From Christine’s Critters

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

While we’re all celebrating the day with festive green outfits and food, it’s the perfect time to talk about the green many of our patients wear-but the green they are sporting is bruises!

Did you know that instead of turning black and blue like ours, bird bruises show up as green? This is because birds break down hemoglobin differently, producing biliverdin, which gives their bruises a shamrock-green hue. So, if you ever notice a greenish patch on a bird, it might just be an injury they’re healing from!

This St. Paddy’s Day remember all the birds in rehab “wearing” their shamrock green bruises and send them some good wishes! Have a safe and happy St Patrick’s Day ☘️

Both birds have recovered from their injuries according to the captions!

    • anon6789OP
      13•6 days ago

      Me either! I’m honestly surprised this has never come up in all my post research so far!

      • @festnt@sh.itjust.works
        2•6 days ago

        wait what about this one? i remember seeing this image in a post here a while ago:

        (also this was on a comment in the mentioned post, which i found very funny)

        • anon6789OP
          2•5 days ago

          Oh thank goodness that was from 5 months ago. I’m always worried I’ll duplicate a post! 😅

          Of course I remembered it as soon as I saw your post. Great job remembering it!

          Back then I didn’t think of it also being the case for other bruises too.

          • @festnt@sh.itjust.works
            2•5 days ago

            i probably only remembered about it cause my eyes are green, and also cause i saw those two images together on my gallery not too long ago

            • anon6789OP
              2•5 days ago

              It was a good callback and I liked seeing the image again.

    • @shalafi@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2•6 days ago

      Imma punch my bird now and see how it works out!

      …wife wasn’t amused, turned black and blue…

      (Jesus fuck me that was tacky. I’ve been at work since 5:30AM, forgive?)

  • @chaosCruiser@futurology.todayEnglish
    16•6 days ago

    If you make a bird trivia quiz, you can sneak that answer in and people will pick anything other than the correct answer.

    When an owl is injured, the bruise will:

    1. heal within 4.5 hours
    2. look green
    3. smell like lavender
    • anon6789OP
      8•6 days ago

      Me too!

      Don’t forget to support your local rehab. Everything they have is from donation.

  • @hsdkfr734r@feddit.nl
    10•6 days ago

    Green hematomas. Nature is always good for a surprise.

    I knew of green, blue, purple and transparent blood in animals (OK, I knew blue blood in octopi and googled the rest. :). But green bruises was news to me.

    • anon6789OP
      8•6 days ago

      I had to look for confirmation before I shared it. I knew this source to be good so far, but with all the rescues I follow, I had never seen this before and couldn’t believe it hadn’t come up before.