The Flasher

Day 88: Humans smile. They frown. They scowl. Their eyebrows raise or draw together. Lines appear at the corners of their eyes. In short, the human face is the clearest indicator of the state of mind affecting the individual. Dogs and cats and a few other species smile and may exhibit a less versatile repertoire of facial expression, but birds...well, you'd think a bird was pretty much stuck with no way of making its emotions known. Anthropomorphization aside, birds have emotions. Anyone who's ever lived with a Psittacine can vouch for that.

Adult male Red-Winged Blackbirds exhibit a band of red and yellow feathers on the upper portion of their wings. Even during mating season when the colours are at their brightest, this patch may be relatively indistinct. When the bird is agitated or when it wants to impress a lady-friend, this band can be seen more clearly, signifying the mood of the moment. Any of the cockatoo species possessing a crest can raise it at will, with subtle differences of position (height, spread) signifying a range of emotions from concern to curiosity. Exactly what is going on in a brain which doesn't verbalize is open to conjecture, but the emotion is there. It is vanity for a human to think otherwise, and demonstrates just how self-centered we as a species can be.