Come for the cute picture, stay for the sobering and useful information.

So cute. :-)

I didn’t know this species, and I love it!

using public transport helps. At least I get to relax, play a game, knit, etc.

This is true, but only if it’s not crowded and you get to sit down. The same commute time feels completely different during rush hour and off-peak.

The picture of the owl in the window frame makes me think of a trompe-l’œil (I searched the translation for that expression, but apparently English says it in French too, funny).

I had to look in a dictionary for “stoat”, I remember hearing that word but I tend to mix up mustelids even in French so I would never trust my ability to name them correctly in English.

Here, two of our mustelids look very similar : the hermine (= stoat or ermine, Mustela erminea) and the slightly smaller belette (= weasel, Mustela nivalis). They’re easier to tell apart in winter, when the stoat gets a white coat of fur while the weasel keeps its brown back (in Western Europe, I think weasels can change colour in other places?). The fact that their American cousin Mustela richardsonii also gets a white coat in winter makes me want to call it a stoat too, but it’s not my place to tell Americans how to name their animals, ha ha.

I don’t remember ever seeing a stoat in the wild, but two times I’ve encountered a beech marten that was searching through the waste bins in my very urban street, at night. It was a good surprise even though I didn’t get to take a good look.

How majestic.

In the worst-case scenario, it can be a reward-trip for getting my diploma in a few years! I’m counting on you in the meanwhile, ha ha.

Yes, it must be hard to see animals you cared for die, but I guess doing your best to save those that you can is rewarding enough.

There’s a wildlife center not too far from my university that’s always looking for volunteer help, and I’ve wanted to join for a long time (despite knowing that as a non-qualified volunteer I’d probably spend more time cleaning poop than looking at cute animals), but it’s simply not possible with my workload and schedule. Recently I read on their website that they’ve been brought more animals than ever this past month and are really having a hard time keeping up. :‑(

From what I understand, it’s been a nation-wide problem, because of the heat wave in June-July (it’s better now). The centers have been especially flooded with young swifts who fell when trying to get relief from the very high temperatures under the roofs.

I don’t know, you’d think it would be easy for them to get eagle owls since they’re local, but they’re wild animals, so it’s probably not that simple? Obviously they can’t take them from the wild. And in the end, only few zoos are easily accessible (without a car) from my home, so it’s not that surprising that they don’t have one particular species. Space is precious, after all, and there are so many amazing animals, they have to make choices I guess.

I looked a bit more, and there seem to be eagle owls in two not-too-far-but-not-too-close zoos that I didn’t know or think about, which could be reachable in a big day trip even without a car. One of them is in a forest and has a lot of forest mammals as well as raptors, it looks really nice and different from the zoos closer to me. I’m a student-worker, though, so when I get a day off it’s generally spent either studying or trying to fix something in my apartment or desperately trying to rest. Even a day trip can be difficult. :-( Maybe I’ll be able find some time, we’ll see.

Hammer time! I think it looks like it’s wearing one of those fancy designer dresses that are unwearable in real life, but a sarouel works too.

Long legs! I hope it will be able to recover.

It must be hard for the rehab center to deal with all that work, I hope they’re doing okay.

A lot of the locations look somewhat remote, but the original graffiti looks so intentional and symmetrical for something done as a prank.

They are, since it’s a mountain stage, but during the Tour a lot of people go there to watch. Some viewers are very involved, making banners, sometimes wearing costumes, painting (technically illegal but tolerated) words of encouragement on the road, so I’m not surprised that the penis-drawers would make the effort to draw them symmetrically.

I really wish I could follow along with what they’re saying, based on the comment section.

The language isn’t the easiest to follow, it’s really informal and the sound often isn’t very clear. At the beginning, they say that they’re going to the col du Tourmalet. (It’s a famous mountain pass in the Pyrénées mountain range that’s almost always part of the Tour.)

Basically, they’re riding in the car, then one of them say “there, a dick”, then step out to paint and the older guy describes what he’s doing and/or gives instructions to his younger collegue (apprentice?). Rinse and repeat.

