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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 10/12/2025

The Sally Lightfoot Crab is allegedly named for a colourful Caribbean dancer who was light on her feet. I don't know if that's insulting to the dancer or the crab, but I think I'm offended on behalf of both. What sort of dancer has ten legs, anyway? 🧵

A brightly coloured crab stands on black lava rock, looking sideways out of frame.

A brightly coloured crab stands on a rock. In its claws it is clutching a piece of seaweed.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

Until very recently, you could find a Striated Heron in nearly every warm part of the world. They varied a little from place to place, but you'd pretty much recognize them wherever you went. Except, perhaps, in the Galapagos. 🧵🪶

An all-dark heron with a bright red and yellow eye is standing amidst dry vegetation.

A blue and grey heron with a dark cap and pale legs is standing on aquatic vegetation.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 07/11/2025

The finches of the Galapagos are famous as the inspiration for Darwin's ideas on evolution. Just as well, too, because they're not much to look at. If their ancestor had remained on the South American continent, birders wouldn't exactly be flocking to see them. 🧵🪶

A stout, black bird is standing on fine sand. It has a very thick, wedge-shaped beak.

A small black bir dis standing on a rock. It has a long, triangular beak.

A small, blackish bird is standing on a thin, leafy branch. It has a small, wedge-shaped beak.

A small, grey bird is standing on a fern leaf. It has a very slim, pointy beak.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 04/11/2025

If you've ever wondered about the words we use to describe the colours of birds (who hasn't?) I've got all the answers you seek. Today on the blog: The Colours of the Birds of the World. Full-sized image available there. 🪶 seagullblog.com/2025/11/04/t...

A diagram shows nearly 200 circles, each labelled with a term for a distinct colour. A short description indicates that the frequency of each colour among the world's bird names is represented by the size of the circle.

A plumb, green bird rests on a branch. A green circle on the photo is labelled with the term "glistening-green".

A large, stocky gull stands on a rock. A grey circle on the photo is labelled with the word "glaucous".

A glittering purple and black hummingbird stands on a branch. A purple circle on the photo is labelled with the words "velvet-purple".

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

In profile, the Swallow-tailed Gull is sublime. The soft gradients, the long wings, the gently curving beak, the tasteful pops of colour...it's a looker in side-view, no doubt. Head-on though, it's a total weirdo. 🧵🪶

An elegant gull is standing on a rock facing sideways. It has long wings folded over its tail, a gently curving beak, and a handsome coat of soft greys.

The same gull stands on a rock, but this time facing the camera. Its eyes appear unusually large and forward facing, giving it a bug-eyed appearance.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 22/10/2025

If there's one thing everybody knows about Galapagos Giant Tortoises, it's that they're fairly large. Giant, you could even say. But knowing this simple fact in advance doesn't fully prepare you for the fridge-with-legs proportions of these ambling monoliths. 🧵

A very large tortoise walks in an open, grassy area with trees in the background.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 07/10/2025

Somebody once told you that penguins live in Antarctica, but they lied. Or, at the very least, they didn't tell you the whole truth. The diminutive Galapagos Penguin makes its home in the balmy waters of the equatorial Pacific, even occasionally ranging north of that imaginary line. 🧵🪶

Three penguins stand on a lava rock in the evening sun.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

They say you should never meet your heroes, but that's obviously a load, because I met mine and it was awesome. On the small island of Española in the Galapagos breeds the Waved Albatross, a bird that is as gangly and ridiculous as it is graceful and magnificent. 🧵🪶

An albatross soars in golden light against dark clouds.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 25/09/2025

You could accuse birders of many things. Pedantry, for one. Obsessive tendancies, sure. Social awkwardness, probably. But one thing you can definitely not say about birders is that they're not creative when it comes to colours. 🧵🪶

A large gull stands on a post by the seashore, with water in the background.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 16/09/2025

It's pretty tough to avoid the inevitable pun on Steller's Jay. You see, it works because the English word 'stellar' is very similar to the name 'Steller', and suggests the jay's many positive qualities. It's really very clever. I'm pretty sure I'm the first to think of it. 🪶👇

A handsome, dark bird with a pointy crest rests on a tree branch covered in short, green needles.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

The Harlequin Duck is both known and named for the patchwork plumage of the male. He's a dapper fellow no doubt, but the handsome female brings much to the party, as this elegant trio demonstrates. 🧵🪶

Three ducks are swimming together in deep, wavy water. They are brown in colour with white patches on their faces.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

The Horned Grebe is a petite picture of poise and perfection. Not a feather out of place, she glides and dives with the grace of a ballet dancer. Until, that is, the children arrive. 🧵🪶

A small, duck-like bird cruises through the water.

An adult grebe with wet, matted feathers is swimming in a marsh, surrounded by three fluffy chicks.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 08/08/2025

Oh to be an otter on a log. Swims to do, mussels to crunch, naps to take, and not a damn care in the whole world. Nice work if you can get it. I'd take a turn. 🧵

An otter rests on a log in the water with its head up and eyes closed.

