Your Prettiest Freesite Creation Find: Round Two (Apparently)

[strix]

While visiting a wildlife sanctuary on the Gold Coast some years ago, it was the roaming emus that freaked my shit *right* out! They're big birds, and their heads and faces are decidedly reptilian. Just take one look and you can see that these birds are related to dinosaurs. Having lunch in the park was perilous. All the emus decided that what I thought was MY sandwich was in fact theirs, and I had 3 of them come up and eyeball me, shove their heads right in front of my face barely an inch away, while the forth one nicked off with my sandwich! Once the others saw it had succeeded in seperating me from my lunch, they all took off to the forth bird and it's prize, and shared my lunch between them.

Egg sandwich too.

Seagulls are absolutely evil. Our great family tradition of sitting on the beach or at the Marina to eat lunch on the weekend is always disturbed by multitudes of seagulls. Especially if we have a serve of their own "natural diet" - hot chips!

[cookiepirate]

Growing up on a beach, we saw seagulls steal and eat anything they thought was edible.  Especially hotdogs that were on the grill.  Even had them attack a fishing line that was being cast out with bait on it.  My mom had to chase the bird down the beach to get the rod and reel back and to try and keep the stupid gull from swallowing the hook.

[Immortelle]

I've got 3 birds.  2 budgies, and an hand reared albino cockatiel.  The budgies are called DJ and Twitter (Twit for short), the cockatiel is called Phoenix.  DJ is my oldest.  Hee's over 8 hears old and tends to keep to himself these days.  In his younger years different story though.  He used to roll one of those plastic cat balls over the house, hat a thing for a little toy ladder with a twirling mirror on it (would try to fornicate with it) still loves his booze, if I've got a glass of red he's there.

 Phoenix is quite often on my shoulder trying to get a pat.  Loves flying around the living room at top speed, often tries to land on doors but puts the landing gears on too late, so gets stuck behind them.  He also does a really off key rendition of the mexican hat dance. 

Twit's a new one.  My husband found the little guy wandering around on the ground at work and took him in.  He looked old and on his last legs: his claws were extremely long, his beak was overgrown, and he could barely open his eyes for face mites.  Took him home, and introduced him to the gang.  The others weren't too enthused.  Phe had to do the whole big bird thing - stand on top of the cage with his crest up and wings out.  DJ wandered in, had a look then wandered over to talk to a wall.  Twit on the other hand can't leave the other two birds alone.  A few months later, and his claws are now properly trimmed, and the face mites are all cleared up.  And by all appearances he is only a very young bird.  Quite timid, but we're sorting that bit out.

Had a wattle bird for a while there too (a very big honeyeater).  We found it went it was only a week old, it had fallen out of the nest and hit its heat.  Was a little brain damaged, but nothing it wouldn't recover from, if only partially.  Got a photo of it somewhere on this computer.  Motley little thing, but quite smart.  It liked to untangle nots and could undoe the most complicated in seconds.  It was hopeless at eating mealworms - would drop half of them on the cage floor.  But it was quite tame.  It used to jump out of its cage, find us, clamber up and try to lick inside an ear or up a nose.  Got a lot of giggles that.  He was funny with Phoenix, too, as he used to think the crest was a flower, and chase after it.  Phe would always look at him as if to say, 'what are you doing mate'

[Skoria_Bay]

My husband and I were in Disney World in Florida about 15 years ago on vacation. We stayed at one the on sight hotels and they opened one of the parks early to the hotel guest (a different one each day). We went to MGM for breakfast and were eating outside. One lady got up to get some butter and a bird hopped right up on the table and grabbed her toast. She wasn't gone for more the a few seconds. The birds had no fear of humans and there were many signs posted around saying not to feed the wildlife, but the "wildlife" fed itself.

[Eskimo Pie]

 Max is better than any guard dog, I find more people are afraid of him then they are of dogs! lol

[ChaosInAMinor]

The pigeons and seagulls out here in SF are both ridiculous. As are the squirrels in Golden Gate Park, but that's another story. I get so pissed off when I see people dropping crumbs for them. That's what causes these birds to swarm people.

[Alexia]

Now this is absolutely fabulous plasticbox's wonderful potted plants

Couple this with fway's shrunken plants and your simmies living in apartments need not worry about not having a garden anymore. Plus you needn't water them. (Just wish my plants needn't be watered )

[Pescado]

The birds had no fear of humans and there were many signs posted around saying not to feed the wildlife, but the "wildlife" fed itself.

See, it's unhealthy for wildlife not to have a fear of humans. That's why it is necessary for humans to occasionally eat some of them. It reminds them that they should be afraid of us. People, however, have gotten feeble and toothless, and so the wildlife no longer properly fears humans as predators. With the wildlife not properly fearing humans, detrimental human-wildlife confrontations result which are harmful to both.

[Darqstar]

See, it's unhealthy for wildlife not to have a fear of humans. That's why it is necessary for humans to occasionally eat some of them. It reminds them that they should be afraid of us. People, however, have gotten feeble and toothless, and so the wildlife no longer properly fears humans as predators. With the wildlife not properly fearing humans, detrimental human-wildlife confrontations result which are harmful to both.

Humans like to believe we're still at the top of the food chain and nothing will upset us.  Wildcats have been reported in a nearby area, and people were warned to keep an eye on young children and pets.  What amazed me was the number of people who just didn't believe it.  "Wildcats?  Near Boston?  Nonsense." 

