Chicks with attitude

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Mammals—including us—use facial muscles to communicate, by, say, smiling or frowning. Reptiles and birds don’t do that: they don’t have the right muscles for it. If you think a bird looks grumpy, or angry, or has any similar human-type facial expression, you’re projecting your human perceptions onto an animal that really doesn’t work like that. (Now, whether the bird actually is grumpy is a different matter; I’m just saying that you can’t tell if it is by looking at its face.)

So the appearance that all these junco chicks have of possessing some serious attitude is merely an entertaining illusion.

What are you looking at?

What are you looking at?

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I am above all of this nonsense.

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Ugh. It is too early for this.

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Really?

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I’m sorry, WHAT is happening right now?

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You want a piece of this? Huh?

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No, I will not be sharing the name of my hairdresser.

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Why yes, thank you, I AM looking lovely today.

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WHOA…

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Um… who are those people and why are they looking at us?

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Yeah? Well YOUR head ALSO looks like feathery broccoli, pal!

4 thoughts on “Chicks with attitude

  1. I’m impressed by how gently and carefully the chicks are being held by these various hands; clearly there’s a proper way to hold them and it’s working here!

  2. Didn’t reptiles evolve feathers so they could express emotion. Flying was an afterthought.
    I look at these and think how similar they are to us yet how alien. How long is it, 350 million years, since we were last truly cousins?

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