An otter stands on a log in the water with its back arched and its mouth open.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

The woodpecker rulebook is not complicated. You creep on the tree, you smash the tree, you eat the bugs that live in the tree. Simple enough, but apparently the Northern Flicker HAS SOME TROUBLE WITH READING. 👇🪶

A brown, spotted woodpecker is standing on the ground amid long, dry grass.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

Oh how sexy is the Sinuous Snaketail, smartly clad in subtle sage and soft tangerine. Snaking through sedge and shrub, its sky blue eyes searching for smaller insects to snap up and devour. Sitting for but a moment in the stillness of the morning, soaking in the drenching sun. 🧵

An attractive, slender dragonfly rests on a twig.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Surely there was never a handsomer slug than the Leopard Slug, undoubtedly the handsomest slug ever to glide gracefully about the Earth on a slime wave of its own making. It is truly a vision in brown, grey, and a sort of pinker brown. 👇

A slug is stretched out on sandy ground. It is attractively marked with dark streaks and blotches.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Summer is baby bird season, but you can keep your fluffy ducklings and scampering plover chicks. I'll take a baby raven any day. 🧵 🪶

A raven stands on rocky ground, looking over its shoulder with its beak open. It is surrounded by small, yellow flowers.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

A Bonaparte's Gull in its summer finery is just about gull perfection. Dainty and elegant, with subtle eye makeup and an unexpected pop of colour...what more could you want? Plus it makes funny noises. 🧵🪶

A close-up image shows the head and face of a pretty, dainty gull with a dark hood and crisp, white markings around the eye.

A small, slender gull rests on a rock in a marshy area. It has a dark hood and bright orange legs.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

New on the blog: NEW BIRD CHECKLIST, WHO DIS? "You’d imagine, if you stopped to think about it, that somewhere there’s a group of expert bird nerds maintaining a master list of all the birds. You’d be right, save for one small caveat: there are four." Read on at: seagullblog.com/2025/07/14/n... 🪶

A bird is resting on the round among the dry leaves. The bird is extremely well camouflaged, resembling the dry lives is rests on, making it very difficult to see.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

Wasps don't get the credit they deserve for being the most badass of all the insects. This little lady is on a mission with her new friend grasshopper, but only one of them is having a good time. Bet you can't guess which one. 🧵

A small, dainty wasp stands over top of a grasshopper that is slightly bigger than herself. The grasshopper appears to be dead.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 08/07/2025

Dragonflies are the best-named creatures in the world, and Grappletail is surely among the cream of the crop. Obviously from the moment I learned it existed, I knew our paths had to cross. 🧵

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 23/06/2025

Recently, a tourist with a thick German accent asked me about the large animals she was seeing in the rocks. "They're marmots" I explained, "a kind of big rodent". She thought about that for a moment, then offered "They seem to have gotten very fat". 🧵

A large, round, golden-haired rodent rests on a rock in the sun.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 17/06/2025

I have mixed feelings about PDAs by humans. Like on the one hand, might as well get it if you can, but on the other hand maybe you don't need to aggressively grope each other while you wait for the crosswalk light to change. PDAs by parrots though, I am totally for. 🧵🪶

Two brilliantly-coloured parrots with long tails preen each other atop a broken palm trunk.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 11/06/2025

In the nestbuilding championship of the world, Team Dove stands little chance. In competition with virtuousos like the weavers, oropendolas, hummingbirds, and eagles, the doves' flimsy stick piles look downright ill-conceived. Haphazard, even. 🧵🪶

A White-winged Dove sits precariously atop a flimsy nest constructed of twigs.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

The gaudy, glittering, glamorous garb worn by so many male hummingbirds is just a big sign that reads "have my babies". The impression of these iridescent feathers is influenced by light, so it's important to get the right angle for inquiring females. 🧵🪶

A brilliant male hummingbird with glittering blue and purple feathers stands on a mossy branch, while a subtler female flies in front of him to investigate.

A brilliant hummingbird with feathers in every colour stands on a mossy branch.

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Reposted by Kyle Horner

Firefly Books @fireflybooks.bsky.social · 27/05/2025

🐢 In honour of World Turtle Day last week, check out these turtle-themed reads: 📘 "Turtles of North America" by Kyle Horner – a beautifully illustrated guide. 📗 "Saving Turtles" by Dr. Sue Carstairs – a kid-friendly intro to turtle conservation. #WorldTurtleDay #TurtleBooks

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

I have a theory about jays. I think you can divide them into two basic groups. On one hand you have brash, bold, screamy jays like Blue Jay and Steller's Jay. They look gaudy, they make lots of noise, and they always seem to be doing mischief of one variety or another. 🧵 #addbirder

A brilliant green, yellow, and blue bird rests on a branch.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 19/05/2025

The phrase 'creepy-crawlies' is everything that's wrong with the world. Let me explain. 🧵

A shiny, silver insect with long antennae and tails rests on a kitchen counter.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

