that a fabricated sub could only dream off. Anything else?

No, not really. The point that is being made here is that while usually real life sucks more and imaginary life sucks less, sometimes the reverse is true.

This is all for now, see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #104 - July 3

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. I care for my family, I really do, but sometimes they drive me insane – actually, we all drive each other insane, and on a regular basis. It is not that we want to hurt each other – usually we do not want to, (I am being optimistic here), but more often it happens just despite our best intentions, (again, I am being optimistic here). What next?

Well, last time we talked about one of the most specialized birds of prey – the osprey. This time, we will talk about one of the most generalized of them all instead – the black kite. Why it? Because it is one of the most outspread members of the kite group in the Old World.

What characteristics define a kite, (we are talking birds here, not toys)? They are excellent flyers, but unlike the falcons, their aerial mastery is more like that of the much greater eagles and vultures – they glide and soar on the currents of air instead.

Then how is a kite different from a vulture? Aside from the obvious, of course… actually, let us start with the obvious. Both vultures and kites, (such as the black kite), eat carrion, but the vultures appear to be more adapted to it – i.e. their bald heads and necks, their more powerful physiques and bigger body sizes, and so on. Yes, just as the kites, at least some vultures can catch live prey, but they are bigger, they need a greater daily intake of food, and so they usually don’t waste energy further by killing live prey, they scavenge.

…The kites, on the other hand, are more flexible than the vultures are – usually. In North America, lives a bird called the snail kite, and it too is a kite, but a different one: it is a food specialist. The osprey eats almost only fish. The snail kite – almost only a certain type of snail, so when those snails suffer and their population falls, the same can be said for the snail kite.

To further differentiate itself from the rest of the kites, the snail kite is very much sexually dimorphic, as the males and females of this species have very different plumage colorations. As we have mentioned before, many of the carnivorous birds have bigger females and stronger males – aka the sexual dimorphism – but usually the two sexes are not colored differently as well. There are other birds of prey with this sort of thing, the northern harrier comes to mind, but we have digressed. Let us get back to the kites.

There are several other species of kites in North America, and while they do not look very similarly to the black kite of the Old World, they are master fliers as it is, and as a rule, the kites are some of the more migratory birds of prey. The snail kite is a homebody, which makes it again different from the rest of this group. There are stable populations of black kites in Africa… actually, they might be closely related birds to the typical black kite, but where were we?

Ah yes, the kites. They might be some of the most basic modern birds of prey. They do not have any derived physical that make them unusual, (but there are always exceptions, of course). They do not have any dietary preferences either, (usually) – they can eat both live prey and carrion. They are master fliers and have spread all over the globe, except for the poles and the mountains – they do not do cold so well. They are not particularly powerful or impressive, so they are able to co-exist with other carnivores, avian and otherwise, without too much conflict… though some hawks, and the European eagle-owl do attack the black kite on occasion – this is inter-species conflict, and it’s not unlike what the lions have with the other meat-eating mammals on the African plains. Sadly, here the black kite is the underdog – but that is another story.

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #102 - July 1

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but happy Canada day everyone, all the same. May those who are better off in life than I am; enjoy it all the same, wherever they may be! What next?

Let us get back to the vultures, but the Old World vultures this time. Since there is quite a few of them, let us use the already-mentioned cinereous vulture as a basic prototype.

Pause. What is cinereous, one may wonder? Apparently, it is a pale ashy color, more grey than black. There is a reason as to why the cinereous vulture is also known as the Eurasian black vulture – it is more black in color than pale grey, so maybe we should use its’ other-other name, the monk vulture, instead.

Why are we using the cinereous vulture as our Old World vulture basic bird? Because of ‘Planet Earth’, which we have also discussed before. In its’ ‘Temperate Woodlands’ episode, sir David had showed footage of a mother and cub Amur leopards frightening those birds away from a kill during a Siberian winter. Both leopards and vultures are usually associated with tropics, not a Siberian winter, so ‘Planet Earth’ showed that both leopards and vultures are made of harder stock than how we assume them to be. That said, the cinereous vulture’s closest relative is the lappet-faced vulture of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and neither of those places is known for winter snows, so there is that. What next?

