Jennifer Ackerman (on owls)

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert, experts on expert.

[1] I'm miniature mouse and Dak Shepard is not here today, unfortunately.

[2] He is here for the episode.

[3] Don't worry.

[4] It's not a non -episode.

[5] He's just stuck in an airport.

[6] So we're doing this solo today.

[7] Today we have a really amazing guest.

[8] Her name is Jennifer Ackerman.

[9] She's an award -winning science writer and speaker.

[10] And this episode, episode is about birds.

[11] It's really fascinating and interesting and intricate.

[12] She has many books, The Genius of Birds, the Bird Way, Birds by the Shore.

[13] And she has a new book out now, What an Owl Knows, the new science of the world's most enigmatic birds.

[14] It's a very, very, very cool topic.

[15] We go deep.

[16] We get to listen to some sounds and play guessing games, which is super fun.

[17] And because Dax is stuck, we have a little fact -check takeover in the fact -check.

[18] So get excited for our special guest.

[19] Please enjoy Jennifer Ackerman.

[20] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to Armchair Expert early and ad free right now.

[21] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[22] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[23] this is not for your benefit you might think that we have like set decorated for you that's a lovely painting though i'm obsessed with crows so ravi had this made for me for christmas and it's so beautiful oh it is really beautiful and what got you on to crows six years ago i was writing at this desk and that enormous oak tree i noticed this huge crow and i just started watching this crow every day while i wrote and then I started learning about crows and then I learned that they are not just the smartest bird but like top four smart as animals period became obsessed with crows and now we have a murder of crows who attack this hawks and my father loves hawks loved past tens this hawk goes up every day and the crows bomb him all day long the hawk does not give up there's zipping by it never alters its past so now every single night there's like a show what fun to watch totally and then I don't know what we have in our grass, but something has attracted what can only be described as an infestation of hummingbirds.

[24] Hundreds of hummingbirds in our yard.

[25] What?

[26] They hover like a foot off the ground and they just swarm.

[27] There's something in the grass they like.

[28] And they laid eggs next to the house.

[29] It had two little babies.

[30] They both died, sadly.

[31] So yeah, now we have a ton of hummingbirds.

[32] We have a bunch of crows and we have one hawk.

[33] How great.

[34] Jennifer, welcome.

[35] Thank you.

[36] Yes, it's so nice to have you.

[37] We haven't had any bird experts yet.

[38] This is a first.

[39] Although we've had people have written books more generalists about all the different senses animals have.

[40] There's been a couple of great books in the last couple years.

[41] Oh, there she is.

[42] Hello.

[43] Sorry.

[44] There's no parking.

[45] You should sue me. Jennifer was just asking why I like crows, and I was explaining that from moving to this house and seeing the crows and how there's nightly crow shows.

[46] I've read all these ways to attract them as friends.

[47] I want to more than just look at them.

[48] I want to interact with them.

[49] I want them to bring me gifts as they do, and they just don't seem willing.

[50] I've gone so far as tattoo them on my arm to let them know I'm a friend.

[51] Right.

[52] And they just won't do it.

[53] And I even think I learned kind of how to sound like them.

[54] So I've spent hours in the front yard calling to them.

[55] I can't crack it.

[56] Have you given them peanuts?

[57] I put out peanuts.

[58] I put out shiny things in the peanuts.

[59] I put out meat.

[60] I put out everything that's recommended.

[61] Apparently, they're supposed to like a challenge to get their food.

[62] They do.

[63] They like to work for their food.

[64] Yes.

[65] or play for it.

[66] Yeah, even better.

[67] That's what I do for my food.

[68] Have you ever befriended a bird?

[69] I have not, but I have dear friends who have.

[70] And it is mysterious.

[71] For one thing, these birds are such individuals.

[72] So because one bird behaves in a certain way doesn't mean that another member of its species is going to act in the same way.

[73] And you may just have a social group of crows here that are not particularly interested in interacting with you.

[74] They also have a hawk around here, as you point out.

[75] And that may make them more.

[76] wary, more skittish about interacting with you.

[77] Not being an ornithologist, I have concluded that when the hawk goes in the air, the crows are certain it's trying to come for their babies.

[78] That's my theory.

[79] Or do they regularly just mess with them for fun?

[80] It's not really for fun.

[81] Those hawks are a threat, not just to the eggs, but to the young.

[82] So they don't want those big birds around their nests.

[83] So they'll do what they can to harass them.

[84] Have you ever been watching birds out in the wild, which I'm sure you've done a great deal of, starting young with your dad?

[85] How close has a bird gotten to you?

[86] Have they ever landed on you?

[87] Yes.

[88] One of my favorite birds is the black cap chickadee.

[89] I was cross -country skiing in Vermont, and we had sandwiches with us.

[90] It was bitterly cold, lots of snow on the ground.

[91] And we came to this clearing.

[92] We started to eat our sandwiches, and these black -capped chickadees just came in.

[93] So sassy.

[94] They literally would land on your fingers and just pluck bits of peanut butter and jelly sandwich from my hand.

[95] I couldn't believe it.

[96] And then I've had lots of interactions with other birds.

[97] in my work.

[98] The Kia in particular comes to mind, which is a crazy smart New Zealand parrot, renowned for its playfulness and also its problem -solving, its cooperative behavior.

[99] And when I went to visit Kia's, it was actually in Austria.

[100] There's a research facility there and they have a lot of Kia's.

[101] They told me to take off all of my jewelry because these birds are so curious.

[102] They'll just come right over.

[103] So I went into the aviary and it was really like being greeted by a batch of children.

[104] They were just all over me. I was the favorite aunt.

[105] What did you bring me?

[106] What did you bring me?

[107] They're just these little crazy, funny birds.

[108] And what I had forgotten was my shoelaces.

[109] So they went straight for my sneakers and just completely unraveled my shoelaces.

[110] Really super smart, clever birds.

[111] And it was amazing to be right in the presence of those animals.

[112] What birds historically have worked in cooperation with humans?

[113] Well, certainly, Falcons, and certain kinds of hawks, raptors generally have been working with humans for a very long time to hunt.

[114] You know, it's interesting that some of the training that has gone on with raptors, most of the trainers feel that these hawks, these falcons, are very, very intelligent.

[115] And they kind of assumed that owls weren't.

[116] And that was because owls have a different way in the world.

[117] They have a different method of learning.

[118] So that has all turned around.

[119] But yeah, I think falconry is one of those examples of really close human bird interaction.

[120] There was a great 60 -minute segment on the steeps or steps, ding, ding, ding, of Mongolia, yeah, where they fly the falcons and the falcons help them hunt.

[121] And it's incredible.

[122] And that's clearly been going on for a long, long time.

[123] Yeah, it is.

[124] And these birds really are quick to train and very food -motivated, so they're easy to work with.

[125] One time my wife and I were in England, about 13 years ago, we were at some weird manner.

[126] There was an on -site falconer.

[127] He had many birds, one of which was, I forget the species but he said it was the biggest species of owl it was enormous it landed on my wife's arm and the wingspan was like six feet it looked like it was going to carry her off and he told us this crazy story that his previous owl he flew for years and on one trip it grabbed a mouse and he got concerned and then he was flying it at home and then like a month later it got a rabbit and then And ultimately, it attacked the neighbor's dog, which was a good -sized dog.

[128] I think that was probably a Eurasian eagle owl.

[129] The second biggest owl in the world, the biggest is the Blackest and Fish Owl in Japan.

[130] But the Eurasian Eagle Owl is a ferocious hunter.

[131] And it can take an animal up to the size of a small roe deer.

[132] I mean, these are amazing hunters.

[133] You can't believe it can actually pick up the prey that size.

[134] It's got to be, what, 10x its weight or something.

[135] He had said the neighbor's dog was like a small laboratory.

[136] I was like, wow, we can get a Labrador?

[137] I've heard a lot of stories now about how people's small pets have been attacked by owls.

[138] But it's fairly unusual.

[139] I mean, owls are generally motivated to hunt your pet.

[140] They have their standard prey, which is probably easier to get.

[141] What do they do?

[142] How do they attack?

[143] Their normal prey?

[144] Yeah.

[145] What's the methodology?

[146] Yeah.

[147] Well, they are amazing hunters.

[148] One of my favorite examples is the Great Grey Owl, which is also a very big bird and it has a round head.

[149] It's kind of your iconic owl.

[150] It looks very big, but it's actually very light.

[151] It's mostly made of feathers.

[152] But this bird has a fantastic ability to hear prey that is buried beneath snow.

[153] So they can hear a vole that's ruffling, muffling around in the snow from a perch.

[154] And they will come from the perch, hover above this sound.

[155] And then really by sound alone, they can target this bowl, or might be a mouse.

[156] They go down head first because they're trying to sense exactly where the animal is.

[157] And then at the last minute, they thrust their feet forward, and they will seize the prey.

[158] They have razor -sharp talons.

[159] They can take the head off a mouse easily with their talents.

[160] They can work them as scissors?

[161] Yeah, they're just really super sharp.

[162] And they're in a very cool X shape that enables them to hold on to their prey without exerting any muscular effort.

[163] It's this really cool mechanism.

[164] Yeah.

[165] It's all leveraged.

[166] Yeah, it's just a swivel in their joint.

[167] Kind of locks it.

[168] So they don't have to exert effort.

[169] And then often, if their prey is small, they will eat it whole.

[170] There we go.

[171] Or sometimes they'll eat the top half and leave the bottom half for later.

[172] Yeah, safe for later.

[173] Yeah.

[174] Yeah.

[175] And then, you know, one of the things I think is just so remarkable is how do they get rid of the indigestible parts of their prey?

[176] because they're taking in all kinds of things, fur and talons and bones and things that they can't digest.

[177] Actually, creatures like an archaeopteryx had this ability, too.

[178] Really quick, what's an archaeoporice or whatever?

[179] Archaeopteryx is the flying dinosaur.

[180] Oh, like a teradactyl looking at?

[181] Yeah, right, right.

[182] Okay.

[183] And they share with them this ability to compress the indigestible parts of the prey in their stomach, and then they move it out, the esophagus, and it comes out as a pellet.

[184] I've seen photographs of this, and it's one of the main, ways that they find owls is by looking for pellets on the ground.

[185] And they're filled with fur and little bones.

[186] Weird.

[187] Yeah.

[188] Does it create the boundary?

[189] Does it mash it all together and it creates its own solid or do they actually spin something around it?

[190] No, it creates its own solid.

[191] They reorganize the structure.

[192] Exactly.

[193] Wow.

[194] And then they just cough it out.

[195] And they really can't eat again until they've ejected one of these pellets.

