Peridot Bee

Last edited: 6/23/26 (June twenty third, 2026)

Hi hi! You can call me Peridot ^_^

Pronouns: it/its

As with most things relating to me, this is deeply rooted in my being a bird. Being preened on my head is very vulnerable. In the wild, red crossbills such as myself tend to maintain their personal space. Only members of the flock or even down to a paired bird would be allowed to preen me. There’s no other reason another red crossbill would be touching my head or neck (other than mating rituals, also often done with a paired bird).

I have OCD, autism, and an unidentified physical disability. These all mean that doing anything in a day can be incredibly exhausting and make me incapable of functioning beyond the basic eat, sleep, drink water, for the rest of the day and/or the next one. I have to be incredibly thoughtful with how I use my time and energy.

Being a bird (and a bee)- I want to be outside in the sun, I want to be doing things, I want to be busy. I should be constantly moving during the day, in order to keep up with my flock and eat enough. But that’s simply not an option for me. My brain and body can’t keep up with that.

There’s a lot of dysphoria in being in a body which can’t do what I need it too, and it often makes me even more tired than I already am.

My wings and beak also make it a bit harder to rest because they get in the way of some of the more comfortable positions I could be in. Not to say I can’t get comfortable, but the ways I liked to lay before my transformation properly began aren’t really an option anymore.

I do get very rare physical shifts, which I see as temporary physical changes to my body, but my beak and feathers are not that! I’ll answer the questions about my beak and feathers but if you wanna know about my physical shifts- which are more temporary- feel free to send another ask.

So I have these permanent bird features growing in on my body. Thus far, I have wings and feathers, and my beak is currently growing in, but it’ll be a while before it’s fully grown.

I can’t exactly see these features- at least not when they’re fully grown in. I get bumps which I can see when they’re growing, but once a feature has matured I can no longer really see it. I know what they look like, but it’s more of a visualization than clear and consistent image. I have seen my wings and feathers very briefly a few times, particularly when I’m really connected with my spirituality and nonhumanity. But most of the time, I can only feel them.

My bird features are physical parts of my body, which I can feel as much as any other part of my body, but they cannot interact with the widely accepted version of reality. I can feel if my wings hit something, but that thing won’t fall.

Although I can technically preen my feathers with my talons, they are fumbly, and just can’t do the job well. I can technically get it done but it’s simply not effective or pleasant. Once my beak comes in, it will be able to interact with my feathers properly, as they’re part of my body and my reality. I’ll be able to preen like any other bird because I’ll actually have the proper tool (beak) made to clean my feathers, rather than simply using my talons. It won’t be perfect, as I don’t have a gland to produce the ideal oils for my feathers, but it’ll be better than talons doing a beaks job.

Having my feathers grow in has significantly reduced how often I pick at my skin because any bump could be a budding feather.

Having wings has significantly increased my spacial awareness and helped me stop bumping into other critters and furniture as often, because they knock into things before the parts of my body which can affect the outside world can.

Being a bird has also made hygiene way easier- I actually want to shower because I enjoy the feeling of water on fluffed-up feathers. Especially since I can’t properly preen yet, as my beak hasn’t really come in (I think it’s starting to but I’ll make a longer post about that later). I want to keep my face clean so the progress of my face changing isn’t obscured by similar bumps from acne.

It’s stopped me from biting at my nails because it’s made me value my talons so much more. They let me climb and hold onto food, rather than simply being decoration or a way to get my murderer caught (ocd related, idk).

“I have to believe in a better world.”

One of my favorite examples from this session of reading any information I can find, is the way in which a theriform red crossbill eats. They pry a cones scales open with their beak, and stick out their tongue, which the seed sticks too and they pull the seed into their mouth.

I have been doing this my entire life, holding food up to my mouth, either directly in my hand or in a held-open package, and pulling it in by having it stick to my tongue. I was doing it as I read about the behavior.

She’s taken over my laundry basket for when I’m not holding her, but she also very much enjoys sitting in my hair for whatever reason

But also- something in the red crossbill brain is raccoon and bee. I get raccoon and bee shifts- there aren’t shifts with the bird because it is my permanent state of being. I have to actively connect with the bee and raccoon sides of me. There’s nothing I could do to feel more bird than I already am.

It’s not that I’m not a bee or raccoon- but they fluctuate a lot in strength and are very often fairly faint. Particularly in seasons the species aren’t super active. For example, I’ve noticed I really only feel super bee during spring and summer. I still get the occasional bee shift in cooler months, but it’s a lot less common. I feel more raccoon in late summer through early winter. The rest of the time I have some bee and raccoon instincts and behaviors, but not really enough to really impact my life. Being a red crossbill impacts everything.

I don’t actually know at what point I became a bird. I think I was at least a little human as a child. It could be anywhere from early elementary to late middle school. I really have no clue.