Climatic outliers aside, the Old World Vultures do come across as slightly, bigger, tougher, and more varied birds than the New World counterparts are. They include such atypical creatures as the lammergeyer, which prefers to eat bone, the palm nut vulture, which eats palm nuts, and the Egyptian vulture, which uses rocks to smash open ostrich eggs and eat their contents. By contrast, the New World vultures don’t have such deviants, they all are scavengers and carnivores… as are the bulk of the Old World vultures as well; both the cinereous vulture and the lappet-faced vulture are known not just to scavenge, but to kill live prey as well, sometimes fairly big one, such as the wild lambs. Pause.

Let us get back to the taxonomy – whereas the New World vultures’ closest relatives are not fully determined yet, (but they may be storks), the Old World vultures are related to the hawks and eagles that we have discussed earlier… another pause.

Let us get back to the eagles – to the white-tailed eagle, for example. As we have talked about them, whereas falcons invested in speed, and hawks – in endurance and maneuverability, the eagles invested in strength, which cost them speed: their default method of movement is passively gliding via warm currents of air, conserving their strength for when they need to attack. The vultures utilize the same strategy, save that they do not usually attack live prey, but scavenge from kills of other carnivores, which are usually mammals.

Again, this is a mixed bag – for example, there is footage of vulture flocks actually scaring cheetahs away from their kills rather than patiently waiting for them to eat. Everyone dominates the poor cheetahs, it looks like! ….Normally, however, carnivorous mammals such as big cats, wild dogs, and – more rarely – bears will eat their fill, and only then will the various birds, including the vultures of both types, join in. The birds may be a more numerous and varied group of vertebrates at this point in Earth’s history, but the mammals appear to be the more dominant one for now. Pound for pound, mammals are more powerful and massive than the birds are, and so birds have evolved to take advantage of the more successful mammals, which includes the ancestors of the vultures, who had split from their eagle and hawk cousins sometime in the past to become almost exclusive scavengers; some of them – namely, the now extinct teratorns – were some of the biggest birds that’d ever flown… but that is another story.

For now, though, this is it. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #99 - June 28

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, but we will continue to talk about it anyways. Today’s topic are the falcons, including the great peregrine, and its’ cousin, the prairie falcon, but right now we will approach the falcons from the other end of the spectrum – the crested caracara.

What is a caracara? It is a genus of birds in the falcon family and order; right now, there are two species of these birds – the northern and southern caracaras; both are crested, which is why the term ‘crested caracara’ is somewhat outdated and is not used too much anymore, especially by the scientists. Both of the bird species have crests; the southern caracara lives only in South America, while its’ northern counterpart is found from the northern South America to Central America, to parts of southern U.S. There was a third species of those birds, the so-called Guadalupe caracara, but it died out around 1900, so let us not talk about it for now.

Behavioristically… the caracaras are like the anti-falcons: they fly only when they have a clear designated goal before them, and otherwise, they prefer to spend their time on food. They are carnivores, of course, but whereas the falcons usually prefer to feed on other birds, (the hawks have a more mixed diet), the caracara has a much wider diet, and the northern species even eats fruits on occasion; the southern caracara – not so much. More usually, though, the northern caracara is a scavenger rather than a hunter, (and much ado had been made about the peregrine not eating carrion, as a rule), which makes it rather vulture-like in behavior.

This brings us back to the king vulture. Why? Because a certain William Bartram, an American naturalist, (1739-1832) has written and depicted about a bird of prey that – on the illustration – resembles a king vulture, save for a differently colored tail, but in text is more like the northern caracara instead, and here lies the conundrum. If we accept the possibility that the bird is a king vulture, then we have to accept that Mr. Bartram hadn’t talked about the northern caracara at all, and that doesn’t add up, because as far as scavengers go, the king vulture is a tropical bird, one that doesn’t come up to the U.S. at all, (unlike the American black and the turkey vultures, let alone the California condor), whereas the northern caracara does. And-?

