It Murders Stuff With Its Face (The Anhinga)

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s—oh it’s just a bird. I speak of the anhinga, a green kind of bird with a super pointy beak. It’s also called the snakebird (cue “oooh” noises), which sounds like a nickname you give to a fighter pilot whose biceps just won’t quit. It’s also also called the water turkey, which sounds like something someone would call you during a game of basketball.

“You missed again. Get your water-turkey ass out of here.”

The Anhinga – Check out Photo Art Flight http://photoartflight.wordpress.com/2014/01/11/anhinga-portrait/

Anhinga Ba-ninga
Anhinga range from about 75 to 95 cm in length, weighing in between 1 to 1.35 kg, with a wingspan of 1.14 m.

Alright. Look, I’m gonna level with you here. This will be a pretty uninspired article. I mean, it’s a bird. You know what a bird looks like, and there’s a picture right there.  What do birds do? I dunno, bird shit. Honestly, I just bought a new video game and I’m super into it, but I promised one article a week and dammit I’ll meet that deadline that matters to no one.

But, there is one super interesting thing about the anhinga.

The Anhinga (Again-ga) – Check out Photo Art Flight http://photoartflight.wordpress.com/2014/01/11/anhinga-portrait/

It Murders Stuff With Its Face
The anhinga is placed in the darter family, and like all good darters, it uses its long, pointy beak to stab things. Unlike, say, a duck, the anhinga can’t oil its feathers up to float above the water, so its naturally not very buoyant. When it hunts in the water, most of its body is actually under the surface, and just its head and long neck is seen above water, hence the name “snakebird.” It then pokes its head in the water and spears little fishes with its beak, like some sort of karate bird submarine. Right because it’s under the water, and it’s a bird, and it does quick karate-like strikes. Karate Bird Submarine. You get it.

Anhinga can fly too, and apparently they’re pretty good at it. They look sort of like a turkey when they fly, hence the name water turkey. They live all over the world, in mostly warm shallow waters down south. Man I really can’t think of anything else to say about this dumb bird. Seriously, it’s so dumb, hunting with its face. Your face is the most important part of your body and you want to just throw it into harm’s way like that. That’s like me trying to block a chainsaw with my nose.

Make fun of this dumb bird with me. Leave your thoughts in the comments below. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure it gets the message.

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Today’s images were provided by Reed Andariese at Photo Art Flight, another fine WordPress blog.