Tag Archives: birds

These Realistic Owls Mittens Are a Real Hoot

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Owls: they’re the rulers of the forest night. Hooting and swooping down on their unsuspecting prey under the cover of darkness, eating rodents in their entirety. And now you can have a pair on your hands, thank to these knitted Owl Mittens (affiliate link). Thankfully, the owl mittens only feature the likenesses of owls but aren’t made from actual birds. That’s a relief, especially if you have owl relatives.

Available in five different mitten colors, each glove has a realistic snow owl on the back of the hand. Unfortunately, they’re only available in one standard women’s size, though, so I probably won’t be able to squeeze my big bear paws into them. Which is a shame because I love owls and warm hands.

I just bought a pair for my wife so I can live vicariously through her. Plus, with owl mittens, if you ever lose one, at least it’ll be easy to describe. IT HAS AN OWL ON IT. Looks real, but don’t be afraid though – it’s just a mitten.

[via DudeIWantThat]

Live Feed Bird Feeder Lets Your Cats Stream Birds Outside Your Window

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Designed to resemble a live-streamed YouTube video, the $30 Live Feed Bird Feeder from Fred sticks to a window via suction cups and provides an analog display of the birds outside. Of course, if you prefer a digital display you can always set up a webcam, close the blinds, and watch from your computer, you technological recluse, you.

Perfect for the birdwatcher in this digital age, the Live Feed provides a frame for watching the wildlife that we’re all comfortable and familiar with: that of a YouTube video. I wonder just how many hours of my life I’ve already spent watching YouTube videos. And how many of my future life hours I’ll continue to spend watching YouTube videos. My guess is close to all of them.

Ha, I only just now realized the double meaning of ‘Live Feed’ in the product name! Admittedly, I’m a bit slow sometimes. Okay, all the time. You know I was actually supposed to compete in that famous Tortoise and the Hare race but showed up a day late and two dollars short of my entry fee.

Birdhouses hide in these ingenious home address signs to encourage avian-urban biodiversity!

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Our Common House is a household design concept that’s part-address sign and part-birdhouse, designed to increase avian-urban biodiversity.

When we’re not thinking about whether or not they’re real, watching birds always seems to bring us back to nature. Whether we live in a big city or in a rural small town, waking up to the sounds of hummingbirds or looking on as a sparrow builds its nest reminds us that we share our homes with all kinds of birds. Sometimes the concrete and traffic of busy cities make us forget, but products like birdhouses and feeders always bring us back. Designer Mikołaj Nicer conceptualized Our Common House for this reason. Part address sign and part birdhouse, Our Common House is a household design that aims to encourage avian-urban biodiversity.

From a distance, Our Common House is your typical household address display. Made from natural fired clay, the outer casing of Our Common House is unassuming and minimalist. Unadorned by design, Our Common House sports an adaptable design that could fit onto any modern home’s exterior. Whenever the address digits look like they could use some cleaning, residents can remove the outer casing to clean it up before attaching it back on. Just beneath the natural fired clay exterior casing is a nesting box constructed from natural wood. Available in either oak, pine, or poplar, the nesting box provides a safe space for birds to breed, eat, and take care of their young safe from the threat of predators. When conceptualizing Our Common House, Nicer hoped to combine the functionality of address signs with a sustainable cause.

Describing this, Nicer notes, “The lack of nesting opportunities is one of the most important factors limiting the success of urban bird populations. Modern building technologies and concepts of city space organization leave little room for…nesting…Our Common House offers a simple and scalable solution to this problem. It turns the common element of building aesthetics into a functional nesting unit, thus providing the population of urban birds with an invaluable resource.”

Designer: Mikołaj Nicer

The post Birdhouses hide in these ingenious home address signs to encourage avian-urban biodiversity! first appeared on Yanko Design.

These Bird-Like Robotic Legs Can Perch And Grasp Things With Its Feet

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Inspired by the legs and feet of a peregrine falcon, engineers at Stanford University’s Cutkosky Lab have developed a set of SNAG (“stereotyped nature-inspired aerial grasper”) robotic legs that can perch on different sized branches and grasp objects in a manner similar to the bird of prey. They then attached those legs to a quadrocopter to help herald the robot apocalypse. Per Dr. Ian Malcom in Jurassic Park: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Truer words have never been spoken.