And nothing; the paragraph above was aimed to show how convoluted and tangled the avian I.D. can be, even in the modern times, what with the modern technology and all, and back then, when everything depended primarily on the human eye – even moreso. In addition, that before we return to the fact that the caracaras are some of the least falcon-like falcons that have existed, (since the late Pleistocene epoch). Anything else?

Yes. Aside from caracara the genus, there is also caracara the family, which contains five genera of birds of prey that belong to the falcon group, and all of which are called caracaras; the term ‘crested caracara’ applies to only 2 living and several extinct species of the caracara genus, but as far as species go, many of South American birds of prey that aren’t eagles or vultures are called caracaras – about 10 species in total, and while they look somewhat similar to each other, they have plenty of differences too. That said, the separation of the black caracara and the red-throated one into two separate genera happened fairly recently, so there is that.

This brings us briefly back to the vultures. Do you remember when we have discussed the American black vulture, and briefly mentioned the cinereous vulture and the red-headed one, because they were also both called black vultures in the past? Well, the red-headed vulture was also called the king vulture in the past, but now this term is applied only to the American species instead, because of reasons…

Ah well, for now this is it. See you all soon instead!

Quarantine entry #98 - June 27

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, however, let us talk about something else again. No, not about ‘Force of Nature’, a new Mel Gibson movie – that we will talk about separately; let us talk about… what?

I admit that I wanted to talk about the king vulture for today – we have discussed the New World vultures in general and the American black vulture in particular in the past, when something else came up: the Thylacosmilus.

In case you forgot, the Thylacosmilus was a prehistoric sabre-toothed mammal, and it was a marsupial, meaning that it was more closely related to the modern koalas and kangaroos than to the big cats, dogs, bears and so on. I also must admit that my perception of the Thylacosmilus is influenced by Mauricio Anton’s ‘Sabretooth’ book, but what else is there? Donald R. Prothero’s ‘Princeton Guide’? Yes, no, I will pass.

Back to the Thylacosmilus for real. People like Mauricio Anton and his sources had depicted the marsupial sabretooth, (aka Thylacosmilus and its’ closest extinct kin), as, well, a marsupial sabretooth, a marsupial counterpart to the placental sabre-toothed carnivores, (and there were quite a lot); right now, it is the word ‘carnivores’ that is key. The recent studies have implied that the Thylacosmilus had a different lifestyle from other sabre-toothed mammals, such as Smilodon, and used its’ sabre-shaped teeth in a different way; already there are theories that it might have been an insectivore instead – but how possible is that?

Let us look at the modern mammals. Recently, we have talked about bears in general, including the sloth bear. While the giant panda is an obligate herbivore, and the polar bear is an obligate carnivore, the sloth bear may be the most specialized bear of them all, as it feeds almost completely on ants, termites, and the like. As a result, on one hand, it got powerful front legs and mighty claws, and on the other, it got a specialized muzzle and reduced teeth, but it can bite, and its’ canine teeth are especially well developed. Pause.

Now, let us look at the Thylacosmilus. Its’ paws and claws were more bear- than cat-like, with claws that were only semi-retractable and not as sharp as those of true cats, and its’ forepaws were powerful, but then again, this is a trait shared by all the sabre-toothed carnivores, including, the mammal-like reptiles, maybe. Its’ muzzle, however, is blunt, not long as that of the sloth bear. So-?

So nothing, let us look at the aardwolf as well. Despite its’ name, it is no relative of the aardvark, but of the hyenas, and in fact it looks like a small striped hyena on the outside. On the inside, however, it is no scavenger or grave robber, but rather feeds on social insects, termites and ants. Not unlike the sloth bear, it too has reduced teeth, but notable canine teeth for self-defence… and nothing else that would imply that it was an insectivore, rather than a carnivore, as the rest of the hyena family is. Thylacosmilus could have been like this as well. Anything else?

Sadly, no, but the carnivorous marsupials are a confusing group, as paleontologists are still unable to properly agree as to what and how they looked like, let alone their paleoecology. What else?

