Bat wins New Zealand Bird of the Year competition.

[Jason]

Best bird a bat: tiny flying mammal wins New Zealand bird of the year competition | New Zealand | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

---

No stunt, say organisers, who wanted to raise awareness of the pekapeka-tou-roa, which faces the same threats as native birds

 

[thewhyteboar]

 

[Keyser_Soze]

It's kinda cute?

 

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

[Mr.Vic20]

Funding makes people behave really weirdly! 

[Uaarkson]

Bats rule. They’re little flying puppies with butt cheeks.

[Zaku3]

This is probably the only thread where i can post this. I finally tried out uhd blu ray. Was watching a perfect planet. It looked sooooo good. 

[Fizzzzle]

[Iculus]

birds are fucking disgusting death vectors. Covid has given bats a bad name, but birds are the worst.

[Ghost_MH]

23 minutes ago, Iculus said:

birds are fucking disgusting death vectors. Covid has given bats a bad name, but birds are the worst.

 

Pretty sure rabies are what gave bats a bad name.

[Fizzzzle]

2 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

Pretty sure rabies are what gave bats a bad name.

I've never understood the correlation. Do bats not suffer the effects of rabies? If they do, wouldn't that mean they're no more risky than any other mammal? Then again, they can fly, so there's that. Squirrels can't fly. However, squirrels are just as likely to be rabid, but people find THEM cute.

[Ghost_MH]

3 minutes ago, Fizzzzle said:

I've never understood the correlation. Do bats not suffer the effects of rabies? If they do, wouldn't that mean they're no more risky than any other mammal? Then again, they can fly, so there's that. Squirrels can't fly. However, squirrels are just as likely to be rabid, but people find THEM cute.

 

Because, of all the major carriers of rabies, bats are the ones modern humans are most likely to encounter thanks to the overhangs and attics of our houses being just perfect places to chill during the day. I know many people who've been freaked out at finding a bar in their attic. Second only to move as far as mammal pests go. Because of that bats account for 70% of all rabies infections among humans.

 

I think bats get a bad rap. So much so that I was trying to convince my wife to let me put up a house for them in the forest behind our house to try to keep away the mosquitos during the summer. No dice, but I also get that mice are cute in cages, but not so much running around your house. Mice flying around your house is that much more horrifying.

[Fizzzzle]

1 minute ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

Because, of all the major carriers of rabies, bats are the ones modern humans are most likely to encounter thanks to the overhangs and attics of our houses being just perfect places to chill during the day. I know many people who've been freaked out at finding a bar in their attic. Second only to move as far as mammal pests go. Because of that bats account for 70% of all rabies infections among humans.

 

I think bats get a bad rap. So much so that I was trying to convince my wife to let me put up a house for them in the forest behind our house to try to keep away the mosquitos during the summer. No dice, but I also get that mice are cute in cages, but not so much running around your house. Mice flying around your house is that much more horrifying.

I personally don't mind rodents. I've never seen/heard one in the house (and we stay very vigilant about it), but mice/rats definitely find their way into our compost pile, which then attracts all the neighborhood cats, etc. We don't have bats around here, at least none that I've seen. They do tend to hang out along the river, some ~mile away.

 

I don't know. I just think people are more scared of animals than they need to be.

 

We could probably avoid a lot of the disease fear if we didn't keep trying to eat them. Just saying @johnny

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

2 hours ago, Iculus said:

birds are fucking disgusting death vectors. Covid has given bats a bad name, but birds are the worst.

Mockingbirds are terrifying to me

[Keyser_Soze]

2 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

I personally don't mind rodents. I've never seen/heard one in the house (and we stay very vigilant about it),

 

Just wait till they come inside and chew up your stuff and take shits in your utensil drawers and walk all over your countertops. You might mind them then.

[Ghost_MH]

4 hours ago, Fizzzzle said:

I personally don't mind rodents. I've never seen/heard one in the house (and we stay very vigilant about it), but mice/rats definitely find their way into our compost pile, which then attracts all the neighborhood cats, etc. We don't have bats around here, at least none that I've seen. They do tend to hang out along the river, some ~mile away.

 

I don't know. I just think people are more scared of animals than they need to be.

 

We could probably avoid a lot of the disease fear if we didn't keep trying to eat them. Just saying @johnny

 

1 hour ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Just wait till they come inside and chew up your stuff and take shits in your utensil drawers and walk all over your countertops. You might mind them then.

 

I used to live in this great renovated mill from the 1800s. It was an awesome place. I was there for like six years. Down the block there were the remnants of another mill. They dug that spot of land for some new project. Apparently, the old basement system of that mill that was closed forever ago was home to hundreds of thousands of mice and they went EVERYWHERE in the neighborhood once construction began. They chewed up my NAS, pissed all over my TiVo, tried to set up a nest in my subwoofer, broke in and ate half of my dogs dry food, shit and pissed all over my luggage. One electrocuted itself on my gaming PC's PSU. Nothing like packing for a trip, opening up your suitcase, and finding a dead mouse and other goodies inside. I also enjoyed the day it sounded like clans were going to war in the ceiling above my bedroom. I have a buddy that manages a local exterminator. He came by, helped out as much as he could over the weekend. We caught like thirty mice and then he told me to just leave because it'll take a few years for the neighborhood to be critter free with all the construction scheduled. Fuck man. I almost literally burned everything when we moved, and even still, somehow, I found a mouse head stuck in the tape on the bottom of one of the boxes of dishes. That was a cool surprise when I was breaking some boxes down after moving.

 

Fuck mice.

[Iculus]

6 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

 

I used to live in this great renovated mill from the 1800s. It was an awesome place. I was there for like six years. Down the block there were the remnants of another mill. They dug that spot of land for some new project. Apparently, the old basement system of that mill that was closed forever ago was home to hundreds of thousands of mice and they went EVERYWHERE in the neighborhood once construction began. They chewed up my NAS, pissed all over my TiVo, tried to set up a nest in my subwoofer, broke in and ate half of my dogs dry food, shit and pissed all over my luggage. One electrocuted itself on my gaming PC's PSU. Nothing like packing for a trip, opening up your suitcase, and finding a dead mouse and other goodies inside. I also enjoyed the day it sounded like clans were going to war in the ceiling above my bedroom. I have a buddy that manages a local exterminator. He came by, helped out as much as he could over the weekend. We caught like thirty mice and then he told me to just leave because it'll take a few years for the neighborhood to be critter free with all the construction scheduled. Fuck man. I almost literally burned everything when we moved, and even still, somehow, I found a mouse head stuck in the tape on the bottom of one of the boxes of dishes. That was a cool surprise when I was breaking some boxes down after moving.

 

Fuck mice.

I lived in a 200 year old farm house in Millbrook NY for a year. During the winter we were so overrun by mice that we would see them running through our cabinets. The grounds keeper built a rodent death bucket. I probably diposed of 200 dead mice in the 1st week. Good times... 

[Keyser_Soze]

23 minutes ago, Ghost_MH said:

Fuck mice.

 

Similar experiences for me except they were rats.

I would be sitting around at night and I could hear it behind the oven clanging around and making those rat screeches. Very unnerving mentally.

[Fizzzzle]

My house was built in the 1880s. We had mice a little bit when I moved in, but since we took care of that it hasn't been an issue. They stick to the garden and rats fucking love the compost pile. Haven't seen/heard/seen shit of a rodent in the house in about 3 years, though