[196] Yeah.

[197] Wow.

[198] Kind of like a hairball for a cap.

[199] Yeah.

[200] Boneball.

[201] Is it called scientifically a bone ball?

[202] No, it's called the palate.

[203] One of the really cool things I learned writing the book was that they've trained dogs now to sniff out the pellets of endangered species.

[204] So it's a great way of tracking the presence of these birds because they're very shy, often in remote areas.

[205] And the pellets smell so that the dogs can actually sniff them out.

[206] They'll go find them.

[207] The pellets will be at the base of a tree where the owl is actually roosting.

[208] Well, then I have a curious question.

[209] On the border of Utah and Arizona, there's these incredible windswept caverns, and we were exploring them, and we came upon a very large pile of tiny bones on the ground, and then we looked up, and about 20 or 30 feet up on the side of the face, there was a big hollowed -out cave, and in it was a huge owl.

[210] So I wonder, do they not always eat the bones?

[211] Can they eat around them?

[212] Or I wonder why there were so many, we assumed, oh, it picks them clean and kicks out the bones.

[213] Yeah, there probably is some of that going on.

[214] Also, it's possible that there was a nest there and there were young.

[215] There were.

[216] That might explain it as well.

[217] They're tearing pieces of meat off the bones to give to the young.

[218] Oh, wonderful.

[219] Or another animal could have found the pellet and broken it apart.

[220] These were like full, yeah.

[221] Oh, wow.

[222] And it was a pile.

[223] Hundreds of rodents obviously had contributed to this little monument of bones.

[224] Some of the statistics about how much these birds eat.

[225] I got to see a powerful owl when I was in Australia.

[226] It was in the botanic gardens in the middle of Sydney.

[227] This bird was at the top of the tree is another big, big owl.

[228] And they eat possums, like 350 possums a year.

[229] Almost one a day.

[230] Yeah.

[231] It's a good match for the weight of the owl.

[232] Wow, so they're eating almost their body weight.

[233] Yeah.

[234] Wow, that kind of goes against my understanding of things that are cold -blooded versus warm -blooded.

[235] that generally us warm -blooded animals have to have more calories to regulate our body temperature, but cold -blooded animals don't.

[236] What do we think is going on there?

[237] Why would they eat so much?

[238] Well, they're expending a huge amount of energy.

[239] If you think about what it takes to be a bird, I think about hummingbirds, you know, which you have in your yard here.

[240] They're just flapping at a million miles a minute.

[241] So they have to take in quite a lot of energy in order to sustain that.

[242] It's hard work being a bird.

[243] Yeah.

[244] It really is.

[245] It takes tremendous energy to hunt and to raise young.

[246] young.

[247] And they don't ever seem to lay down.

[248] But they do sleep.

[249] Well, I read that according to you, they sleep sometimes with one eye open owls.

[250] Yes, they do.

[251] And that's true of some kinds of birds that actually sleep on the wing.

[252] Oh, I've heard this, do like albatrosses maybe?

[253] They sleep half their brain?

[254] Half their brain.

[255] It's called uni hemispheric sleep.

[256] And they are keeping an eye on things with one side of their brain and they're resting with the other.

[257] Oh, my God.

[258] Yeah, we're not sure that that's the case with owls, but they definitely do sometimes sleep with one.

[259] eye open to watch out for predators.

[260] You know, people don't think of owls as having predators, but especially the small owls have to really watch out because even bigger owls will eat them.

[261] I feel like you could be an owl.

[262] Oh my God, thank you so much.

[263] What made you think that?

[264] One eye open?

[265] Yeah, yeah, paranoid.

[266] Lots of trauma.

[267] Yeah.

[268] You've written about all kinds of birds.

[269] In fact, you've a very popular book, The Genus of Birds.

[270] Did I say that right?

[271] Yes.

[272] Yeah, okay.

[273] I'm dyslexic, and a word like genius can also be genus or genus.

[274] and genius.

[275] I don't know.

[276] I'm a little confused.

[277] Well, they have a common root, so you're okay.

[278] Oh, thank you for comforting me. But that's a hugely successful book, and you cover a lot of birds in that.

[279] What Made You Decide to Focus on Owls specifically for this book, which is called What an owl knows.

[280] Well, I love birds, but there's something really extraordinary about owls.

[281] They're so different from other birds, and I had an experience.

[282] I put an owl box on a maple tree, behind my house.

[283] This was some years ago.

[284] And an eastern screech owl started to roost there.

[285] I loved it.

[286] It was right outside my kitchen window.

[287] I could see its little enigmatic face in the hole.

[288] And it would vanish at night.

[289] I could never see it come and go.

[290] But in the morning, there would be like the wing of a blue jay.

[291] Once there was the whole body of a morning duff, just hanging out of the hole.

[292] And then you would watch it kind of twitch as it was yanked inside by this hungry little owl.

[293] So they're just such extraordinary birds.

[294] And, you know, when I thought about writing about them, my head just began to kind of sizzle with questions.

[295] Like, what makes an owl an owl?

[296] And why are they so different from other birds?

[297] Why did they cross that boundary into the night?

[298] They have this reputation for being wise, but are they in fact smart?

[299] So I really wanted to explore those questions and find out what we actually know about owls.

[300] Turns out we do know quite a lot.

[301] You know, we've been studying them for a really long time.

[302] and it's only been in the last decade or so that we've had some of the innovative technology that's allowing us to solve some of the mysteries and riddles that have been around for centuries.

[303] So it turned out to be a really good time to write the book.

[304] Well, it does seem from your book that the owl has captivated the imagination of humans from the very beginning.

[305] Do you want to talk about some of the first records of our obsession with owls?

[306] Yes, it goes way back.

[307] I think we've been living winged by by shoulder with these birds for virtually all of our existence.

[308] a species.

[309] The first representation of a bird is in the Chauvet caves.

[310] It's what they think is a drawing of a Eurasian eagle owl or a long -eared owl.

[311] It has those funny little plumacorns at the top of its head.

[312] And it's a very good representation of the owl.

[313] It's probably 36 ,000 years old.

[314] So longer than humans have been in the Americas.

[315] Yes.

[316] And it's way down deep in this Chauvet cave in southeastern France.

[317] And I just love to imagine that some distant relative of ours, went down into the depths of this cave and very deliberately drew this profile of this owl.

[318] I mean, it's so marvelous.

[319] And it really is the beginning of the record that we have of the human obsession with owls.

[320] And they're in the stories, the myths, the symbols of just about every culture in the world.

[321] They're really the most prominent symbol among all birds.

[322] Beyond eagles.

[323] Beyond any other group of birds.

[324] lot.

[325] You know, the attitudes towards owls range quite a bit.

[326] Yeah, I was shocked to learn it's not universal.

[327] It's a polarizing bird.

[328] Very much so.

[329] There are cultures like the Ainu of Japan that revere the local Blackistons fish owl and they consider the protector of their villages.

[330] And the Yagen people of Tierra del Fuego, they consider the barn owl, the wise grandmother who gives them life -giving water.

[331] So you have those cultures.

[332] And then on the other side, you have cultures in Belize, Nepal, Kenya, that really believe that owls are bad omens.

[333] Like evil?

[334] And that if an owl comes to your house and calls, somebody in the house is going to die.

[335] Oh, God.

[336] Yeah.

[337] So it's not that they think that the owl actually causes the death, but just that it's the bearer of bad tidings.

[338] I wonder if J .K. Rowling thought of that or if a publisher pointed out, like, hey, this book's not going to do great in Nepal.

[339] But I think it still did.

[340] It still did.

[341] It still did.

[342] It's really interesting.

[343] I mean, it went global.

[344] and it had an impact on some of the bird markets in places like Indonesia.

[345] They would sell pet birds.

[346] They never had an owl until the Harry Potter books hit there.

[347] Oh, really?

[348] And now there are multiple species of owls sold in those markets.

[349] Are they easy to breed?

[350] They're terribly difficult to keep in captivity.

[351] I mean, they make the world's worst pets.

[352] Yeah.

[353] They'll hoot all night long, which makes for difficult sleeping.

[354] Well, let's start with the idea that we are dourinial, they're nocturnal, great match.

[355] And they will shred things.

[356] I mean, they have very sharp talons.

[357] Might be great if you have a lot of documents you don't want.

[358] Like, if Trump had a few of those flying around Marlago, he would not be indicted right now.

[359] Right.

[360] Yeah.

[361] Also, they eat live prey.

[362] So you have to supply them with live animals or frozen fresh.

[363] Yeah, exactly.

[364] So that's not a good idea.

[365] It also seems rough.

[366] They want to be out and about.

[367] Oh, yeah.

[368] The many animals that seem heartbreaking.

[369] That's high on the list.

[370] It's like when people want primates as pets.

[371] They're just the worst imaginable pets.

[372] Picasso was quite obsessed with owls, yeah?

[373] He was.

[374] Young girls and owls.

[375] We'll skip over young girls.

[376] We'll go to the owls.

[377] One is problematic.

[378] I think it was in 1946 and he was in Antib.

[379] There was a little owl, which is actually a species of owl that had been injured and it was on one of the ramparts of the museum where he was working.

[380] And he got the owl and healed it.

[381] And then he took it back with him to Paris.

[382] The descriptions of the two of them, I think Picasso was obsessed and charmed by the fact that this owl had a face very like his.

[383] Yeah.

[384] But they were both really super grumpy with each other.

[385] So the owl would snap at Picasso and Picasso would swear at the owl.

[386] So it was this very cantankerous relationship.

[387] It was also very much an inspiration for Picasso.

[388] The motif of the owl appears in etchings and ceramics for really decades after that.

[389] A bit of a muse for Picasso.

[390] Yes.

[391] Well, one of the reasons, and here we could get into some of the anatomical anomalies that the owl offers us, which is they have bilateral, stereoscopic, forward -facing eyes.

[392] They're the only birds with forward -facing eyes?

[393] Yes, they are.

[394] That's shocking, because what I know about stereoscopic vision is it's how we do depth perception.

[395] If we don't have overlap, we can't really judge distances.

[396] Yes, but if you think about what natural selection has selected for.

[397] So most birds are watching out for prey.

[398] They have eyes on the sides of their heads for a wide field of view.

[399] Owls, especially the little ones, have predators, but not like other birds.

[400] And its binocular vision is such a powerful aid to zeroing in on moving prey.

[401] So it's been just a huge advantage for owls.

[402] There's some people that argue that the reason the owl has front -facing eyes is just because there's no other room in its head, because its hearing apparatus is so enormous.

[403] Yeah, so let's get into that.

[404] So what's really unique about the structure of the owl's brain is that 75 % of it is dedicated to seeing and hearing.

