I went to the local aviary today and they had some really mean things to say about owls.

I can confirm that most birds have a detectable amount of wiring behind the eyes - blinking lights and buttons and sliders and frizzy things that spark and chirp and beep. They also have a lot of soul that can communicate with ours because the programming is fairly compatible. Vultures are clever and curious, swans are clear and lawful, chickens have a lot of personality, caged parrots are dissociated and disinherited and frankly worrying, falconry-trained birds of prey are tremendously businesslike.

And owls are absolutely lovely beasts with their own irreplaceable validity. but they are basically stuffed with polyester fiberfill. They have one button, like a child's toy dinosaur that opens and closes its mouth when you press the back of its head. And it isn't even a sophisticated electronic button it's just a lever that rocks back and forth to make the claws open and close. I think they may have actually evolved independently from sponges. Their skulls simply exist to create holes that funnel sound and light, and as a place to hang a giant hinged beak. An owl is just an empty tube like a windchime that the wind whistles through, and you can drop meat down it. They use the meat to generate feathers, and then emit the bones in pressed little packages like those machines that flatten a penny and stamp it with the logo of a theme park. I think that's the gist of it - most birds are electronics of varying levels of sophistication, but owls are just a system of levers and pulleys. No elevator music in those skulls, just the wind echoing through empty caverns of slightly irritating design. Absolutely fantastic.

I remember my wildlife professor talking about capturing birds for tagging purposes, and how many species of birds were clever, observant, or would eventually catch on to the fact that these free meals led to getting grabbed/caught (Released just fine and with a snack, but still grabbed, measured and tagged).

Not owls though.

They'd look at the bait attached to a pole held by one human. Look at that human, and the human next to them, holding a large net. Look back at the bait. Back at the humans. Repeat a few times.

And every time, without fail. Even ones that had to have seen this play out before. Even ones that had previously been caught and tagged themselves.

They'd go straight for the bait.

Then be confused when, in fact, there was indeed a net thrown over them. Just like before.

And thats tremendously valid of them

I tell people that owls are fantastically evolved for what they do, which is catch moving prey at night. Anything else, they just don't have the capacity for it.

We give our non-releasable animals enrichment. The vultures and corvids get puzzles, the falcons and hawks get destructables, the quail gets new hides.

The owls? They get their food on a different plate. Or, if we're feeling daring, we'll put it slightly under a piece of butcher paper. They never get it. They cannot comprehend that the food is there, just a little different.

We are going to start feeding some of our older owls bugs for their health and I'm genuinely worried that they won't recognize them as food.

Bless them

I turn to Ares.

Thanks to Tyler Miles Lockett who allowed me to draw inspiration from his ARES piece for page 2! Look at his etsy page it's SICK

⚔️ If you want to read some queer retelling of arturian legends have a look at my webtoon

@spiritspodcast

Animated Sarah Andersen's comic page about treasure :>

Link

"the three dots on the side" call her by her REAL NAME.. Meatballs Menu

im gonna say it now so everyone in my notes stops arguing over this. meatballs menu is three dots side-by-side. kebab menu is three dots up and down. bento menu is an array of 9 dots in a square shape. hamburger menu is three lines horizontally. Yes there are others but none of them are nearly as prevalent so i dont care enough to list them. goot bye

ALT

i hadn't heard bento menu before, so here's a little mnenmnmnonnonmic (or however you spell that)

“Do not draw me without reason. Do not wield me without valor.”

I can't stop thinking about this post