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Ramblings of a Bird V1
Apr. 14th, 2012 11:11 amOk. So I made myself this stupid promise. Kind of like that silly New Year’s resolution that never happens. What was it? To write a kind of journal thing every week. I for-see great failure.
To start off with, I am one very confused bird-person. The journey of self-discovery, or self-identification is never ending it seems. I’m still a bird, but I’m wondering if perhaps I’m just not an extent bird- if I’m something dead and gone or the root of the theorized avian tree. Most people on here mention some kind of connection with pictures of their theriotype or phenotype but pictures of my supposed ‘type just don’t seem to hit any particular chord. Sure they’re all stunning and as gorgeous as the next bird but nothing special, and along with a few other things discussed below have left me to some serious pondering. If I’m not a Little Eagle, then what the heck am I?
Then the big question: Am I even therian? I considered it for a month or so, tried just being human, but it quite simply just didn’t work. I tried walking, talking, thinking, eating, acting like any “normal” 18 year old would. It was almost physically painful, every moment. I couldn’t concentrate, I was irritable and downright depressed. I reached the conclusion that if I was just human, I have something seriously wrong with me.
So I moved on: what if I was something extinct, something of the dromaeosaurid line. I haven’t counted out Dromaeosaur itself, and also included almost everything up to Rahonavis with the exception of Utahraptor because of the size. I still haven’t completely discontinued this line of thought due to the nature of some shifts mentioned in Nomad’s “Deconstructing the Raptor” thread on the Werelist, which have been occurring far to frequently for me dismiss as merely coincidental cameo shifts. One recent occurrence of the dromaeosaurid nature was on school camp, when I went traipsing through the bush with a few friends following the creek bed up as far as we could then back again to the riverside camp. I had a fairly strong mental and phantom shift which consisted mainly of myself running ahead and around of the others, mostly rocked forwards onto my toes-ducking and weaving, leaning almost completely forwards. Jumping across things much to the chagrin of my nearby friend who watched me jump up onto a downed sapling we were crossing and proceeding to proclaim with a chirrup: “Bouncy!” and then bounce up and down on it before hissing as she shoed me off it. Then I jumped up onto a fallen tree and crouched there to wait whereupon I “came to” and realized I was holding my arms with palms facing, tucked up to my side. I assumed a more “normal” stance as the rest of the group caught up. One of my friends commented later on what she described as my “tacking back and forth like you where hunting something-sometimes us.” She thought it was funny. I thought it was confusing and went to get myself more tea.
Leaving that as a hesitant possibility, I’ve moved onto serious consideration of the comparatively more recently extinct Haast’s Eagle, Harpagornis moorei, of New Zealand. It is closely related to my assumed ‘type, the Little Eagle, and the Booted Eagle. Supposed to be the ancestor of the Little Eagle/Booted Eagle isolated to New Zealand, whereupon it experienced one of the fastest recorded cases of evolution shaped by island giganticism [the opposite of island dwarfism as seen in the Bornean Pygmy Elephants] to a size large enough to kill children and fully grown Moas. [13ft relations of the modern emu and ostriches but much larger and heavier.] So there is some correlation there at least. But once again, the sheer size of Haast’s makes me uncertain though I do feel a connection with the theorized vertical take off [theory based upon reconstructions of leg muscles that would have aided in a near-vertical take off jump from the forest floor, as well as enough gripping power in the talons to puncture the pelvis of a moa or man]. Yet another possibility.
And then, finally, the original Little Eagle. Maybe I’m just one small eagle with dreams of genetic grandeur? I still fell small, not quite diminutive, but small. I don’t often feel the need to tackle kangaroos or emus, or to chase down some protoceratopsians- only sometimes. I guess I’ll conclude this week’s ramblings here- and partake in some of that wonderful activity known more commonly as sleep.
To start off with, I am one very confused bird-person. The journey of self-discovery, or self-identification is never ending it seems. I’m still a bird, but I’m wondering if perhaps I’m just not an extent bird- if I’m something dead and gone or the root of the theorized avian tree. Most people on here mention some kind of connection with pictures of their theriotype or phenotype but pictures of my supposed ‘type just don’t seem to hit any particular chord. Sure they’re all stunning and as gorgeous as the next bird but nothing special, and along with a few other things discussed below have left me to some serious pondering. If I’m not a Little Eagle, then what the heck am I?
Then the big question: Am I even therian? I considered it for a month or so, tried just being human, but it quite simply just didn’t work. I tried walking, talking, thinking, eating, acting like any “normal” 18 year old would. It was almost physically painful, every moment. I couldn’t concentrate, I was irritable and downright depressed. I reached the conclusion that if I was just human, I have something seriously wrong with me.
So I moved on: what if I was something extinct, something of the dromaeosaurid line. I haven’t counted out Dromaeosaur itself, and also included almost everything up to Rahonavis with the exception of Utahraptor because of the size. I still haven’t completely discontinued this line of thought due to the nature of some shifts mentioned in Nomad’s “Deconstructing the Raptor” thread on the Werelist, which have been occurring far to frequently for me dismiss as merely coincidental cameo shifts. One recent occurrence of the dromaeosaurid nature was on school camp, when I went traipsing through the bush with a few friends following the creek bed up as far as we could then back again to the riverside camp. I had a fairly strong mental and phantom shift which consisted mainly of myself running ahead and around of the others, mostly rocked forwards onto my toes-ducking and weaving, leaning almost completely forwards. Jumping across things much to the chagrin of my nearby friend who watched me jump up onto a downed sapling we were crossing and proceeding to proclaim with a chirrup: “Bouncy!” and then bounce up and down on it before hissing as she shoed me off it. Then I jumped up onto a fallen tree and crouched there to wait whereupon I “came to” and realized I was holding my arms with palms facing, tucked up to my side. I assumed a more “normal” stance as the rest of the group caught up. One of my friends commented later on what she described as my “tacking back and forth like you where hunting something-sometimes us.” She thought it was funny. I thought it was confusing and went to get myself more tea.
Leaving that as a hesitant possibility, I’ve moved onto serious consideration of the comparatively more recently extinct Haast’s Eagle, Harpagornis moorei, of New Zealand. It is closely related to my assumed ‘type, the Little Eagle, and the Booted Eagle. Supposed to be the ancestor of the Little Eagle/Booted Eagle isolated to New Zealand, whereupon it experienced one of the fastest recorded cases of evolution shaped by island giganticism [the opposite of island dwarfism as seen in the Bornean Pygmy Elephants] to a size large enough to kill children and fully grown Moas. [13ft relations of the modern emu and ostriches but much larger and heavier.] So there is some correlation there at least. But once again, the sheer size of Haast’s makes me uncertain though I do feel a connection with the theorized vertical take off [theory based upon reconstructions of leg muscles that would have aided in a near-vertical take off jump from the forest floor, as well as enough gripping power in the talons to puncture the pelvis of a moa or man]. Yet another possibility.
And then, finally, the original Little Eagle. Maybe I’m just one small eagle with dreams of genetic grandeur? I still fell small, not quite diminutive, but small. I don’t often feel the need to tackle kangaroos or emus, or to chase down some protoceratopsians- only sometimes. I guess I’ll conclude this week’s ramblings here- and partake in some of that wonderful activity known more commonly as sleep.