[405] How is that track relative to other birds?

[406] It's much bigger.

[407] The human forebrain is 75 % sort of cortex, higher level thinking.

[408] And that's true for many species of birds, too.

[409] So that's why Al sort of got a rap that, oh, gosh, so much of the brain is dedicated to hearing and seeing how could they possibly be smart.

[410] But actually, that's all shifted.

[411] But the hearing organ and the brain, of an owl is absolutely enormous.

[412] In a barn owl, it's called the cochlea, which is the hearing part of the brain, is three or four times the size that it is in most birds.

[413] How does it compare to the size of a human?

[414] It's also bigger.

[415] I mean, relatively speaking.

[416] Right.

[417] Okay.

[418] And it's because these birds depend so heavily on hearing for their hunting ability.

[419] Because obviously they're hunting in low light.

[420] They're hunting in low light at night.

[421] And they're hunting for prey that makes very little sound.

[422] They have to be able to pick up very faint noises, which is tied to the reasons for their silent flight.

[423] We got to earmark that.

[424] I watched the video from the BBC, and it was really cool.

[425] I hope everyone tracks that down.

[426] You were about to ask something, Monica.

[427] Yeah.

[428] Why aren't they prey often?

[429] What made them different from other birds that are prey?

[430] They're top -of -the -line predators themselves.

[431] Some of them are super predators, which means they prey on other predators.

[432] And it's just the way the food chain evolved.

[433] Owls are really at the top.

[434] Crazy.

[435] I would never think that.

[436] You want to.

[437] No, because I imagine them just like being.

[438] They're like librarian.

[439] Not out snatching things.

[440] With spectacles.

[441] Exactly.

[442] Yeah, monocles even.

[443] I just imagine them to be pretty still.

[444] And then that would make them obvious targets.

[445] But that's a stereotype.

[446] Well, the first thing you'd have to think of is just their size, right, relative to the other birds of prey.

[447] They're huge.

[448] Are they huge?

[449] Oh, God, yeah.

[450] Well, some of them are.

[451] That one that landed on Kristen, that's six -foot wingspan.

[452] Well, I know, but regs.

[453] But regs.

[454] So we had an owl.

[455] It was the most spectacular thing, and I want to know how to get one to live at my house.

[456] Because I learned this from you, that they don't make their own nests, generally, owls.

[457] They take over nests.

[458] They evict people.

[459] Or they're abandoned, but sure, they're also landlords.

[460] They kick tenants out.

[461] But we were in the pool late one night, and an owl landed right on the guest house.

[462] And it was huge.

[463] It was a big, big boy or girl.

[464] Again, we have very large crows here, and we have that hawk.

[465] It was definitely bigger than the crows in the hawk.

[466] Yes.

[467] I bet it was a great horned.

[468] It was enormous.

[469] I want to say it was standing about two feet tall or something.

[470] Wait, what?

[471] I thought owls were like this big.

[472] This is the thing.

[473] They're 260 species of owls, and they range in size from the Blackest and fish owl, which literally is the size of a fire hydrant.

[474] Oh, my, baby.

[475] Really big.

[476] And their bodies are very tiny relative to their wings.

[477] Yes.

[478] Compared to other birds.

[479] They range in size all the way down to the alfowl, which is, you know, about as big as a small pine cone.

[480] That's what you need.

[481] Yeah, I want one of those.

[482] Yeah.

[483] At your house, you got to get a little pine cone one.

[484] Oh, yeah.

[485] And you'll get a big guy on a look.

[486] But I'll train mine to like yours and protect yours.

[487] Well, maybe mine is vicious and ferocious too, even though small.

[488] Well, although she tiny.

[489] Mighty sheepy, mighty.

[490] Okay, that's shocking.

[491] I didn't know they could get that big.

[492] Oh, my God.

[493] Have you not seen the picture of Kristen?

[494] I haven't seen that.

[495] I got to dig it up.

[496] It looks like it's going to take her away.

[497] It's considerably bigger than her in the photo.

[498] I guess I would imagine that to be an anomaly, and it sounds like maybe not.

[499] No, there are a lot of big owls.

[500] And the ones that we're most familiar with here in North America are great horned owls.

[501] And they are really big.

[502] Okay, where were we?

[503] We were talking about the eyes.

[504] And we're talking about the hearing.

[505] We're all familiar with a bat.

[506] We know bats echo locate and they use sonar of sorts.

[507] But they're not alone, right?

[508] The owls, it's not sending out any noises, but it is doing location through its hearing.

[509] It is locating sound through its hearing, but it's not using sonar.

[510] It's different from a bat.

[511] It's really just picking up on very faint sounds.

[512] The owls that depend on hearing to hunt, they have what's called a facial disc.

[513] It's basically a big feathered satellite dish for collecting sounds.

[514] so they have very round faces and the sound comes in and it's directed toward the ears.

[515] This really magnifies the sounds so they're able to pick up these very faint noises.

[516] And then it is this amazing hearing apparatus that they have that helps them to detect such faint noises.

[517] And also, some owls have ears that are asymmetrical on their heads.

[518] So one is higher than the other.

[519] And that allows them to determine the horizontal location of sounds.

[520] and the vertical location so that they can actually zero in very precisely on prey.

[521] And just to detail that with a hard example, imagine you closing your eyes and you hear a noise.

[522] We can tell that it's behind us, but we're not great at telling if, is it behind us on the ground?

[523] Is it behind us at six feet in the air?

[524] Is it behind us at nine feet in the air?

[525] Exactly.

[526] But they can.

[527] They can go, oh, this is behind me and it's one foot off the ground.

[528] Yes, yes.

[529] They're triangulating.

[530] They are.

[531] Like a satellite is trying.

[532] your GPS signal on your phone.

[533] Their asymmetrical ears can triangulate that little sound.

[534] That's right.

[535] They can detect the difference in time that it takes to reach one ear or the other.

[536] And this is a question of microseconds.

[537] And that's really what allows them to determine the horizontal location of a sound.

[538] Yeah, we can work that out.

[539] Like if you can imagine, let's say that the mouse is behind the owl to the left.

[540] So it makes a noise.

[541] And it's going to hit the owl's left ear.

[542] just a microsecond sooner than the right year.

[543] And then its brain knows, oh, it's on my left.

[544] But then above that, because there's a height difference, it'll also calculate that and determine where to...

[545] I mean, that is...

[546] Seems impossible for a tiny little brain to do all that.

[547] It really does.

[548] But that's the thing.

[549] We're so biased toward the big brain.

[550] Birds have these tiny little brains, but they are packed with neurons.

[551] that a typical brain of a songbird or a crow or a parrot, they have twice as many neurons as similar size primate brains and four times as many neurons as mammal brains of the same size.

[552] So they're just packed with neurons, which allows them to really punch above their weight.

[553] Yeah.

[554] There's also a tricky thing with intelligence with its neocortex to mass ratio, which is relevant.

[555] I only know this from primates, but like a capuchin monkey doesn't have a bigger neocortex than, say, a colobus monkey.

[556] but relative to its mass, it does, and it's infinitely smarter.

[557] Yes, so relative brain size is a big thing, and owls have very large brains for their body size, along with parrots and corvids.

[558] Corvids are crows.

[559] Oh, wow.

[560] Yeah, crows, J's, magpies.

[561] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[562] We have an ongoing, not debate, but we had an issue on here once because I read a list of the smartest animals.

[563] From a website called sentient animals.

[564] Which I think someone puts out on their own without any real.

[565] No, it's a dot -org, so we trust it.

[566] Monica trusts it.

[567] Yeah, we had so many problems with the list.

[568] Well, he had so many problems with the list.

[569] And Monica was really mad at me that I had a problem with the list.

[570] Yeah, but owls weren't on there and they should have been.

[571] Well, now.

[572] Now I know.

[573] They should have been.

[574] Well, you know, this is an interesting question because we are really in the infancy of understanding the minds of other animals.

[575] We don't know how to measure intelligence, even in ourselves, much less in other creatures.

[576] We have some things that we're good at measuring and some things that we were just completely clueless.

[577] There are kinds of intelligence that go beyond ours.

[578] Oh, yeah.

[579] Even within ours, we have an IQ test, which tests a certain band of our intelligence.

[580] But emotional intelligence is certainly more vital when you are a social primate that needs to interact with other primates to stay alive.

[581] So what's the real intelligence?

[582] Exactly.

[583] Pattern recognition or cohesive group participation that results in ample resources.

[584] Right.

[585] We're just starting to tease apart the different kinds of intelligence in a person and animals of all kinds and birds, you know, in particular, they're pointing out a lot of really important differences in the kinds of ways of knowing in the natural world.

[586] So owls would not be on that list.

[587] Crows probably would be.

[588] Because they can do an eight -step problem.

[589] Yes.

[590] And they're good at solving physical problems the way that we are.

[591] So of course we think that's...

[592] Yeah, we're evaluating it through our lens of intelligence.

[593] And I think there are just other ways of being and knowing, and we're just beginning to scratch the surface.

[594] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[595] We've all been there.

[596] Turning to the internet to self -diagnose our inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes.

[597] Though our minds tend to spiral to worst -case scenarios, it's usually nothing, but for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery.

[598] Like the unexplainable death of a retired firefighter, whose body was found at home by his son, except it looked like he had been cremated, or the time when an entire town started jumping from buildings and seeing tigers on their ceilings.

[599] Hey listeners, it's Mr. Ballin here, and I'm here to tell you about my podcast.

[600] It's called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[601] Each terrifying, story will be sure to keep you up at night.

[602] Follow Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries wherever you get your podcasts.

[603] Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon music.

[604] What's up, guys?

[605] It's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season, and let me tell you, it's too good.

[606] And I'm diving into the brains of entertainment's best and brightest, okay?

[607] Every episode, I bring on a friend and have a real conversation.

[608] And I don't mean just friends.

[609] I mean the likes of Amy Polar, Kell Mitchell, Vivica Fox, the list goes on.

[610] So follow, watch, and listen to Baby.

[611] This is Kiki Palmer on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.

[612] Okay, so we all know the eyes.

[613] We're all kind of enamored by the eyes.

[614] We know the dish face.

[615] That's very on brand for an owl.

[616] And then, of course, probably the most mesmerizing aspect of them is the way they turn their heads.

[617] Yeah.

[618] It's both terrifying and intriguing.

[619] It's very uncanny to see what looks like an owl sort of turning its head all the way around.

[620] But it is a myth that they can turn their heads 360 degrees from a front -facing position.

[621] They can turn them 270 degrees, which is many times more than we can, four times more, I think.