At 0:38, Older Guy says he’s drawing a circle around, and tells Younger Guy to try to draw legs. Then OG explains to the camera that they’ve just made a little owl to hide the sight of the genitals to the public, but he doesn’t seem very satisfied with the “legs” YG has painted. :-)

(Uiltje is “little owl” in Dutch. In French, he calls it a hibou, not a chouette — I believe that Dutch, like English, doesn’t make the tuft-based distinction. By the way, when he says « petit hibou » the guy is making the liaison (that is to say, pronouncing the word « petit »’s terminal T) when he shouldn’t. That kind of mistake is actually fairly common among native speakers.)

At 1:23, OG says they’ve found four (dicks) in five kilometers. (« Quatre à l’actif, sur cinq kilomètres. »)

At 1:35, OG says “a dick, oh fuck” and sighs, then says “we’ll try to give it wings, [inaudible] butterfly”. OG laughs, tells YG “I’ll do it” and says something about YG “messing around” (? « Tu fais n’importe quoi. ») but while he paints the eyes and antennae, YG paints the wings in a nice big circle, and OG tells him “well spotted” (« bien vu » — maybe it’s more like “well done” in this situation?) in a satisfied way.

At 1:57, OG says “another one, oh fuck”, then another word I can’t understand. Outside, OG says “I’ll give it two eyes” (« Je vais lui faire deux yeux. »), then he adds they find a lot of those in mountains passes. It ends with him saying something like “Okay, come on, let’s go for another one”.

The older guy is a pensioner called Patrick, who’s been doing this as a side job for something like fifteen years. Apparently, he’s well-known enough in some circles to have been asked for his autograph several times.

Yes! I don’t know where it is unfortunately. I really miss mountains…

Edit: I’m stupid, they say at beginning of the video that they’re going to the col du Tourmalet, in the middle of the Pyrénées.

I don’t care about the sport at all, but I occasionally watch the Tour for the landscapes, and I’m probably not the only one.

I don’t know how it is in other countries, but on French TV, one of the commentators gives geographical and cultural informations in addition to the _boring sport stuff. That should be great, but unfortunately, the guy who’s been in charge of that since several years is a far-right pseudo-historian who regularly gives slanted information… I’m so angry that he was given this job again when there are so many serious journalists who could do a great job.

I didn’t know about that, but I’m not surprised at all, ha ha.

Unfortunately for me, there’s none in the nearest zoos, which isn’t surprising since they’re mostly focused on “exotic” animals. I’ll probably have to wait a few years before I’m able to travel in another region to visit a zoo that has an eagle owl.

But while searching, I saw that the zoo near my summer workplace has snowy owls, maybe I’ll go take a look one of these days!

Thank you for the lovely picture. I hope I’ll get to get a glimpse of one of those before dying. They look huge, it must be awesome to see. Eagle owls exist here (France) too, but it’s not a species I have any chance to meet in the Parisian suburbs, ha ha.

By the way, in French it’s not called an “eagle” but a “great-duke” (grand-duc). And there’s also a “small-duke” (the scops owl, Otus scops, who’s really tiny) and a “medium-duke” (the long-eared owl, Asio otus).

The general public prefer Bluetooth buds.

I don’t know if that’s true. I currently work in a non-specialised shop that sells, among many other things, earphones and chargers, and I actually sell more wired earphones (whether jack or usb c) than wireless ones. On the other hand, customers tend to walk to my cash register with wireless earbuds in theirs ears, rather than wired ones, so I don’t know.

(By the way, people, please remove your earphones when talking to the cashier. You’re making my job more difficult, and anyway it’s just plain rude.)

some states explicitly do not ask about immigration status. It’s better to have all drivers licensed and insured than for immigrants to drive unlicensed and uninsured

Interesting, that makes sense. I don’t think it’s possible in my country (France) for foreigners to take their driving test without a valid residence permit.

Wait, you don’t have ID cards in the US?