Well, it’s certainly been another of those exhausting, nerve-wracking weeks, hasn’t it? Time for just a bit of humour, for ‘just a bit’ is likely all I can muster tonight, but I wanted to see if I could help you start the weekend with a smile.
Curses!!!
The Lincolnshire Wildlife Park located in Friskney, England, adopted five African grey parrots back in August, but you won’t see them on display if you go there. The parrots, Billy, Elsie, Eric, Jade and Tyson, seemed to be causing the zoo some problems, or rather their language was. Turns out they knew more swear words than a lot of humans and they weren’t afraid to use them. 
With more colorful language than plumage, the birds used different curse words in different British accents, but they were all unprintably coarse. At one point, a group of women walking past the aviary thought the lewd comments shouted at them were from a hidden staff member. The park had no complaints — in fact, visitors reveled in swearing right back at the birds — but the park officials feared children and parents might not enjoy the experience as much. So, the parrots were moved into a temporary space away from the public eye, giving them time to be around more family-friendly birds and hopefully clean up their language.
Steve Nichols, the chief executive of the Lincolnshire Wildlife Park, said …
“When a parrot swears, it’s very difficult for other humans not to laugh. And when we laugh, that’s a positive response. And therefore, what they do is they learn both the laugh and the swear word. It’s not so bad with one on its own, but then, if you get five together, once one swears and another one laughs, and another one laughs, before you know it, it sounds like a group of teenagers or an old working men’s club. Billy is the worst one.”
Now that the birds have been removed from the public exhibits, some guests are arriving who have heard about the vulgar birds but don’t know which cage they’re in. So they have taken to swearing at all of the birds, hoping they’ll get some abuse back! Personally, I find this entire thing hysterically funny, but I’m sure there are some who would be offended. The birds seem to have calmed and are due to be back in the public venue soon.
I was RIGHT (for once)
Y’know how I always try to end Jolly Monday and sometimes Saturday Surprise with a cute or funny animal video? I’ve just always thought it seemed like seeing cute critters would start the day off right. Well, turns out there is scientific evidence to support my theory!
A new study conducted by the University of Leeds has discovered that watching videos of cute animals is great for your health!
Tourism Western Australia and The University of Leeds partnered up to explore the physiological and psychological impact of cute animals on students and staff at the University of Leeds.
The sessions involved 19 subjects — 15 students and four staff members — and was intentionally timed during winter exams, a time when stress is at a significantly high level. The participants were asked to watch a 30-minute slide show that included photos and video clips of various cute animals, such as puppies, kittens and quokkas.
In all cases, the study saw blood pressure, heart rate and anxiety go down in participants, 30 minutes after watching the video.
The average heart rate of all participants fell from 72.2 bpm to 67.4 bpm: A reduction in heart rate of 6.65% in just 30 minutes.
The average blood pressure across all participants dropped from 136/88 to 115/71. In percentage terms, this represents a 14.9% drop in systolic blood pressure and a 18.28% drop in diastolic blood pressure.
Anxiety rates also went down by 35%, measured using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory.
In a post-study questionnaire, some of the participants comments included:
“I felt happy and calm”
“I wanted to be on that beach with those little kangaroo things (quokkas)“
The study also found that most participants preferred video clips over still images, particularly of animals interacting with humans. And so, rather than me rambling on and on, let’s watch a cute animal video!!!
And … got time for one more?
And on that note, I hope you guys have something fun planned for the weekend! Keep safe and be happy, my friends!
According to Steven Heritage, a research scientist at the Duke University Lemur Center …
In order to catch these Somali elephant shrews, researchers set up more than 1,000 traps at 12 locations. To lure these cuties in, they used a mixture of peanut butter, oatmeal, and yeast.
What, Jolly??? What are you doing up this early on a Saturday? Huh? Oh … that’s right … I can’t believe I almost forgot the cute critter video you picked out last night! One of the cutest animals in the world is the quokka …
Big plans for the weekend? Relative to the last 20 or so weekends, we do actually have ‘big’ plans, for this evening. We are having a cookout with our friends/neighbors Maha, Ali, and their three sons. We haven’t gotten together to share a meal and an evening for quite a while, largely due to the pandemic, but it should be fun. They are from Iraq and grill a number of interesting dishes, while we will provide such mundane things as potato salad, pasta salad, homemade cranberry sauce, and a dessert or two. The best part, though, is just spending an evening in their company, lots of love ‘n laughter!
While all our kitties, past and present, have been average tabbies or tuxedos, there are a number of rather unique cat breeds in the world. Rather than me telling you about them, this video presents an array of ten of the most unique ones in the world …
You’ve all heard the myth that black cats are bad luck, but did you know that in the UK and Japan, black cats are considered good luck! In the English Midlands, new brides are given black cats to bless their marriage, and the Japanese believe that black cats are good luck—particularly for single women. Meanwhile, the Germans believe that a black cat crossing your path from left to right is ominous, but if the feline switches directions and goes right to left, it’s fortuitous. Who knew?
This is a residential complex located in Darmstadt, German, called the Waldspirale, which translates to “forest spiral” in English. On the outside, some of its most notable features are the tower that resembles Russian onion domes, an absence of straight lines and sharp colors, and the multicolored painting of the building. I was more intrigued by the appearance of uneven layers, as if someone had tried to squish it like a sandwich!