[622] Yeah, it's three -quarters of a spin, a little more.

[623] It's a very good twist.

[624] And then they go in either direction, so they can cover 360.

[625] Yes.

[626] But this is true of many other kinds of birds, too.

[627] It's just that their necks are more visible than an owl's neck.

[628] You can actually see the turn, and with owls, it just looks like they're, you know, rotating their own.

[629] Tank turret.

[630] Yeah.

[631] Is that the word turret?

[632] Yeah.

[633] I'm going to ask you a lot of words.

[634] The second word, I'm like, is that the right word, turret?

[635] So a lot of other birds can do it?

[636] Yeah, well, you think about like a heron or a crane or something, they're constantly moving these very graceful necks and looking around behind them, but it's easy to see the movement.

[637] Most birds have a lot of vertebrae in their columns, and it gives them this flexibility.

[638] Now, are all owls nocturnal?

[639] No, some are nocturnal.

[640] Some are so -called crepus.

[641] They're active at dawn or dusk.

[642] And some are day active, like the northern hawk owl is actually a daytime hunter.

[643] That's kind of the full range.

[644] Was Picasso's a nocturnal?

[645] It was a nocturnal.

[646] It was.

[647] Okay, but maybe he was a night owl.

[648] I suspect he was.

[649] I don't know.

[650] Yeah, he's so artistic.

[651] Wait, the silent flight.

[652] I think you were going to talk about that.

[653] Yes.

[654] And then I have my own perverse question for you about that.

[655] So let's talk about how incredibly quiet.

[656] they are as flyers.

[657] And what I would love to direct people to is you wrote a New York Times article.

[658] In addition to buying the book, if you go to the New York Times article, what Owls' silent flight tells us about the world, there is a hyperlink there to go watch this BBC footage, which you implore people to watch.

[659] Yeah, it's really very dramatic representation of the quiet flight of owls.

[660] It's a pitch -dark studio, and they have ultra -sensitive microphones lined up along this flight path.

[661] There's like a box on one side and then it's about 10 feet and then there's a box on the other side.

[662] Yes.

[663] Okay.

[664] And they have a peregrine falcon, I think, pigeon and then an owl fly across this course of microphones sort of hovering in the background.

[665] You see the audio representation of what it sounds like when the bird is flapping along.

[666] You can see the clear noise that the peregrine falcon is making and the pigeon.

[667] There's wushing and rustling.

[668] You can hear friction.

[669] You can hear friction.

[670] and almost articulating things like it's noisy flight is noisy feathers are noisy and then you see this barn owl go across there and the line on the sonogram is just flat it makes no noise monica it leaves the box if your eyes weren't open you'd have no clue it had flown through the microphones yeah and then the graph shows nothing that's kind of like a polygraph yes if you can imagine those lines the other birds are making all these peaks and valleys and the owls are just flat and it's really remarkable their wings have evolved, these adaptations that are so beautifully effective at quieting their flight, that they're actually used in all kinds of technology now, in quieting wind turbines, and Japan's bullet train has a feature that's based on an owl's wing.

[671] It's called biomimicry.

[672] They can quiet the noise of the vibrations using some of the design features.

[673] They have little tiny hairs on the leading edge of the wing and on the back edge of the wing that basically break up the turbulence.

[674] What's really incredible is in addition to them flying through the microphone field, they also fly these birds like a half foot above this huge blanket of down feathers.

[675] And when the peregrine falcon passes over them, it kicks up all the down as well as the pigeon.

[676] And when the owl flies over it, it doesn't move at all.

[677] No disturbance.

[678] No turbulence.

[679] Or very minute turbulence.

[680] Yeah.

[681] So here's the application.

[682] I want.

[683] This is worth billions of dollars to you and I. So I'm an enormous fan of Formula One racing.

[684] There is more tech put into Formula One than NASA.

[685] A team's budget is half a billion a season.

[686] And the amount of wind tunnel work they do.

[687] And just in the last two years, what they've figured out is that the cars themselves make so much turbulent air behind them that the other car following behind, its downforce won't work because that air's too turbulent.

[688] I'm looking at this owl fly over the down feathers and I'm like, if they had that on the diffusers, there would be nearly zero dirty air.

[689] Dax, you are on to something clearly.

[690] Oh, let's patent this.

[691] Let's go.

[692] Absolutely.

[693] I mean, this is a perfect application of this capacity to break up turbulence.

[694] Why not?

[695] It just seems like it's right there for the taking.

[696] And I wonder if they've thought of these little tiny diffusers on the front and the rear of the wings like the owl.

[697] Do airplanes have that?

[698] There's some efforts to build this into airplane wings as well.

[699] And I don't know whether you could adapt this feature, but owls also, their wings are covered with these plush fibers that are sort of make them velvety soft.

[700] Like you touch an owl's wing and it feels like rabbit's fur.

[701] I mean, it's so soft.

[702] And it's because of these little plush fibers.

[703] I don't know, maybe you could coach your car with.

[704] Yeah, plush fibers.

[705] Oh my God, you and I have got to get to the patent office immediately.

[706] I have a bizarre question.

[707] We'll get back into Alfax.

[708] but I have an anecdotal observation about people who love dogs.

[709] Bear with me. I think that people who had very complex manipulative relationships with parent figures are very drawn to dogs because you can love them and they love you back and it's clean and there's no manipulation.

[710] There's no narcissism.

[711] There's nothing.

[712] Now so my curiosity to you is as someone who, A, your father was a bird watcher.

[713] You're a bird watcher.

[714] You obviously surround yourself with bird watchers.

[715] Is there a personality type of people drawn to birds?

[716] That is such a great question.

[717] Oh, thank you.

[718] You know, it's hard for me to generalize, but I can tell you from my own experience, I don't tell many people this, but when I wake up in the morning, I often have a lot of anxiety.

[719] My family's health and money and all kinds of things.

[720] And the best way for me to calm myself is to go out on my deck and sit with my coffee and listen to the dawn chorus, the symphony of birds that sing in the morning.

[721] And it just does something to my heart rate and, you know, just really calms me. It regulates you.

[722] Yeah.

[723] And so I think there's a real meditative aspect to bird watching.

[724] It just puts you right in the present.

[725] There's so many birds that just fill you with awe.

[726] You can't believe their color or their song or the beautiful flight.

[727] So I think if I could generalize, I would say that people are nervous or anxious or They go out and they birdwatch, and it just brings them back into sort of a rooted place in life.

[728] Well, my hunch was, by some accounts, birdwatching is boring for people.

[729] So I imagine how you track physiologically, whether you are very prone to easy arousal and stimulation is overwhelming to you, that that would be a perfect activity.

[730] I guess another way to think about it is I remember learning in psychology that people with really high levels of MAO can watch the grass grow.

[731] People with very low levels have to do exciting.

[732] things to wake themselves up.

[733] So I'm imagining you probably have like a high level of MAO and that you're pretty sensitive to stimulation.

[734] Are you sensitive to loud noises?

[735] Yes.

[736] I would much rather sit and listen to the dawn chorus.

[737] Yes.

[738] I love that though.

[739] Increasingly I'm aware of how absolutely vital it is that we're all so different.

[740] We need all these variety of people so we can understand our world.

[741] I couldn't agree with you more.

[742] And some of the people that I met working on this book, they're obsessed with owls.

[743] They've spent 45 years of their lives focused on a particular species of owl.

[744] And thank goodness for those differences, those people that are just willing to give in this way.

[745] Or Jane Goodall, whatever her weird mix of psychology and biology that opened the whole world to us.

[746] The other person that comes to mind, she's a citizen scientist.

[747] She's not a trained scientist.

[748] Her day job is running an emergency room facility at a major hospital.

[749] Oh, wow.

[750] Well, that's high stimuli.

[751] Yeah, and it's trauma, trauma, trauma all day long.

[752] And what does she do in the evenings?

[753] She goes out at night and participates in a banding effort of northern saw -wet owls, these really cute, tiny little owls.

[754] She catches them in mist nets and bands them for this research.

[755] She spends all night long doing this, making runs to the net to handle the owls.

[756] And I said, Julie, how can you do this?

[757] You know, you have this.

[758] really demanding day job and then you go out at night and she said it is such an exhale from her job it's the antidote yeah and she said sometimes i just come off the day and i'll just tell myself i need an owl and out she goes instead of a cocktail she has a owl okay so we're familiar with the hoots that's like part and parcel to what we know about owls what have we learned about what the hoots are saying how good are we at deciphering what kind of communications going on between owls yeah that's a really remarkable area of research because, well, I grew up thinking, you know, a hoot is a hoot.

[759] Sure.

[760] You know, that that's what owls did.

[761] They hooted.

[762] But it turns out that there's a tremendous variety of vocalizations they have.

[763] And these vocalizations are teeming with meaning.

[764] They just signify different things.

[765] And they will communicate from one owl to the next, everything from the size and weight of an owl to its individual identity, even at state of mind.

[766] Ows don't just hoot.

[767] They also chitter and squawk.

[768] and squeal.

[769] There's something called the copulatory squeal, which I thought was pretty amazing.

[770] It's celebrating.

[771] It's kind of a trumpeting of its success.

[772] Sure, sure, sure, sir.

[773] I hear what that sounds like.

[774] Is that one of the sounds here?

[775] Joyous.

[776] Oh my God, so we're here.

[777] So Rob has some owl noises, and you're going to tell us what the hell's going on with the owl noises.

[778] Happy to.

[779] This could be like a trick.

[780] What do we just do?

[781] Oh, sorry, back to Formula One.

[782] They go all over the world.

[783] They go to 22 different tracks.

[784] They do this thing with the drivers where they close their eyes and they play them random engine noise.

[785] And they can go, hmm, that's a long straightaway.

[786] Oh, downshift to third.

[787] And they'll go, Suzuki.

[788] They can name the track by listening to the noise the car's making with insane accuracy in very short duration of hearing the car.

[789] That is amazing.

[790] It's mind -blowing.

[791] And they can also drive the tracks with their eyes closed.

[792] They'll give them a steering wheel and then they can drive the whole course completely blindfolded.

[793] Boy, that just makes me wonder what's going on in their brains.

[794] Talk about differences.

[795] Yes.

[796] Individual differences in brains.

[797] Wow.

[798] And it gets into what they're doing with geometry and space, right?

[799] What the owl can do.

[800] It's kind of like we can exemplify these things in certain areas.

[801] I guess it's kind of like with sommeliers.

[802] Samoyes, yeah, which I have a hard time believing, but I know.

[803] Well, no, I mean, there's a whole test.

[804] Like, they take one sip of wine and they know the valley in France that this very particular, it's crazy.

