There’s a zoo in Kansas called Tanganyika Wildlife Park, and the fact it doesn’t have zoo in the name makes me wonder if they’re dodging regulation, like how cheese-themed products with no actual cheese in them are named Chezz Product™ or Chedze Matter©.  When my bro lived in KS he took us there.  His daughter was too high speed for our old asses and grabbed a snake by the tail.  Fortunately no harm no foul.  I fed a craisin® to a lemur and a big leaf to a giraffe.  Giraffe heads impressed me with their size the first time I did it, less so the second, altho maybe I was just disoriented by the heat and not really living in the moment.

The first time I went I remember noting there was an absurd variety of US-flavored “blackbirds,” aka icterids.  I saw grackles, boat-tailed grackles, brown-headed cowbirds, red-winged blackbirds, brewer’s blackbirds … unless my memory fails me on any of those particulars.  It’s been a minute.  But one that I can’t forget is from the second (and surely last) time I went:  yellow-headed blackbirds.

Yellow-headed blackbirds are not the most amazing thing going.  Cardinals are probably more fancy looking, with the crest and the sharp designs.  Still, that is some muffuckin’ bright yellow on their heads.  They look like a generic enough american blackbird, like an RWBB maybe, who traded in its red wing flash for a neon yellow football helmet.  The black and yellow is such a powerful and pleasing contrast, like bumblebee fuzz, it’s very appealing.

We saw a small flock in a short sparse tree near an animal enclosure, and my bro rushed to get a blurry pic or two.  Life list for both of us, and I doubt either of us will ever see them again.  Not sure the usual habitat and ways of these beasts, but they liked the sheisty zoo full of oversized ungulates.  I hope they’re still enjoying life in their way, wherever they may roam.

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