Let us get back to the king vulture, maybe? Well, these birds have appeared on the planet during the mid-Pliocene, when the last marsupial sabretooths were still living there, so the two might have met back then. However, the fossil remains of the king vulture from that period are scarce, so it is hard to say. What is known, however, that this bird is most closely related to the Andean condor out of the entire New World vulture family, and after the two species of condor, it is the biggest of the New World vultures; certainly the most colorful. An imposing bird, the adult king vulture has predominantly white plumage, which has a slight rose-yellow tinge to it. In stark contrast, the wing coverts, flight feathers and tail are dark grey to black, as is the prominent thick neck ruff. The head and neck are devoid of feathers, the skin shades of red and purple on the head, vivid orange on the neck and yellow on the throat. On the head, the skin is wrinkled and folded, and there is a highly noticeable irregular golden crest attached on the cere above its orange and black bill; this caruncle does not fully form until the bird's fourth year. A true king of the vultures, in fact. Anything else?

…For the moment, the king vulture is classified as ‘Least Concern’, as opposed to the Andean condor, which is ‘Near Threatened’ and the California condor, which is ‘Critically Endangered’; hopefully, this trend will continue, and the king vulture will remain flourishing for ages to come, and not vanish from the face of the planet as the various sabre-toothed mammalian carnivores did.

…This is it for now; see you all soon!

Quarantine entry #64 - May 24

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Well, it does not suck always, but ‘suckage’ is a relative term, so there is that. I mean, yes, several of the websites I frequent began to undergo technical works almost at the same time, but that’s acceptable, relative and understandable – Hell, if it wasn’t for the lockdown I wouldn’t even care about them so much, but there’s the lockdown, the self-isolation, the Donald vs. Trudeau manhood competition, and here we are, at the end of a line. We tried to work it out, time after time… where were we?

Well, yesterday was the World Turtle day or whatever, so I wanted to talk about turtles – and so I have. Maybe not too much, but there’s only so much you can spin around turtles when you feel forced, so today let us revisit someone else – the vulture.

The American black vulture, aka the Urubú bird, aka Coragyps atratus, the second vulture of the USA…or maybe the third, if the California condor is involved. This modern dinosaur is somewhat smaller than its’ cousin the turkey vulture, with a more delicate bill, (proportionally speaking), and more delicate constitution: the American black vulture is a tropical bird, whereas the turkey vulture was encountered, (including yours truly), in the Canadian south during the summer, where the climate certainly isn’t tropical.

Next, we get to the taxonomic aspect of this avian: we are calling Coragyps atratus the American black vulture because there are at least two other birds that are called black vultures…at least to a point. First, there’s the Eurasian black vulture, better known as the cinereous vulture, Aegypius monachus, (yes, it is called the monk vulture as well sometimes), whose claim to fame is a cameo appearance in Sir David Attenborough’s ‘Planet Earth’ 2001 TV series, where a flock of those birds was scared away by an Amur leopard and her cub; given that the stage was set in Siberia, late winter/early spring, which added to its’ surrealness – you’re used to leopards scaring away vultures from kills in the African or Asian tropics, not amongst the Siberian snows… The point is that vultures as a group are tougher than they look, and should not be underestimated either.

However, the other… the other-other black vulture is the Indian black vulture, better known as the red-headed vulture, Sarcogyps calvus, and it isn’t doing so well, being critical endangered in the wild and all. It is found only on the Indian subcontinent, with small separated populations in South-east Asia from India to Singapore and it is not doing so well. Pity, because with its atypical ‘ear lobes’ on the sides of its’ neck, the red-headed vulture might be the more formidable vulture out of the three; it might’ve been the vulture mentioned in the Hindu epic ‘Ramayana’ – as the king of Rakshasas, Ravana, was carrying Sita to his island kingdom, the vulture king tried to stop him – and Ravana carved him like a Christmas turkey, as the unlucky avian was that outmatched. Dying, the vulture fell to the ground, where he was found by Rama and Laxman and told them everything, which helped them find Sita and rescue her that much faster.