[805] I guess they do pass those tests, don't they?

[806] They do.

[807] Only some.

[808] There's not very many.

[809] No, I have a niece who's a sommelier.

[810] Yeah.

[811] And it is not an easy thing to become.

[812] No. No, it's really remarkable.

[813] And again, there's that sensory thing that's just different for her.

[814] You know, her sense of smell and taste are just so highly developed.

[815] Yeah, it's really cool.

[816] She's sensitive.

[817] This makes sense.

[818] It's a family member.

[819] Sensitive to stimulate.

[820] Okay, Rob, hit us.

[821] Go go, go, go, go, go, go.

[822] It's who cooks for you?

[823] Who cooks for you?

[824] That's a bard owl.

[825] And it's actually a very common owl around here.

[826] And it's a very common owl around here.

[827] It's a territorial call that the owl is making.

[828] So owls, they use vocalizations instead of physical fights because you think about it.

[829] If an owl gets a talon in the eye or something, it's really game over.

[830] So they battle vocally to establish their territories.

[831] Both males and females will actually call these territorial calls to let other owls know where their boundaries are.

[832] Does that always resolve the issue or are there fights?

[833] No, very, very rarely.

[834] They respect each other's areas?

[835] They do.

[836] Sometimes these vocalizations, they carry information about size and weight.

[837] Ah, like the tenor is maybe detectable.

[838] Right.

[839] Well, and I thought it was interesting that you say that whereas other birds come about their songs through nurture, they learn them, that the owl's calls are instinctual.

[840] They're born with them.

[841] Yes, they're genetic.

[842] But they're also individual.

[843] This is some of the really remarkable new research, because.

[844] because we now can, both through observation, listening and also through machine learning.

[845] AI can crack any language.

[846] Yeah, we can detect the differences between individual voices of owls.

[847] And they have signature hoots, just like a fingerprint.

[848] So that has allowed us to do two things, really, to monitor populations in a way that we've never been able to do.

[849] Oh, yeah, from a distance.

[850] Yes.

[851] And then also to keep an eye on the social lives of owls.

[852] You can tell who's mating with whom.

[853] And we used to think that owls were monogamous.

[854] They made it for life.

[855] Well, it's turning out to be not so much.

[856] Wow.

[857] Adulters.

[858] What does Esther Perel say?

[859] Universally regarded and universally broken.

[860] Yeah, yeah.

[861] Well, the owls are joining right in there.

[862] A lot of hanky -panky going on.

[863] Wow.

[864] Yeah, I want them to be out there.

[865] As they say, what do they say, stretching your feathers now?

[866] Spreading their wings.

[867] Yes, figuratively and literally.

[868] Okay, hit us with another sound, Rob.

[869] That one sounds eerier.

[870] Okay, can you tell that there are two different owls there?

[871] Oh, no. Okay, so that's the individuality, but it's very subtle.

[872] I think it's a male and a female.

[873] Now, here's another cool thing.

[874] Female owls are bigger than male owls.

[875] So you'd think they would have a lower voice, right?

[876] But in fact, it's the opposite.

[877] Females have a higher voice than males do.

[878] So you could tell if you listen very closely, and I'm really not very good at it.

[879] I mean, there are people who I've talked to, they have musical training, and they can really hear the differences.

[880] It's really remarkable.

[881] Are the males much more decorative, as is consistent with other birds?

[882] No. They're just smaller and not even prettier.

[883] What a pass.

[884] They're definitely not prettier.

[885] The only species that has differences in plumage between male and female is the snowy owl.

[886] I'm picturing the snowy owl when I ask you that.

[887] That's so interesting.

[888] Yeah.

[889] So the male is this almost fluorescent white.

[890] And the female has a lot of brown mixed in, but it's really the only species with that difference.

[891] So Harry's was a male.

[892] Yes, absolutely.

[893] In fact, all the owls that played Hedwig in Harry Potter were male.

[894] It's because they look good against the black cape and they're smaller.

[895] So they're easier to handle.

[896] They photograph.

[897] They do.

[898] Models.

[899] How long do they live?

[900] Varies tremendously.

[901] Well, whether they're in captivity or in the wild.

[902] Yes.

[903] And also from species to speak.

[904] she's.

[905] But Harry's owl.

[906] How long can we expect Harry to have that all?

[907] Maybe 12 years.

[908] But that's a guess.

[909] I'm not sure.

[910] We love guesses on here.

[911] And then Monica fact checks every episode.

[912] So she will actually find out.

[913] Headwig is.

[914] But what I love is all roads are leading back to Formula One for me. And all roads lead back to Harry Potter for Monica.

[915] This one's just like, oh.

[916] It's on the platter.

[917] It is.

[918] It really is.

[919] Did it make you want an owl?

[920] A hundred percent.

[921] You know, when you take the test of what house you're in and stuff, it'll ask.

[922] what animal you'd want.

[923] And I always pick owl.

[924] The cat, no. And definitely not the rat.

[925] Right.

[926] That's fair.

[927] And the owl would eat both of those if it were in the right road.

[928] And Harry, the owls are never eating.

[929] Any other animals, no. Do we have more noises, Rob?

[930] Yeah, two more.

[931] Two more.

[932] I love these noises.

[933] Hold on a second.

[934] The whole thing was just absolutely euphoric for me. All the insect noises before we even get to that.

[935] Will you hit me one more time with that?

[936] Summertime.

[937] So pleasant.

[938] Do you have a buzz from that?

[939] Yeah, yeah.

[940] It's very southern summer.

[941] I am so thrilled to hear you say this because this was a recording taken by my friend Andrew Skiaq, who's Australian, and he's a wildlife sound recording specialist.

[942] This is what he does.

[943] I love this particular recording.

[944] All of his have a lot of the ambiance of a place.

[945] There's a lot of depth.

[946] Yes.

[947] This recording, it was taken in a place where I heard the Barking Owl, too, in the Pilgras forest in Eastern Australia.

[948] And what's really remarkable is that it sounds like a dog barking.

[949] I mean, you just can't believe that it's an owl.

[950] And then these owls also have this weird human -like howl.

[951] Oh, like the rebel yell?

[952] Yeah, it's very strange and unsettling when you hear it in the forest.

[953] That was so nice.

[954] I could listen to that at night as a bit of a bit of a meditative, yeah, if I put that on a loop.

[955] Although I would get aware of the loop and that would distract me. Anyways, we'll work all that up, the details of that.

[956] Okay, Rob, thrill our ears again.

[957] Ooh, that one's scary.

[958] There's been a murder.

[959] Yeah, that one scares me. Someone's been attacked.

[960] What is going on there?

[961] That is a sooty owl.

[962] It's got this weird descending whistle like just a street.

[963] Wait, did they live in Belize or in Nepal or these others?

[964] Because now I can see where people would think those were evil.

[965] Yeah.

[966] No, they're also an Australian species.

[967] But this kind of call makes it clear to me why some people considered these birds, evil spirits.

[968] It sounds possessed or something.

[969] Yeah, it just doesn't sound like a bird.

[970] It sounds like a human in distress of some kind.

[971] Let's hear it again.

[972] It sounds like a baby in distress.

[973] Yeah.

[974] Oh, wow.

[975] Yeah.

[976] Like a crying.

[977] That's crazy.

[978] I would probably, like, if I heard that up my window, I'd go outside and see if someone needed help.

[979] I found this insanely interesting that they make noises within the egg.

[980] Yes.

[981] So they actually start to hoot when they're still in the egg.

[982] And you can hear the little.

[983] little chitters inside the egg.

[984] I know.

[985] Isn't that amazing?

[986] And then some species of young owl, when a predator is attacking them in their nest, they're completely defenseless.

[987] They can mimic the sound of a rattlesnake.

[988] Yeah.

[989] This is the burrowing owl, which is one of my favorite species.

[990] And when, say, a raccoon or a skunk is threatening the nest, these little baby burrowing out chicks will make a sound exactly like a rattlesnake.

[991] Wow.

[992] And it just completely freaks out the predator.

[993] a lot of human researchers and things, they'll back away from a bird.

[994] Have you ever heard one in real life?

[995] A rattlesnake?

[996] Yeah.

[997] I mean, I've heard it, but I don't know if I'm in person in front of me. I had an archaeology class in college, and we would go dig up in stunt ranch, like, in the Santa Monica Mountains.

[998] And we were walking through this field, and all of a sudden, it was just like, like, crazy.

[999] Like, someone came up on one.

[1000] I couldn't believe how loud it is in real life.

[1001] You instinctively know, even though that's your first time hearing it, you know.

[1002] Danger.

[1003] Get the fuck away from it.

[1004] from that noise, like you just know.

[1005] It's so primal that response.

[1006] It's in our evolution.

[1007] We play it.

[1008] Oh, you want to hear a rattlesnake noise?

[1009] Yeah.

[1010] Now we're kind of off topic, but that's okay.

[1011] And too bad we don't have a recording of the burrowing out chicks doing their imitation.

[1012] Exactly.

[1013] I thought you were trying to make that noise.

[1014] Oh.

[1015] Oh, wow.

[1016] Upon hearing a strange sound.

[1017] Okay.

[1018] Maybe we'll do it a fact.

[1019] Wait, you do have to burrowing owes doing it.

[1020] We do?

[1021] I thought that's where that was going.

[1022] She's now surfing the internet, as you heard.

[1023] That was like a collage or a kaleidoscope of every kind of noise on planet Earth.

[1024] Oh, okay.

[1025] I think there is one on there somewhere of a burrowing out chicks doing this imitation.

[1026] I would love that.

[1027] Okay, so there was a few things that was a revelation to me. One is I think of them as being, of course, very solitary.

[1028] But you say the villages of Serbia, long -eared owls, roosting.

[1029] together side by side and colonies of hundreds of birds.

[1030] Yeah.

[1031] Like you, I think of owls as solitary.

[1032] I don't think of them as living together in these groups, but they do.

[1033] There's a little town named Kikinda in Serbia that is now very proud of this huge colony of long -eared owls that gather there.

[1034] They're really very interesting social entities, too, because the owls within them are learning from each other about good hunting grounds, what's dangerous, what's not.

[1035] They're communicating to each other this kind of material.

[1036] and learning from each other.

[1037] Is there a environmental force that's bringing that to fruition?

[1038] Like, do they have increased predators there, that they are safer in a group?

[1039] Yeah, well, what's happened is there's been agricultural development.

[1040] An abundance of rodents.

[1041] Yeah, so there's great hunting around, but then they've also collected in these villages because it's very protected from any kind of predators.

[1042] And long -eared owls are subject to predation from other owls, too.

[1043] Oh, you got a burrowing owl doing the sound?

