If you think I'm sexy, and you want my body...

February 3, 2010 2:49 PM

Need some new moves in your dating arsenal? You could get low and funky, like an ostrich. Or even funkier, like a horned pheasant.

You could go stampy, like a blue-footed booby. Triumphant, like a peacock. Desperately competitive, like a flamingo. Inflated and bloviating, like a frigatebird. Buzzy, like a satin bowerbird. Chest thumpy, like the greater sage grouse. Prancy, like the sharptail grouse. Indefatigable, like a golden pheasant. Dizzy, like a great-crested grebe. Synchronized, like a Western grebe. You could go all Inigo Montoya, like the Galapagos waved albatross. Or copycat, like the Northern flicker. Screechy, like a peregrine falcon. Bouncy, like a woodcock. Slo-mo, like a swan. Or maybe just act clueless, like a raven.

posted by mudpuppie (8 comments total)

No Bird of Paradise?
posted by Burhanistan at 3:03 PM on February 3, 2010

Only the swan one managed to actually get me aroused.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 3:14 PM on February 3, 2010

Doh! I meant the ostrich one!

Arrgh. Now everyone thinks I have a thing for swans. :(
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 3:15 PM on February 3, 2010

Arrgh. Now everyone thinks I have a thing for swans. :(

Either way, you have a good chance of serious injury if you try follow your yearnings.
posted by Burhanistan at 3:20 PM on February 3, 2010

Or you could make passionate drumbeat love to the scalps of BBC zoologists, like the Kakapo.
posted by Rhaomi at 5:38 PM on February 3, 2010

The ostrich?
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:39 PM on February 3, 2010

Seriously, that ostrich is stealing MY moves.

Granted, there's more audible pleading involved when I do it, but still.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 8:16 PM on February 3, 2010

The woodcock in the linked video is hunting for worms, not doing a mating dance. The mating display is a whole 'nother kind of awesome. From allaboutbirds.org:

The male American Woodcock has an elaborate display to attract females. He gives repeated "peents" on the ground, often on remaining patches of snow in the early spring. After a time he flies upward in a wide spiral. As he gets higher, his wings start to twitter. After reaching a height of 70-100 m (230-328 ft) the twittering becomes intermittent, and the bird starts chirping as he starts to descend. He comes down in a zig-zag, diving fashion, chirping as he goes. As he comes near the ground he silently lands, near a female if she is present. Then he starts peenting again.

The twittering sound is from air rushing over the tips of his wingfeathers, much like the whistling sound mourning doves make when they take off. There's a video on this page with the sounds. The one time I heard it, the whistling and the chirping made me think of tiny fuzzy flying saucers.

Here's another video, showing how to spot woodcock. The woodcock is hardly the most amusing thing in the video though.
posted by hydrophonic at 8:30 AM on February 4, 2010