Meet Super Cow. The Belgian Blue has been selectively bred over the last century to be very muscular, thus yielding more meat and less fat. Now why haven't we done this with chickens? I love chicken wings. A lot. Why don't we breed chickens with four wings and four legs. We would then get twice the amount of wings and drumsticks by killing 50% less chickens? :p
I'm sure you've seen Danny MacAskill's 1st YouTube hit video? If not then watch here... then watch the follow up. LOVE IT!
How should brands respond when being cyber-bullied? | memeburn
WAAAHAHAHA! Old Spin Guy responds to me my Twitter question.
Sitting watching TV and I hear an eerie sound. I immediately recognise the call of an owl. I mute the TV and there it is again "HU HOO HOOoooo". "THEY'RE BACK," I say in my excited birdwatching brain.
I leap out of bed and run upstairs to my balcony. I have heard them before... Spotted Eagle Owls! But I have never seen them. The call is so eerie and carries so much that I first go to my front balcony. I wonder if they're this side? Then I remember that last time they were perched in the two big blue gums on my property. The one tree is mere metres from my top storey balcony, which is practically at perfect owl-height.
I run downstairs to fetch my torch and bound back up to the braai deck (my back balcony). As soon as I open the sliding door the call booms in the night. They must be right here! My curious cat Clio is following me around (as usual... she's a right Daddy's girl that one) and when she hears the call her ears prick up. I can see a "WTF?" look on her face. It sounds like an animal, a bird perhaps, but it's at night and it's a pretty ghostly sound. She seems both excited and nervous. Normally when there's a bird around she starts shaking and making a "ma-ah-ah-ah-ah" stuttered quiet meow. She is lacking confidence this time and looks to me for support.
I am almost committing suicide by hanging dangerously over my balcony, craning my neck and straining my eyes, peering into the blue gum tree. I KNOW they are there. The male is definitely in this tree. "Hu hoo" he calls and is answered by his mate in the blue gum near the gate almost immediately. "Hu Hoo hooooo" she replies. Assuaging any of his fears that she may have drifted too far from his protection. They mate for life these majestic animals.
Then I see her! She flies straight into the blue gum opposite my balcony to join her mate. I don't hear her massive wings flapping though. As with most nocturnal and/or hunting birds, they have special "fimbrae" on the leading edge of their primary wing feathers which make them fly silently. This allows them - amongst other special adaptations - the element of surprise when hunting.
She flits to another branch and I can see her. Wow! It's very humbling to watch an owl and listen to their call. It's almost spiritual. Hence why the owl has, for millennia, been an animal that has haunted the mythology of humankind.
I managed to snap a picture with the camera, but you can only see her eyes:
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| Distinctive wing shape |
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| BEE-yootiful |