[1044] And a rattlesnake.

[1045] Oh, great.

[1046] Okay, don't tell us which.

[1047] Okay.

[1048] I think that's the owl.

[1049] There's a lot of other bird noises.

[1050] Oh.

[1051] That's a different one?

[1052] No, that's the same one.

[1053] All right.

[1054] Here's the maybe owl, maybe snake.

[1055] Okay.

[1056] I think that's a rattles.

[1057] Me too.

[1058] And I hated that.

[1059] Oh, my God.

[1060] It's scary.

[1061] It's not fair because it was louder.

[1062] Yeah, it was louder.

[1063] Okay, so we were right.

[1064] Yeah.

[1065] Yeah, but that was a really good sound.

[1066] Absolutely.

[1067] Look, let's put it this way.

[1068] We had too many context clues.

[1069] If yesterday, Rob said, I don't want to play you in noise, he played that first one.

[1070] We would think it was a rattles name.

[1071] We'd think it was rattled.

[1072] Okay, tell me about, I found this interesting, that the researchers in Finland who are looking at your old owls have to wear hard hats.

[1073] Owls are incredibly fierce defenders of their nests.

[1074] They will attack.

[1075] If a researcher comes to measure chicks or band the chicks in the nest, they'll, they'll, will get hammered by these owls.

[1076] And Denver Holt, who works with snowy owls in Alaska, has gotten hit many, many times by female snowy owls, sometimes by males.

[1077] And once he got just hammered in the rear, and the talons went all the way through his car heart pants.

[1078] Oh, God.

[1079] Yeah.

[1080] Okay.

[1081] Really, really nailed by them.

[1082] So it's a problem, though, because if you wear a helmet, they'll smash into it so hard that they will damage themselves.

[1083] So some of the, the researchers in Finland, they wear these leather helmets that are softer.

[1084] They're working in concert with farmers in Serbia, and I thought this was interesting, that in the farm fields of Serbia, an owl family with three chicks, just three chicks, Monica, will prey on some 8 ,000 rodents a year, saving the farmer's 16 ,000 kilos of grain that the rodents would have eaten.

[1085] Right.

[1086] Have they not been killed?

[1087] It's remarkable, isn't it?

[1088] And this was actually news to the farmers.

[1089] There had been a lot of antipathy toward the owls before the researchers came and said, here's what's going on.

[1090] This is good for you.

[1091] And we really want to conserve these owls.

[1092] So it's a lot of conservation effort.

[1093] Did you see that documentary like this little farm or what was the name of that incredible dog?

[1094] Oh, biggest little farm or something.

[1095] Yeah.

[1096] Big little farm.

[1097] Something like that.

[1098] And that was the breakthrough that they had as well, is they got some barn owls up there.

[1099] Yeah, they're great at rodent control.

[1100] They're used that way in places in South Africa.

[1101] and they'll put up these boxes for barn owls so they'll take care of rat populations.

[1102] Yeah, I do need that little owl because I had a mice once.

[1103] I had one mice.

[1104] It was scared the heck out of her.

[1105] Oh, dear.

[1106] She was really battling it.

[1107] Well, of course.

[1108] Can't live in my house.

[1109] Now, another thing I found fascinating is that they can live in negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit.

[1110] We think of, well, I grew up in Michigan, so we're told, oh, the birds have to fly south because they've got to be where it's warm because they're cold -blooded and they can't move around if it's cold.

[1111] but negative 40, that's like polar bear level.

[1112] Yeah, well, there are feathers are tremendous insulation.

[1113] You're talking about snowy owls here.

[1114] They even have feathered feet.

[1115] One of the cool things that has been learned recently is that we thought most owls were sedentary, actually.

[1116] They didn't move around.

[1117] But now, because of satellite telemetry and some of the new technology in that regard, radio tracking, we understand that owls migrate just like a lot of other birds.

[1118] And the cool thing about snowy owls is that some of them migrate north.

[1119] In the winter.

[1120] So they're going into the depths of that freezing dark Arctic winter.

[1121] The big puzzle was, well, why?

[1122] Why would they do this?

[1123] Well, to fight the snow walkers.

[1124] There was a little white walkers.

[1125] On the North Wall.

[1126] Well, they also discovered that these birds can hunt large iders, huge sea ducks over the ice there.

[1127] So it was a great source of food for them in the deep winter.

[1128] Oh, my God.

[1129] They're so brave.

[1130] I want to see a nature show of them hunting.

[1131] Yeah.

[1132] I haven't seen enough of that, and I really want to see them in action.

[1133] Yeah, it's pretty dramatic.

[1134] They're just unmatched in their hunting abilities, and it's so beautiful to see them with the quiet flight and the killer kind of focus that they have.

[1135] They're called the wolves of the sky, you said.

[1136] They're called the wolves of the sky, right.

[1137] That feels perfectly accurate in that perhaps a bald eagle or a big turkey vulture or something.

[1138] We could think of them as like lions or something, There's so many tools employed here by the owl that make it unique in that way.

[1139] Yeah, I think so, too.

[1140] And I think of wolves is just at the top of their game.

[1141] And that is certainly true for owls, too.

[1142] Yeah.

[1143] Well, it's just a delightful book.

[1144] And I think it's, I think they're so cool.

[1145] I don't know if I have room in my heart for yet another bird species that I'm going to be obsessed with.

[1146] But I'm getting there.

[1147] This pushes me in that direction.

[1148] You want to do that one?

[1149] Yeah, I'll take our owls.

[1150] I'll represent crows.

[1151] You represent owls.

[1152] And then maybe Wobbywob could pick.

[1153] bird.

[1154] Do you have one come to mind, Robbie?

[1155] It would have been owls.

[1156] Oh, wow.

[1157] Okay.

[1158] Well, then you get owls and you have to do mice.

[1159] What?

[1160] You're doing mice now.

[1161] That's not how...

[1162] I think Monica needs a burrowing owl.

[1163] Honestly, they're just so cute and comical.

[1164] And they decorate their burrows.

[1165] My God, their interior designers.

[1166] They are in their way.

[1167] Yeah, how do we get one?

[1168] To live in your yard.

[1169] No, I'm not being serious.

[1170] No, I know.

[1171] I'm not.

[1172] Do not take an owl as a pat.

[1173] I'm not.

[1174] Well, not as a pat.

[1175] But to get a pet.

[1176] But to get a to live in your yard is fine, right?

[1177] Providing good habitat in your yard is a terrific thing.

[1178] You know, I always tell people, if you have any kind of land, leave the snags, leave the old dead trees as long as they aren't a threat to your house because those provide nesting areas for owls and don't mow your grass because native plants and high vegetation and stuff is good for rodents, which brings in the owls.

[1179] Yeah, but we have rats here in L .A. They love to live in the FICA's and stuff.

[1180] I'm telling you right now, I'm definitely getting a house for an owl.

[1181] And I'm going to put it.

[1182] Right.

[1183] So you're going to build it.

[1184] How do you make a house?

[1185] I think I can order one probably off the internet.

[1186] Yeah, they're great designs on the internet for building owl boxes.

[1187] You know, my 10 -year -old and I, she and I just built this fort out of wooded.

[1188] And it was so great.

[1189] And she's now got a bit of a taste for woodworking.

[1190] So maybe we'll make an owl house.

[1191] I think that would be very cool.

[1192] You know that people are making owl boxes out of all kinds of material, including they're doing 3D printing of owl boxes now.

[1193] Oh, really?

[1194] Sometimes they use old barrels, and you can use a lot of different kinds of materials and draw in an owl that way.

[1195] You know, you've brought a peaceful vibe to the show in the same way that those audio clips did.

[1196] I like the tone and meditative thing that's happening.

[1197] Energy.

[1198] Yes, I agree.

[1199] Yeah, it's very calming.

[1200] I'm going to urge people who are, like, stressed out to listen to this episode.

[1201] What animal do you relate to the most?

[1202] Oh.

[1203] Yeah.

[1204] How about if you were a bird?

[1205] What bird would you be?

[1206] Oh, gosh.

[1207] That is so.

[1208] hard.

[1209] I told you about my experience with the chickadee, and the thing I love about chickadees is that they are so bold, they are so sassy, they're super bright and they're very articulate.

[1210] They have great language -like skills.

[1211] So I always felt like a bird that was very close to my heart.

[1212] But then there was the Kia, which is so great at playing, and that plays out the nine -year -old in me. And then there are owls that are so adept at moving through the world in such a quiet way.

[1213] You know, and they really invite us to notice sights and sounds that we might otherwise not see or hear.

[1214] So I love that model that they provide of moving through the world in a quiet way.

[1215] So, oh, I don't know.

[1216] It's hard to make a choice.

[1217] That's hard.

[1218] Do you have one, Monica?

[1219] Bird.

[1220] I need somebody else to do it.

[1221] It's hard for me to do.

[1222] It's hard.

[1223] Yeah, because he always picks bad animals.

[1224] No. Yeah.

[1225] And then I get offended.

[1226] Oh, I called her a badger, which I think is so flattering because they're absolutely fearless they'll fight a leopard they're small but you want a badger on your side yeah they're clever they want honey they're gonna get that they don't care how many times they get stung i think it's like a very cool animal to be called she did not like that honey badger i didn't like it i identify with the croaks they're not that pretty they're not the biggest they're wicked smart and they'll still fight that hawk they would lose but they're out there doing it they'll get together and they have good community they can build a click and handle their business rob do you have one off the top of your head i like blue jays i wish you said bald eagle Paul Dicole.

[1227] Because you're a patriot through and through.

[1228] Well, Monica, we'll think on it, and then the fact check will come up with a great bird for you.

[1229] Okay, sounds good.

[1230] Jennifer, this has been so fun, and I've loved learning about owls.

[1231] I hope everyone reads what an owl knows, the new science of the world's most enigmatic birds.

[1232] What a delight to be here.

[1233] Thank you so much.

[1234] Oh, yeah.

[1235] So nice to have you.

[1236] We loved it.

[1237] You write for a lot of our favorite publication, Scientific American, National Geographic, New York Times.

[1238] So I hope we get to talk to you again.

[1239] Thank you.

[1240] I hope so, too.

[1241] All right.

[1242] Bye, bye, bye.

[1243] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[1244] Stay tuned for the fact check so you can hear all the facts that were wrong.

[1245] Welcome to the fact check.

[1246] We have a little something different today.

[1247] Dax is currently stuck in a airport, Boston airport.

[1248] If you're there, take a gander for Dax and the family.

[1249] I think they slept on the floor of the airport.

[1250] So without our fearless leader, we're doing something special.

[1251] We have a fact check takeover today with Liz.