How do the legs work? According to a paper published on SNAG, “Each leg has its own motor for moving back and forth and another to handle grasping. Inspired by the way tendons route around the ankle in birds, a similar mechanism in the robot’s leg absorbs landing impact energy and passively converts it into grasping force. Once wrapped around a branch, SNAG’s ankles lock and an accelerometer on the right foot reports that the robot has landed and triggers a balancing algorithm to stabilize it.” Impressive! Even more impressive considering the entire process occurs in the blink of an eye, with the talons snapping closed around a branch in just 20 milliseconds. I’d hate to be that branch!

The researchers imagine their robotic bird legs being used in future search and rescue missions, as well as wildlife monitoring, although I suspect they’ll actually be used for something much more nefarious. So, if you were wondering how long it would be until a giant robotic eagle swoops down out of the sky to pick you up and use you to power the Matrix, the answer is probably sooner than you previously thought.

This Life-Size Bubo the Owl Figure from Clash of the Titans is Kraken Battle Ready

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Everyone needs a faithful companion, and Perseus really lucked out in Clash of the Titans when Athena refused Zeus’s request to send the hero her own pet owl, instead offering a brass-and-iron version of Bubo she had Hephaestus construct. Sure the mechanical Bubo was clumsy, but he came through in the end, and I think we can all agree the end is the most important part to come through in.

Bubo is one of legendary visual effects creator Ray Harryhausen’s most beloved creatures, given life in the movie using Ray’s own ‘Dynamation’ form of stop-motion model animation. Available for pre-order from the BigBadToyStore for the godly sum of $250, this 30-cm Bubo replica was faithfully recreated from the model used in the movie. Unlike the model in the film, though, this Bubo is made of soft vinyl, featuring eight points of articulation for posing how you see fit. I see fit to pose him on my shoulder and pretend I’m a steampunk pirate. Yarrrrr!

Will I be buying one myself? Unfortunately, I don’t have the $250 required, but I will be crafting my own Bubo out of Progresso soup cans and parts I can scavenge from the hot water heater. Sure all the cold showers will suck this winter, but can you really put a price on owning your own poorly constructed mechanical owl friend?

[via Nerdist]

DIY Wooden Security Camera Birdhouse: Big Bird Is Watching

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Cleverly shaped like the sort of closed-circuit surveillance camera you might see on the side of a building, Instructables user JoopB1 has outlined step-by-step instructions for how to build your own fake security camera birdhouse out of scrap wood (in this case leftover 12mm plywood, but the dimensions can be adjusted for almost any thickness plywood). Let’s get building!

JoopB1 clearly states at the beginning of the Instructable that “the process is quite simple and it’s not difficult to make your own version of this birdhouse,” although I have my doubts. I mean not for most people, just myself. I’ve found that if a project involves measuring and cutting, those measurements end up wrong, and fingers end up cut.

Could you imagine taking a stroll through the woods and looking up and seeing one of these things? What a hoot! You know, like the sound an owl makes. Because we’re talking about birds. This is a post about birds.

Artist Makes Birds from Cardboard Packaging

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Spring is sprung, da grass is riz, I wonder where dem boidies is? Well, actually, it’s the sweaty, 90º+ part of summer here at the moment, but after seeing these adorable papercraft birds, I couldn’t get that old poem out of my head.

These artful bird mini-sculptures were made by artist Ruud van Koningsbrugge, who created them out of torn up bits of packaging from various products. Rather than feathers, these fine friends are made from boxes from cookies, tea, frozen vegetables, and breakfast cereals. Other than that, there’s a bit of hot glue to hold them together, and some twisted wire for their legs and feet.

Ruud has shared an Instructables lesson so you can make your own cardboard birdies. It actually doesn’t look that tricky, assuming you have a good eye for color and start with some good reference images of birds to look at while you build yours. If you’re not feeling up to the artistic challenge, you can always purchase one of the artist’s ready-made original bird sculptures over on his Etsy shop.

[via Rusty’s Electric Dreams via Nag on the Lake]