Back across the oceans, the American black vulture has also left a mark in culture – in particular, in one South American native adaptation (or original take) of the ‘Noah and the Great Flood’ myth, this bird used to be a white dove instead – but when it was released to see if the waters have receded, it didn’t go back but began to feed on carrion… and eventually transformed itself into the black vulture, (of the Americas). Sometimes, myths and legends call take as strange a path as taxonomy does.

Speaking of taxonomy? The red-headed vulture is also called the Asian king vulture sometimes, but the real king vulture is also found in the New World, as it is a cousin of the American black vulture instead. Although it isn’t as impressive as its’ condor cousins, the American king vulture, (Sarcoramphus papa) is a very extravagant bird of its own, and may be the most colorful of all the vultures… but we’ve digressed.

For now, this is it instead. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #34 - April 24

Obligatory disclaimer: real life still sucks, but at least I have seen a chipmunk. A wild one, so yay! I can now die happy. Not, because the world is still out of balance, the dateline for ending the lockdown/quarantine/etc. in May seems to be going nowhere, and now, Ford’s – that the Ontario premier we’re talk about – mother in law is sick. I do not like him, but, still, I will not deny it either – this got to smart! What next?

Well, after the urial fiasco, I wanted to talk about something else, and decided upon the vulture. No, I am not talking about the Marvel villain, though MCU’s take on him in ‘Spider-Man: Homecoming’ was quite interesting, and if anyone remembers the ‘Morbius’ trailer, clearly, he is not done with anything or anyone yet. That said, with the COVID-19 lockdown still in action, it will be quite a while since we will see anything of ‘Morbius’ the movie, so let us not and say that we did.

As for the real-life birds… what about them? The term ‘vulture’ applies to scavenging birds of two, or even three, families, as the ‘New World’ vultures, (such as the condors and the king vulture), aren’t really related to the ‘Old World’ vultures, (such as the lammergeyer and the cinereous vulture). The two vulture groups don’t even look very similar to each other – just compare a New World vulture, (say, the black vulture), to an Old World vulture, (for example, the white-backed). The two birds do not really look anything alike; their similarities are more in behavior, but-!

But, firstly, the two groups of aerial scavengers differ in that the New World vultures have a very developed sense of smell, (a rarity amongst the modern birds), while the Old World vultures hunt… well, scavenge, through the sense of sight alone. (Just look at the YouTube video on the Inside Edition channel, where a turkey vulture is circling above NYC – that’s a bird that is a) on a mission and b), guided both by sight and smell. I have seen turkey vultures live in Canada, (albeit southern Canada, but still), and, yes, they are a gruesome sight, much less comely than a chipmunk is, but we digress.

The thing is, that secondly, Old World vultures don’t look identical either; some of them, like the abovementioned lammergeyer (aka the bearded vulture), or the so-called Egyptian vulture, look very different from the rest of them, which is why the Old World vultures are sometimes classified in two families, or at least – two subfamilies, one with the lammergeyer, the Egyptian vulture, and the palm-nut vulture, and the second with the rest of the Old World vulture birds. Both subfamilies belong to the Accipitridae family, which makes them a part of the Accipitriformes order, which contains not just the vultures, but also the various hawks, kites, buzzards and eagles. (It is a tangled mess). Pause.

The New World vultures, on the other hand, belong to the Cathartidae family, which is a part of an entirely different avian order. There is no clear idea as to which birds are more closely related to the New World vultures – the other birds of prey, or the storks, of which we have talked about in the past. (Animal taxonomy is a dense mess). Some scientists do think that the New World vultures are more related to the other birds of prey, but that still isn’t settled; what is certain, is that many vultures are endangered and should be protected, because if they die-out, it’ll be bad. Anything else?

Sadly, nothing much; nothing is good on YouTube anyhow, and the TV is out of my reach for the moment. For better or for worse, life keeps on happening, and when it stops, there is always the vulture to send you on your way.

…Well, this was morbid. Also, this is it for now. See you all soon!