[1252] Plank.

[1253] I was going to do a song.

[1254] Do a song.

[1255] Remember we're not edited.

[1256] That's why I chose not to do the song.

[1257] Um, fact check, takeover.

[1258] I didn't like that.

[1259] But I guess that's what it is.

[1260] That there's no redos.

[1261] And isn't that life?

[1262] Yes.

[1263] There's no takebacks.

[1264] Exactly.

[1265] Yeah.

[1266] Okay.

[1267] So we wanted to do a little takeover today because we have a new show.

[1268] It's called Sinked under the armchair umbrella.

[1269] It's out every Wednesday.

[1270] And, yeah, our first episode dropped yesterday.

[1271] So if you missed it, check that out.

[1272] And so what's up, Liz?

[1273] Well, we're going to see the Barbie movie.

[1274] We are.

[1275] Together.

[1276] And you have already seen it.

[1277] Yes, you're a Barbie movie virgin.

[1278] I have done it once, and I'll do it many times again.

[1279] You love the feeling.

[1280] There's so many layers to this movie.

[1281] I am so thrilled for you to see it.

[1282] And I wonder at this point, because it's made so much money, how much money is coming from people going to see it more than once.

[1283] Because I truly feel like I'm reading comments and like people like, I saw it three times.

[1284] And so it's a movie with a lot happening.

[1285] And even if you didn't like it, I think it's an important conversation for us to all be having.

[1286] And what is your experience with Barbie going in?

[1287] Well, going in, Barbie was like contraband at my house growing up.

[1288] I was not allowed.

[1289] Like Barbies were only to be like acquired, not bought.

[1290] And so I could have them.

[1291] You mean stolen?

[1292] Um, hamdy downs.

[1293] That's another word for stolen.

[1294] I probably stole them.

[1295] Um, did you ever have a shoplifting phase?

[1296] I did.

[1297] Actually, that's a whole story.

[1298] I got caught.

[1299] I could see it.

[1300] What happened?

[1301] Wait, we have to, we have to go there.

[1302] So people should know there's a lot of pins.

[1303] And this is a perfect example of it.

[1304] No, when I was, I had a shoplifting, I had a shoplifting addiction when I was a teenager and I got caught with hair clips in my hands at Ardenne, which is like your guys.

[1305] You guys.

[1306] as like Clare's in Montreal.

[1307] And I got caught and like they had to call my mom at the mall and I was crying and they made me sit in the front where the cash register is while I was waiting for my, you know, what my trial was going to be and my, you know.

[1308] Your penance?

[1309] My penance.

[1310] And then when my mom showed up, I lied, obviously, and I said I didn't do it on purpose.

[1311] And so they told my mom, you can either, like, we're going to press charges and like, you know or you give us $500 now no and my mother refused she was like no that's a scam that's a scam and also it was never charged um so thank god my i have a clean record but now everyone knows so i guess it's oh my god were you ever did you ever shop left no i was such a good girl of course you were such a good girl wow but wait did did you put the clips in your purse or you were holding it It sounds like you weren't good at it if you were just holding them outright in your hand.

[1312] I was so good at it because then it's like, oh, I just have them in my hand.

[1313] But I definitely did the, I did everything.

[1314] Like I was, you know, I had the bag, a trick, obviously.

[1315] I would, yeah, I was, I had a friend who did it.

[1316] And then I remember her being like, this is what I do.

[1317] And I was like, oh, God, this is so bad.

[1318] But then once I did it and got away with it.

[1319] You got the rush.

[1320] Yes.

[1321] And it was really, yeah.

[1322] And then my best friend, Kat, was with me. And she didn't know that I was.

[1323] shoplifting all, you know, and so she was also, it was very, like, is she a good girl?

[1324] She was.

[1325] So, she is.

[1326] I, this is what I can relate to.

[1327] Being at the mall, because I've grown up at the mall, I love the mall, and being with friends that are a little bit more rebellious than me, and then they want to do, they want to, like, go talk to boys or want to do stuff, kind of like what you do to me now.

[1328] Yeah, like go on dating apps.

[1329] And dangerous, treacherous.

[1330] I always had this like bad feeling and also this feeling of who are you?

[1331] Oh.

[1332] A little bit.

[1333] Who are you really?

[1334] Yeah, who are you really?

[1335] Because when we're hanging out at your house and making ice cream Sundays and watching friends reruns, you're one person.

[1336] But when we're at the mall, you're a different woman.

[1337] Wow.

[1338] Oh.

[1339] I mean, I think that that tracks that theory because I, again, my best friend knew everything.

[1340] Like, we, you know, we have a whole theory about peeing in front of each other, which is like, we pooped in front of each other.

[1341] Like, we had known, we've known each other since we've been three years old, and I didn't tell her.

[1342] She didn't know because I, I, I, that's a betrayal.

[1343] Yes.

[1344] Because I knew it was a betrayal to also who I was.

[1345] Right.

[1346] I know it was bad, but it felt so good.

[1347] So, wow.

[1348] Yeah.

[1349] What's the biggest thing you stole?

[1350] Um, I mean, like a sleeping bag?

[1351] Was it that big?

[1352] I think also it had, there's a weird thing with my relationship with money when I think back at it too.

[1353] Like there was something about it's free.

[1354] And I don't have to like, you know, I don't know, ask my mom or be different from other girls who can afford other things.

[1355] So, yeah, there is an element.

[1356] But it's a phase for a lot of people.

[1357] I think it's weirdly a phase for a lot of girls.

[1358] I'd be curious why and I don't really know the science of it.

[1359] Yeah, I think, well, we'll get into the science of it.

[1360] What was your addiction?

[1361] Fantasy.

[1362] Fantasy.

[1363] Was definitely my addiction.

[1364] I lived in fantasy world.

[1365] You know what's kind of interesting?

[1366] I had a kind of weird spell relapse.

[1367] I had a relapse.

[1368] Oh, recently?

[1369] Okay.

[1370] Like a week and a half ago, I had three -ish or four -ish days of, full fantasy relapse.

[1371] I was living in a fantasy world and who was the subject, who was the prince?

[1372] Multiple.

[1373] Okay.

[1374] So you're in a situation like a polyamorous relationship with a bunch of princes or there.

[1375] Not necessarily.

[1376] It was like in one bout it would be one person and then in another bout it wasn't like we were all together necessarily though there was a fan.

[1377] There was one There was one fantasy that included multiple people.

[1378] I'm not going to get into what it was.

[1379] It was deep.

[1380] But the thing is about fantasy, it's not like you're dreaming.

[1381] It's not, you're not asleep.

[1382] It's happening while you're awake.

[1383] You're not present.

[1384] You're in another world.

[1385] It's weird.

[1386] I haven't experienced that in a long time.

[1387] And I don't know what caused it.

[1388] Maybe I started acupuncture.

[1389] Okay.

[1390] Maybe it's releasing some old.

[1391] But are these new people?

[1392] Are these current crutches?

[1393] There's a mix.

[1394] There's a mix.

[1395] There's old standbys that definitely made their way in.

[1396] But it stopped.

[1397] It stopped after about four days.

[1398] But it was really interesting.

[1399] Wow.

[1400] I don't know what sparked it.

[1401] Yeah.

[1402] How did you make it stop?

[1403] I didn't want to stop.

[1404] Oh, it was okay.

[1405] And that's how I, you know, it's like, uh -oh, like we're here.

[1406] But I didn't, it feels so.

[1407] good.

[1408] I mean, I also, again, I had several addictions.

[1409] I stabbled in shoplifting, but also definitely fantasy, and I still go, it's my go -to.

[1410] And my, I think I told you, my EMDR therapist was like, Liz, fantasy is dangerous for you.

[1411] I think for some, like, it's funny and, you know, it's all fun in games, but it can lead you to stay or like, you know, sort of interpret dangerous or be in in situations that aren't safe for you, not just like physically, but emotionally too.

[1412] Yeah, and make you stagnant.

[1413] I mean, I think that's, for me, that's definitely what it does is I, I can avoid real life because I have this other place to go.

[1414] Wow.

[1415] That's like safer and better and I have control over that.

[1416] And what does that safe place look like?

[1417] What is the, like, what are the characteristics of that fantasy, of that relationship?

[1418] I mean, I guess it's more, I mean, there's sexual components, obviously.

[1419] But emotional safety, a lot of it's, oh, God, this is so embarrassing.

[1420] I can't believe we're not editing.

[1421] A lot about being adored and liked and wanted because I don't have control over that in reality.

[1422] I mean, people might be doing it, but I can't control who's doing it at what time when.

[1423] And in my fantasy, I can.

[1424] Okay.

[1425] So, anyway, it's okay.

[1426] I was a small relapse.

[1427] And I've been on solid ground for the past week or so.

[1428] Interesting.

[1429] Yeah.

[1430] But I miss it a little bit.

[1431] It was fun.

[1432] I felt so floaty.

[1433] It's very floaty.

[1434] And you forget where you are at times, right?

[1435] Like, for me, it's also like what I do before.

[1436] It's almost like a movie.

[1437] I'm like playing a movie before I go to bed.

[1438] Do you think that if you, that you're seeking to be adored by this, you know, in this fantasy because you don't adore yourself?

[1439] No. I mean, of course I have self -esteem issues.

[1440] But I think it's not, it's more that I, because when I'm not in my fantasy, I am pretty good.

[1441] good about being alone.

[1442] I like it.

[1443] I am kind of fine with that.

[1444] But the fantasy is about other people entering my life who desire me and want me in a way that I can't give myself.

[1445] I already, I give myself plenty.

[1446] I mean, we get into this and the show.

[1447] We do.

[1448] We talk about vibrators.

[1449] We talk about.

[1450] Talk about all kinds of things.

[1451] Um, and, Anyway.

[1452] But let me just say because, and we can put a pin in that and talk about another time, but when we're not edited, when we're not, we are edited.

[1453] But if you adore and desire yourself, it doesn't matter if someone doesn't adore or desire you or when they.

[1454] But it's true.

[1455] No, I know.

[1456] I'm kidding.

[1457] Of course, it's true.

[1458] But do you think, I mean, I don't think these are permanent states.

[1459] I think that's false.

[1460] It's the idea that you love yourself at all times.

[1461] So that's all you need.

[1462] isn't like that.

[1463] It's like today I love myself.

[1464] Today I'm confident.

[1465] Today I feel good.

[1466] Tomorrow I might not.

[1467] And that's okay.

[1468] I think understanding that there's an ebb and flow for me is helpful.

[1469] Yeah.

[1470] So I don't feel like I'm on this roller coaster.

[1471] It's like today is this.