This is the Krzywy Domek (Crooked House) in Sopot, Poland. It is actually part of the Rezydent shopping center. It was designed by Szotynscy and Zaleski, who were inspired by fairy tale drawings. It reminds me of pictures I’ve seen of some buildings in San Francisco after the earthquake of 1906 … or it makes me think of a huge giant coming along and just squeezing the building from the sides.
Here we have the Casa do Penedo, located in the Fafe Mountains of Portugal. This is a private home built between 4 large boulders. The property includes many amenities, including a fireplace and swimming pool.
Kubus Woningen, or Cubic Houses, are located in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. They were constructed by architect Piet Blom in the 1970s after he was asked to solve the dilemma of building houses on top of a busy road. With 38 regular units and two “super-cubes”, each slanted cubic residence is held up by a hexagonal pillar, some of which are located atop a pedestrian bridge spanning the four-lane Blaak Street. While it solved the urban planning problem, it created some highly odd residences in the process. Although each cube house contains about 1,080 square feet of floor space, only a quarter of this, approximately 270 square feet, is usable due to the sharp angles of the architecture. Even worse, this 270-square-foot area is spread out across four floors. After entering on the ground level, residents must take a narrow staircase to reach the first floor, a tiny, triangle-shaped room which features a living room and kitchen. A flight of stairs up are two bedrooms and a bathroom, and the top floor is a small free space, typically used as a garden.
Amazing, aren’t they? I used to build with Lincoln Logs when I was a kid, and managed to do a windowless log cabin a time or two, but that was the extent of it for me! This Lego zoo is awesome, and … the icing on the cake is that you don’t have to mingle and mix, but you can see all the Lego-critters from your car as you drive through.
The “Wild Connections” exhibition of animal sculptures was created by famous New York artist Sean Kenney, who is also a certified Lego professional. Who knew there was such a thing as a ‘certified Lego professional’??? These animals are entirely made from Lego bricks and will be on display until September 5th. The exhibition features over 30 LEGO sculptures, created with more than three million LEGO pieces, of animals like pandas, lemurs, tortoises, birds like peacocks and bald eagles, and even insects like bees and butterflies.
Each sculpture is unique and took a lot of time and patience to make. For example, the sculpture of baby pandas took 405 hours to make and the artist used 53,460 bricks to build it, whereas the sculpture of a bald eagle took 184 hours and 42,198 bricks to build. It’s good to know that artists like Sean Kenney used the global lockdown to create and shed some light in these uneasy times!
Says Tim Morrow, President and CEO of the San Antonio Zoo …
Jill Hicks was driving home from work when she saw what she thought was a cat run towards the road. Worried that it was alone, she scooped up the little “kitten” and took her home. After making “Arwen” a cozy bed, she posted a picture on Facebook, asking if anyone would adopt the “bobtail kitten.” It didn’t take long before her neighbor helped her realize that it wasn’t just a kitten with a bobtail, it was actually a bobcat. “Thank the lord for her because I sure was about to put that baby in the sink and give it a bath and put it in bed with me!” Hicks joked on Facebook. Hicks took the soon-to-be-much-bigger kitty to a wildlife rescue who cared for her until she could be released into the wild.
Meet Mr. B. Mr. B. is a big cat, but not a bobcat, leopard, panther, tiger or other wild cat, he’s just a big cat. My best guess, knowing a bit about felines, is that he is a Maine Coon cat.
Mette Kvam, 81, of Norway, had recently suffered the loss of her husband and was trying to adjust to living alone when one day she noticed a deer at her window. She fed him a piece of bread and immediately a friendship was born. “Flippen” now comes to visit her daily. She makes sure to always keep his favorite bread on hand and he keeps her company. She says he has saved her from loneliness and she loves nothing more than to feed and visit with him.
Tough, tattooed, and burly, Mark Cardenaz is probably the last person you’d describe as “Dr. Doolittle” but that’s exactly how friends describe the ex SWAT officer. So, no one was surprised when he took in an injured hummingbird he found on his back porch, nursing “Buzz” back to health with Pedialyte and sugar for six weeks. But that’s not where the story ends. After he released Buzz back into the wild he thought he’d never see his little buddy again but every year the bird flies from South America back to Cardenaz’s home in Georgia and lands in his hand. This year, Cardenaz worried something had happened when Buzz didn’t show up at his usual time but several weeks later, there he was, flitting around his head and begging for pets.
On a whim, Terfel’s owner Judy Godfrey-Brown let a stray cat, whom she named Pwditat (pronounced Puddy-tat), into her home. The feline made a beeline for the blind dog and began using its paws and head to herd Terfel into the garden. Now the unlikely friends sleep together, and Pwditat helps Terfel find his way everywhere.
A sprig of acacia, paper towels, and a plastic cup are just a few of the gifts that Toldo, a devoted gray-and-white cat, has placed on his former owner Iozzelli Renzo’s grave in Montagnana, Italy, every day since the man died. Renzo adopted Toldo from a shelter when the cat was three months old, and the two formed an inseparable bond. After Renzo passed away, Toldo followed the coffin to the cemetery, and now “stands guard” at the grave for hours at a time, says Renzo’s family.