What's the best bird name in the world? There are over 11,000 to choose from these days. Plenty of good arguments to be made, and surely everyone will have their own opinion. If we're honest though, there's a significantly non-zero chance that it's Bushtit. 🧵

A small, fluffy, gray bird sits on a branch.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

I'm not a glutton for cute things. In this day and age of adorable cat videos and baby capybara memes, I can get my fill pretty quickly. But also I'm not a monster, you know? Like, I have a heart. 🧵

A female duck stands on a patch of mud. A fluffy duckling is beside her.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

If you saw me walking down the street with a potato chip bigger than myself, you might rightly assume I was headed home to recline on my couch and nibble my way through it like a delighted squirrel with a sheet pan of peanut brittle. The leafcutter ant, though, is different.

Two ants walk along a log, each carrying a large piece of a leaf.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 03/04/2025

I'll never pass up an opportunity to spend some time with a Turkey Vulture, truly the greatest of all birds. The greatness of this particular Turkey Vulture was attested by a persistent swarm of worshipping flies, clearly enraptured by its regal magnificence. 🧵

A black vulture with a red head perches on a branch. Several flies swarm around it.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Ok, hear me out here. You know when you're in a dark theatre tossing popcorn into your face-hole? And you know how at the end of the movie you're surrounded by a carpet of popcorn that has deflected off your face and down your body to the sticky floor below? 🧵

A dark heron with big eyes and a massive bill lurks in the shadows along a riverbank.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Sparrows get a pretty raw deal, on the whole. Universally labeled as small, brown, and unremarkable, they are often ignored and always underappreciated. If you're a birdwatcher with taste, though, you know that sparrows are some of the handsomest birds out there. 🧵

A sparrow with black stripes on its head, a white throat, and yellow flashes above its eyes sits on a branch.

A sparrow with a rufous collar sings cheerfully on a leafy branch.

A grey and white sparrow with a pink beak eats seeds on a branch.

A handsome sparrow rests on a branch in winter.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 20/02/2025

The Violet-tailed Sylph is really pretty gratuitous in every way. Just profoundly unnecessarily ridiculous. Is there nothing to be said for modesty and restraint? Pretty nice though. --- Violet-tailed Sylph Mindo, Ecuador

A glittering green hummingbird with a very long, shimmering purple tail perches atop a branch.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 19/02/2025

A two-potoo day is a good day, a fact which I recently had the opportunity to verify. The more potoos the merrier, I always say. No such thing as too many. 🧵

A well-camouflaged bird perches atop a thin, broken branch.

A well-camouflaged bird rests on a branch high in the trees.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Lots of people go crazy for hummingbirds. Me? I go crazy for hummingbird names. On the whole, these little monsters are easily the best-named family of birds on the planet, with barely a stinker among them. Other birds could take a lesson. 🧵

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

Let's talk harvestmen, shall we? The harvestmen - or daddy longlegs (yes they have not one but two strangely gender-specific names) - are arachnids, but not spiders. They have 8 legs and a special ability that spiders don't have: they can eat solid food. 🧵

A harvestman, or daddy longlegs, rests on a leaf.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

Is shag carpet too dated a reference? I think I was just old enough to catch the tail end of the shag carpet era, having spent my earliest years in a home with a remnant shag carpeted basement. One where, in fact, this creature would have camouflaged perfectly. 🧵

A caterpillar rests on a leaf. It is covered in coarse, colourful hairs, with tufts of longer hairs scattered along its body.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

Y'all may have been obsessed over the Grammy Awards this weekend, but I'm all about the Goatee Awards. Granted, the competition is much less fierce...very few that are even worthy of nomination, if I'm honest. But I think we can all agree the tamarin is a clear winner. 🧵

A small monkey rests on a tree branch. It is dark brown and black in colour, with a snubbed nose surrounded by what appears to be a white goatee.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

When you're big - like an eagle or an airplane - flying is hard. Everything needs to be just right. You need rigid wings for lift, and hefty muscles or fuel-burning engines for power. When you're very small, though, the rules of flight become a bit more nebulous. 🧵

A moth rests on a white sheet. Its wings are made up of a series of feather-like appendages.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

Been a lot of bird around here recently, seems about time for some bug. Katydid will do the trick nicely. The katydids are basically grasshoppers that heard "you are what you eat" and took it way too seriously. Like if I dressed as a giant Dorito (not a sponsor...yet). 🧵

An insect that resembles a leaf sits stationary on a leaf at night.

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

It's hard to think of a group of birds with less chill than the tropical tanagers. Each one is basically a neon sign that says "have my babies" in a slightly different language. Someone should tell them there's such a thing as coming on too strong. 🧵

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Kyle Horner @kyletalksnature.bsky.social · 24/01/2025

I love a caracara. Fun to say, fun to look at, fun to think about. Overall just a really excellent bird. This particular caracara is carunculated, and I think we can all agree there's nothing better than a good set of caruncles. 🧵

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