Bright Trike

Picked up a bright orange ball at the store ("blind bag" type toys called Dino Strike) and it hatched a bright orange Triceratops. Some assembly required.

It's pretty cute, and in terms of anatomy it gets points for not suffering from a case of elephant feet like the JWFK mini included for scale here and many quadrupedal dinosaur depictions in general. Why reconstructing these guys with limbs modeled after big mammals might be inaccurate probably becomes pretty clear when, instead of focusing on that they're big and quadrupedal herbivores, one remembers that a) out of all extant animals, they're most closely related to birds, and that b) the early ceratopsians that late Cretaceous giants like Triceratops evolved from were bipedal. (It has a wrong number of toes - should be three on front limbs and four on hind limbs - so not completely accurate either, but good effort.)

It had a bunch of Dino Riders-esque gear with it that I didn't put on it, but the projectile launching mechanism on that works well and I'm sure it would be fun to play with.

I think I'll give it some paint later.

Rainbow Success!

With a bonus faint second rainbow above it, if you can make it out. Touches the foliage where it meets the edge of the photo.

Dinosaur tranquilizing thoughts

(spoilers for Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, and The Lost World: Jurassic Park. TW: needles)

I've seen a few people express confusion about how Rexy was captured during Isla Nublar's evacuation - how did they get her in the cage when she's obviously not even tranquilized since she's making noise? That part was never all that confusing to me (where exactly did they capture her, though, and where did she go after crushing that poor Carnotaurus? Where was she when the pyroclastic flow Owen was apparently immune to reached the cliff? Who knows).

Attempted hidden rainbow

This time it's not very faint, it's just trying to crouch behind the trees. My quest for sneaky rainbows continues, apparently.

Two well-fed sea-eaglets

Big supper at the Sydney White-bellied Sea-eagle cam nest today, resulting in cute pictures of some ridiculously stuffed eagle babies. (but warning for some of the screenshots also showing the torn-up prey)

Seaglet screenshots

From Sydney White-bellied Sea-eagle cam, some little moments from yesterday and today.

Both eaglets are starting to grow pin feathers, SE25's (on the left) are a little further along and more visible under the fluff than the two days younger SE26's are.

E15 breaks another record

This whole season has been a record-breaker at the SWFL Bald Eagle nest, with two clutches hatching in one season. Back in June, E15, the older of the two eaglets from this second "miracle clutch" branched as the youngest eaglet to do so at this nest. Today she's breaking another record (both set by E12 last year): being the oldest eaglet at this nest to still be living with mom and dad.

Her younger sibling E16 flew away on August 8th (here's a video from that morning with the siblings hanging out together one last time, and of E16's departure). E15 has made a few similar soaring flights that often signal an eaglet being about to leave, but so far has returned from them. Take your time, E15, you'll go out into the world when you're ready. In the meanwhile dad has still been keeping her fed.

Harriet and M settling in for the night and drying their wings after a downpour.

E15 perching in the nest tree. She hatched at night, so she'll be turning the record-breaking 145 days old by morning.