An underappreciated side of film!Pippin is that he’s so recklessly compassionate. The other hobbits weigh their decisions *somewhat* carefully, but Pippin’s all “Someone’s sad? I gotta make them happy! Someone’s hurt? I have to help them!”
He never even stops to think about it, which is obviously heartwarming but also obviously gets him into trouble
He finds out Denethor is Boromir’s grieving father and like instantly swears to serve him to atone for his son’s death. He meets Faramir and about ten seconds later is reassuring him that “you have strength too, of a different kind, and one day your father will see it.”
He sees Merry is injured, and desperately tries to get literal uruk-hai monster murder-captors to feel enough compassion to help him. When he sees Frodo is about to leave the Fellowship he immediately rushes out to talk him down, and then seconds later is instantly on board with Merry’s plan to distract the uruk-hai long for Frodo to escape. The moment he realizes Denethor is trying to burn Faramir alive he tries to pull apart the pyre alone, with his bare hands, outnumbered by Denethor and his armed guards, and when he’s tossed aside (because he’s only three feet tall and technically not even an adult) he immediately runs down into a bloody dangerous battle, pushing past wounded men fleeing in the opposite direction, to find help, and so on and so on
Like Pippin is foolish sometimes. But I feel that a lot of moments that get written off as “foolishness” are just…caring so much that he immediately tries to help without sparing a moment to consider whether the task he’s undertaking is actually possible
For your raptor, the “pale” underside makes me think maybe a White-tailed Kite. But your thought that it might be a falcon makes me think maybe an American Kestrel? The standard advice on raptors is to try to figure out the broad category first (buteo, accipiter, falcon…) based on body proportions and flight style, then move on to finer details.
Hutton’s Vireo’s vocalizations are pretty distinctive, and quite different from Ruby-crowned Kinglet, so if Merlin Sound ID is telling you it’s a Hutton’s Vireo and it looks a lot like a Ruby-crowned Kinglet I think you’d be pretty safe going with Hutton’s Vireo.
Once you learn their vocalizations it makes it much easier to distinguish them. To tell the two species apart visually you want to focus on the thickness of the beak (the vireo’s beak is thicker) and the presence (or absence) of a dark bar below the lower wingbar (kinglet has it, vireo doesn’t). It can be tough to get a good look with both species being so active, so a photo can help.
[Image Description] Digital art titled “Winter Sleep”, created by Jean-Michel Bihorel, mislabeled as “The sleeping lady, Alaska [sic]”. The image depicts a top-view of a mountain, shaped as a nude woman, sleeping on her stomach, with her hair spread out above her, and her head resting on her folded arm. [End Image Description]
