As you may have noticed, August has been a little bit of a bad month for news. The only big stories have been the festering national debate over health care, and a handful of horrible, horrible things that you don't want to be left thinking about for too long. And that's before all those deaths.

Enter into this depressing news void a new class of headline-grabber. They're merry pranksters, thieves, runaways, and even, sometimes, terrorists. But of the best kind. They're the Animals of Summer! They give us something to talk about that isn't as depressing as anything people could come up with. Last summer, we had Monty the Monster of Montauk, Anderson Pooper, and Princess Chunk. This summer we have a raccoon cat burglar, peace-loving turtles, and, of course, hundreds and hundreds of potentially murderous birds. This slideshow is our tribute to them, because even if they're all out to get us, writing about them is still more fun than writing about the humans who are doing the same thing.