Anting

I keep seeing this reported in multiple news outlets, that the poor foolish bird has mistaken the cigarette butt for food, and is trying to feed it to her chick. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I know fuck-all about Black Skimmers. We don't have those here. Maybe they really are as dumb as rocks. Brainless or not, though, I'm sure they have external parasites such as bird mites and lice, the same as any other wild bird. And, having such, I'm sure that they engage in a behaviour called "anting", which consists of rubbing pungent items over their feathers to deter parasites. Cigarette butts are a traditional favourite for this, as the nicotine repels or kills insects. (The behaviour gets its name from the practice of crushing ants in the beak and rubbing them through the feathers to spread formic acid. Way back when, most birds taught their young to do it with live ants. Today, most use cigarette butts when they can get them. Time marches on.) Even to a bird's quite limited sense of smell, tobacco isn't food.

I'd love to see what preceeded this. Is she rubbing the butt through her own feathers? Through her chick's feather's, before handing it off? I don't doubt the photographer's sincerity, but I think the behaviour is being completely misinterpreted.

World Cup

Well, I'm glad our guys won,but the VAR people really need to be thrown over a cliff. That's just completely ruining the game.