I’ve seen some wild stuff in my time online, and a lot wasn’t my cup of tea, but I feel it’s a major win that we’re able to safely explore every corner of our minds in a safe and private manner.

Acacias Night Club near the Bois de Bologne

You sound more cultured than me! 😁

And at the same time, going by that one photo!

I love that one!

Video Link

😨

Multi-pupose owl

Without the demon eyes, it looks very Muppet-ish. I could see it honking.

This photo is why I included these snippets of article, it was too good not to use!

I feel the same way. I mentioned in the other article posted that I feel we’ve moved the world beyond where the Spotted Owl needs it.

I think they should leave the hybrids alone, as breeding/reintroduction doesn’t seem to be working either.

Exactly, I posted this article in a comment above:

Guardian, 2008: Fatigue and racism threaten to knock Obama bandwagon off the road

Barack Obama was showing signs of campaign fatigue. Sitting on a picnic bench in a park on Pagoda Street, Indianapolis, in discussion with a group of 30 supporters, he told a story about the “modest” background of himself and his wife, Michelle. And 10 minutes later, seemingly having forgotten, he told them it all again.

It is hardly surprising, given that he has been on the road almost non-stop since Christmas, battling Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. In recent weeks, he has often seemed absent-minded, forgetting the names of the towns he is in.

Tiredness is the least of Obama’s problems. After a relatively smooth and well-planned march towards the Oval Office, his campaign is facing its greatest crisis. “He is in the middle of a shit storm,” one of the journalists travelling with him said.

Obama handled his 2 terms fine after that. He was as beat down by the campaign as Biden and he was almost 40 years younger!

Thank you! It drives me nuts that this isn’t the key takeaway in every post and article I see. On one hand we an amped up old man who would sell out his family for a dollar, let alone the rest of us who is friends with dictators and thinks they’re really sharp people with good ideas, and is also a convicted felon who surrounds himself with other current or future convicted felons, and has been saying for years he wants to imprison or hurt his critics. On the other hand, we have a barely older, regular old man who at least has good intentions, hires competent people, and who makes mistakes but admits to them and learns from it, who happens to be very stereotypically old man. How people are making this an apples to apples comparison is insane.

This behavior with Joe didn’t start at the debate. It’s the same Joe we’ve had for years. And this isn’t new, even for people younger than Biden is.

Guardian, 2008: Fatigue and racism threaten to knock Obama bandwagon off the road

Barack Obama was showing signs of campaign fatigue. Sitting on a picnic bench in a park on Pagoda Street, Indianapolis, in discussion with a group of 30 supporters, he told a story about the “modest” background of himself and his wife, Michelle. And 10 minutes later, seemingly having forgotten, he told them it all again.

It is hardly surprising, given that he has been on the road almost non-stop since Christmas, battling Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. In recent weeks, he has often seemed absent-minded, forgetting the names of the towns he is in.

Tiredness is the least of Obama’s problems. After a relatively smooth and well-planned march towards the Oval Office, his campaign is facing its greatest crisis. “He is in the middle of a shit storm,” one of the journalists travelling with him said.

I thought it was funny in a “you really do find everything online” way, since this isn’t a very common owl in most places people live, so it was interesting to come across this. I know that type of thing can be polarizing though, so I felt it proper to give a heads up for anyone that clicks!

She gives me vibes of an Egyptian goddess, like Taweret, but an owl.

Aww, sorry I stole your thunder! But great minds think alike.

Stuck between modes! 😆

That poor Eagle Owl… Forever embarrassed online. 😔 People laugh at you, but when your legs need to pull double duty as arms, you need all the leg you can get!

As for leggy Stygians, this is the best I can do:

Good companion article to the one I just posted.

I couldn’t do it. I was so close to a Barred Owl 2 weeks ago, just staring into his eyes and he was making little cooing noises and it was just so pretty and sweet. I got to watch the rehabber train him to get ready for his medical exams. Most of the time he just sat there silently on his branch, so close it was like having him rest on my shoulder.

It’s not their fault. Without fixing all the logging loopholes and crooked people allowing environmental plundering to go on, it’s like bailing water but not fixing the leak letting the water in. I don’t want to lose the Spotted Owl, but I don’t think this will do more than delay what is inevitable. Breeding and reintroduction programs don’t seem to be working. I think the world the Spotted needs won’t exist much longer. Same reason we can’t bring mammoths and giant sloths back.

The site also has an MP3 link if you’d rather someone read it to you.

It’s also embedded at the top of the article page.

My copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species clocks in at 703 pages, and much of its length can be attributed to the numerous examples Darwin employs to support his thesis. He points out that species of the same genus with similar habits find it most challenging to coexist—one rat species replacing another rat species, Asiatic removedroaches replacing their Russian congeners, and mistle thrushes replacing song thrushes in Scotland.

So is the case with barred owls and northern spotted owls, which are native to the drippy, dark, and tangly temperate rainforests stretching from coastal Northern California to British Columbia. Elusive and reclusive, northern spotted owls were one of the later bird species Europeans identified and named in North America. One early-20th-century collector described searching for them as “most unsatisfactory.”

No one knows the population of the little [Screach] owl before barred owls busted into their island habitat. They were common on Vancouver Island in 1972 and uncommon by 2005. But like survivors in the horror flick A Quiet Place, the remaining western screech owls may have embraced silence to avoid deadly attacks. Today, they may hoot less often, so they may be undercounted. (The same may be true of the northern spotted owls.)

Strategic. But smart enough to ultimately outwit barred owls? “Barred owls seem to be quick learners,” Nightingale says.

Each of the owl experts I speak with gives a long exhale when I ask if killing almost half a million barred owls is a good idea. The world is a richer place with northern spotted owls, they say. There is no protecting northern spotted owls without old-growth forest protection, they say. Killing barred owls to save northern spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest is a forever war, they say.

Each has sympathy for colleagues who have spent decades trying to save spotted owls, to little avail. And none believes that we should give up on a species whose loss is directly tied to human activities. But at the same time, nature is dynamic and change is inevitable. Barred owls are simply doing what any species would do: seizing opportunities to expand their range and grow their population. For better or worse, their evolutionary journey has perfectly positioned them to thrive now, amid a human-altered landscape, in habitat that has welcomed and encouraged all manner of native wildlife to proliferate beyond their historical boundaries—from red foxes to yellow-faced bumblebees to racremoveds.

Thanks for respecting our time and its monetary value!