I keep waiting to hear that a baby got carried off,  and if that will be enough to make them believe.

It used to be that animals kept to their area, and when we went into it, we'd be likely to have a gun.   But, we're taking all of their area, we don't run around with guns, and human society gives for some pretty easy pickings for animals.  Why hunt when you can go down to the dumpster behind McDonalds and get all the food you want?

[Eskimo Pie]

 I don't understand people who build homes in the woods, like these new subdivisions, then complain when they see a bear wanders by or see a wild cat in their back yard.

[Immortelle]

I've always thought that people in general have a whole 'there is people and then there are animals attitude' as if homo sapien is seperate from all other living things - an exception.    In my believe, we are animals, the same as birds, dogs, monkeys, guinea pigs, zebras etc.  Nothing more, nothing less.  We have our strengths and weaknesses.  We are smarter than many animals, but we can't see as well as some, can't hear as well as others, can't run as fast etc.  Certainly, animals seem less intelligent than us, and essentially have a different culture to us, but to me, we are all nothing more than animals.

I don't understand people who build homes in the woods, like these new subdivisions, then complain when they see a bear wanders by or see a wild cat in their back yard.

People seem to have a compulsion to complain about anything.  When I was living in the city, people used to complain about the noise coming from the nightclubs and complain louder still about live bands.  That and any other issue about living in a city (ie. traffic).  The way I see it, its the city.  If you want to live there, put up with it.  Personally, I actually quite enjoyed living in the city.  I got to hear the Super Cars buzzing away, I saw the Olympic torch arrive in our city when the Sydney Olympics was on from my own window and a million other amazing things, and everything I ever wanted was just around the corner.  I never needed to drive a car or anything like that.

[karu]

We have wildcats in our area too.  Male panthers require a range of about 200 sq miles and females need about 75.

[oolongteadrinker]

I've always thought that people in general have a whole 'there is people and then there are animals attitude' as if homo sapien is seperate from all other living things - an exception.    In my believe, we are animals, the same as birds, dogs, monkeys, guinea pigs, zebras etc.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Seconded. To a point. A human's very presence in nature alters nature. So there is definitely an "otherness" with people and animals. Case in point-- our anthropomorphizing of animals. We can't help it-- how can we not? We don't know what it's like to be a bear for example-- with a sense of smell many times greater than a bloodhound. There is no point of reference, physically and mentally for that.

Also, we tend to vilify or romanticize certain animals for how they reflect back on us. A very mammal-centric, human-centric rubric which always irks me. Not too long ago, someone was telling me that they saw an animal in trouble and had to rescue it-- not for the sake of rescuing it- but because it was beautiful to her. Well, how ego-stroking was that? Did she want a cookie or something? She should've just pat herself on the back like my sims do.

I don't understand people who build homes in the woods, like these new subdivisions, then complain when they see a bear wanders by or see a wild cat in their back yard.

People seem to have a compulsion to complain about anything.  When I was living in the city, people used to complain about the noise coming from the nightclubs and complain louder still about live bands.  That and any other issue about living in a city (ie. traffic).  The way I see it, its the city.  If you want to live there, put up with it. 

Heh. What I have NEVER understood is when the news covers the story of a break in where the poor yokel just never locked their doors. No one deserves to be broken into, but lock your goddamn doors, people. If I hear another "we don't lock our doors in this neighborhood" line again, I'll scream.

[neriana]

I've always thought that people in general have a whole 'there is people and then there are animals attitude' as if homo sapien is seperate from all other living things - an exception.    In my believe, we are animals, the same as birds, dogs, monkeys, guinea pigs, zebras etc.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Seconded. To a point. A human's very presence in nature alters nature. So there is definitely an "otherness" with people and animals. Case in point-- our anthropomorphizing of animals. We can't help it-- how can we not? We don't know what it's like to be a bear for example-- with a sense of smell many times greater than a bloodhound. There is no point of reference, physically and mentally for that.

Every animal "alters" nature just by being there. Look at what happens to an ecosystem when an outside plant or animal gets put there -- rabbits in Australia, various water-hungry plants where I live. Or if an animal gets removed, as when predators are wiped out. The balance gets totally farked. Nor are human animals "smarter" than other animals. For instance, horses wouldn't be very good at being human, but we'd be quite terrible at being horses. Not to mention the fact that we're the only ones "smart" enough to wipe out almost all life on Earth if we wanted. (Though actually, I'm not sure if we could get the bacteria and insects that make up most life.) Brilliant!

Humans drive cars and we spread out everywhere, taking land we don't need, using far too many resources, etc. We're like rabbits in Australia, except for the entire world. Since we supposedly have the intelligence and foresight to know better, this makes us the stupidest animals, since we don't actually use our skills.

[dstar]

We have problems like that in Vermont all the time. The biggest issue is transplants from the big cities like New York and Boston who come up here expecting to have a nice little country life without understanding that the animals were there before they were. So they call the Parks Service or the Police all upset because a black bear or fisher cat broke into their improperly secured garbage, or their kitchen because they don't lock up at night or put figure they can leave their stuff in open dumpsters or cans on the sidewalk like they did in the city and not have animals get into it. The other issue is inexperienced campers. Big issue around here because most bear and wildcat attacks are caused by people who do not put their food items in airtight containers to begin with and then do something stupid like storing the food boxes and food coolers in their tent (really bad and incredibly stupid idea).