[1472] Tomorrow might be different.

[1473] Right.

[1474] But I totally agree.

[1475] And I think that's a really important point.

[1476] But if you, again, if you love yourself, it doesn't, then how someone else feels about you that day, which will always be different if you're in a real relationship and not living in one you wrote written by a woman yeah then it doesn't again you'll get joy obviously when the person is you know adoring you in the way that you want to be adored that day but if they're not you you still have you yes it doesn't take away exactly yeah I know that's but that's something I mean this is something I'm working through I'm not like but it's a small nuanced thing that I think again makes that fantasy so appealing yeah um but ultimately gives control to someone keeps giving control to someone else instead of having the control from you know intrinsic to you yeah we're a work in progress we are i also love a good fantasy i know i know we got really derailed because pins pins pins um Barbie yes you that couldn't have Barbie i couldn't have Barbie and so it was I wanted her so badly and I could play with my friends Barbies or the Hamdi Downs and...

[1477] Can we stop?

[1478] Because you've now said that twice And how are you saying it?

[1479] Hamdi.

[1480] Is it not?

[1481] No, this is why we need I don't know.

[1482] Okay, I'm not gonna stop.

[1483] We're gonna ask you questions off.

[1484] Did you, I don't always say words the right way.

[1485] There's no...

[1486] What's it?

[1487] What's the way to say it?

[1488] Can you say it again?

[1489] Hamdy downs.

[1490] She's saying Hamdi.

[1491] That's so cute.

[1492] It's like you were to.

[1493] day years old when you learned.

[1494] It was hand me down.

[1495] It's hand me down?

[1496] Yes, because you're handing it down.

[1497] Oh, hand me down?

[1498] Hand me down.

[1499] Oh, wow.

[1500] I've been saying it wrong for a long time.

[1501] That's so cute.

[1502] I mean, I kind of prefer the way you say it.

[1503] Hand me downs.

[1504] Now you said it kind of right.

[1505] Hand me downs.

[1506] Yeah, that's right.

[1507] Okay, I had it.

[1508] Yeah, I was, I thought it was spelled in a different way.

[1509] But, um, okay, wait, did you play with Barbies?

[1510] How did, what was your relationship to Barbie?

[1511] I did play with Barbies.

[1512] I never had a super tight.

[1513] She wasn't my girl, you know, I had other, I had water babies that I made.

[1514] Huge.

[1515] Those were my huge water baby babies.

[1516] Um, I did have Barbies though.

[1517] And of course it affects your life.

[1518] I mean, I do think what's really interesting about Barbie now, and I never knew this until this movie came out, which is so interesting.

[1519] There was a daily on it.

[1520] Ruth Handler who created Barbie.

[1521] She did do it as coming from a state of empowerment.

[1522] She wanted to create a doll, a woman that had all the jobs.

[1523] That wasn't just a stay -at -home mom.

[1524] And I, not that there's anything wrong with being a stay -at -home mom, but at the time, especially when she made that, that was the woman's role.

[1525] That was the go -to.

[1526] And she wanted to show that there were other options for women.

[1527] And I love that, actually.

[1528] And then, of course, the issue with Barbie is the body image.

[1529] And I think the body image, of course, affected all of us.

[1530] Yeah, it did.

[1531] I mean, there's no getting around it.

[1532] Well, there's this perfect silhouette showing that kids who grew up with, You played with the doll, had more body image issues, but keep going.

[1533] Yes, yes.

[1534] And I think I already struggle so much with wanting a white ideal.

[1535] Right.

[1536] And then that just reinforces.

[1537] So I don't think it made or broke anything for me, but it definitely added to what I knew to be true, which is like, this look is the preferred look.

[1538] Of course.

[1539] And I don't have that.

[1540] Sure.

[1541] And again, I don't think there's a single girl that.

[1542] grew up thinking she was like Barbie.

[1543] I mean, Barbie also was, I think they say like she, her BMI would be, she would be categorized as anorexic and she'd have to be on all fours because her body, you know, measurements just don't even make sense.

[1544] Yeah.

[1545] So there was that element too.

[1546] But I, yeah, I have so many thoughts about the Barbie movie.

[1547] I have so many thoughts about Allen, who is to me the unsung feminist hero.

[1548] Yeah, you've brought up Alan a couple times, and I didn't know what I'm talking about.

[1549] What you were talking about.

[1550] I guess Alan's a new character in the Barbie movie.

[1551] He really made an impact.

[1552] Alan was Ken's best friend issued in 1965 and then discontinued very shortly thereafter because he kind of didn't have a girlfriend and he was just kind of like Ken's friend and would wear Ken's clothes.

[1553] And so there was like...

[1554] Hand me down.

[1555] That's why I'm so attached to Alice.

[1556] You really connect to the hand -me -downs.

[1557] I really connected to that.

[1558] But Alan is played by Michael Sira in the film.

[1559] Again, I mean, we're going to go see it later, so I really can't spoil it.

[1560] And we don't want to spoil anything for people.

[1561] No, this is, it's been more than 72 hours.

[1562] Oh, the people aren't allowed to do.

[1563] Wait, 70.

[1564] Do you have to give people two weeks?

[1565] Absolutely not.

[1566] For Barbie, Barbie's also like out of, it's like, no. Oh, God.

[1567] Okay, go see it, I guess.

[1568] Go see it on a Tuesday for five bucks, like at the movie theater.

[1569] People have jobs, but.

[1570] Okay, sure.

[1571] But don't yell at me for spoilers.

[1572] Okay.

[1573] But I don't want to spoil it for you.

[1574] But Alan is this, if people haven't seen it yet, or like, Alan, in my opinion, Ken is not men.

[1575] Ken is the ideal that men are told to aspire to.

[1576] And Ken is like the least happy.

[1577] Like, every character at one point is happy.

[1578] And Ken is actually never happy.

[1579] He, to me, is like the most miserable character of all.

[1580] But Alan is actually.

[1581] men and who men can be without this pressure to prove that there are a certain definition of masculinity that society is like imposed onto them and in my opinion is like Alan is a man Alan is the ideal man Alan is who men could be without the patriarchy wow yes oh yeah I'm excited to meet Alan later today I really am um all right well we we could you know we we were going to do this for 15 minutes and I but think we're already at 18.

[1582] There we go.

[1583] Oh, 18.

[1584] Okay.

[1585] Not too bad.

[1586] But we haven't even started questions.

[1587] I know.

[1588] I want to do one question because the format of synced is essentially the first half is this, what we just did, us chatting about hand me downs and Barbies and Allen and femininity and masculinity and fertility and everything.

[1589] We just chat about everything.

[1590] And then the second half, we read a couple.

[1591] questions from our listeners, our amazing listeners, and we give our two cents on them.

[1592] And we're going to do one question today, just so we can kind of show you guys what we're up to.

[1593] And if you want to submit, please go to the website, armchairexpertpod .com, and there'll be a link there where you can write in a question to us.

[1594] Okay.

[1595] I mean, this is, I guess, really on brand for what we just talked about.

[1596] So we'll do this one.

[1597] Great.

[1598] And these questions are so amazing and they really range.

[1599] We've had such an awesome array of really serious ones to kind of more fun ones.

[1600] So feel free to just send us anything.

[1601] Oh my God.

[1602] We're not edited in this.

[1603] No. God, I feel the ticking time.

[1604] You have to read.

[1605] Or I can keep singing our song, but probably.

[1606] Okay, ready?

[1607] I like, in parentheses, love question mark, the way I look in the mirror, but hate how I look in pictures.

[1608] Is that normal?

[1609] This is from Tori.

[1610] As a 28 -year -old, personal confidence in the way I look has always been a struggle.

[1611] It ranges from self -criticizing my weight, eyebrows, acne, etc. It's not that I don't think I'm good looking.

[1612] I do when I look in the mirror.

[1613] However, when I see pictures of myself, I'm often shocked and horrified on how I look.

[1614] Is the visual I see in the mirror that I like and appreciate that different than I look?

[1615] a picture?

[1616] What is more accurate in how the world views me?

[1617] This feels vain and self -absorbed to write, but it consumes me. I'm embarrassed when my mom or sister post a picture, which I perceive I look bad or chubby.

[1618] Is this normal?

[1619] How can I get over this?

[1620] Oh, my gosh.

[1621] Oh, my gosh.

[1622] It is.

[1623] It's so relatable.

[1624] It's so normal.

[1625] It's not vain.

[1626] It's what we're all thinking all the time.

[1627] We have to normalize some of these thoughts.

[1628] What do you think, Liz?

[1629] I think, it's Tori yes Tori thank you so much for putting into words a feeling that I legitimately feel like ruins people's lives yes for days on end because of a bad photo that they will then again assign value and meaning to and every like I think that learning how to take good photos of yourself and learning like what angles you like to sort of have for yourself is a huge again if you're into taking photos of yourself and that's something that you want to keep doing I think it's really important it's as important as figuring out what clothes look good on your body and feel good for your body right so two people could have totally different bodies and and you know be wearing sort of the same outfit but have a totally different feel in in those clothes.

[1630] And so I think that learning how to take photos that you feel good about could help and also remembering that almost everybody else is also looking at their body in that photo and thinking that they look, you know, not as good or not in the way that they think that they look.

[1631] The real you is in the mirror.

[1632] Yes.

[1633] 100%.

[1634] That's why like even supermodels who, you know, objectively have the body that we're told to aspire to, they take, you know, photos they take it's like blinking like they take hundreds of photos you know per like even hour after being put in makeup and doing all the things on top of it because yeah 99 % of the photos are going to be bad and then one of them is going to be the one that you see on the magazine so it's this like warped view that everyone else looks good in photos and you don't when it's like no no one looks good photos yeah that's really true and I think everyone feels this way and everyone has a bit of body dysmorphia.

[1635] I mean, this literally happened to me yesterday, where I saw a video of myself.

[1636] I was with the video.

[1637] Yeah, you're with me. Not yours.

[1638] Okay.

[1639] But I was staring.

[1640] I was like aghast.

[1641] Like, why do I look like that?

[1642] Like, I don't feel in my brain like I look like that.

[1643] And then when I see the video, I'm horrified.

[1644] So I totally get this.

[1645] And then, you know, you're left thinking, like, I hope I have body dysmorphia.

[1646] Like, I hope what I'm seeing is inaccurate because this doesn't look good.

[1647] And ultimately, you can sit with that for a second, I think, and be annoyed and eye roll.

[1648] That's what I do.

[1649] I recommend an eye roll.

[1650] But then you have to move on.

[1651] It's a picture.

[1652] It's a video.

[1653] It's not your life.

[1654] You're moving through the world in a way that you love yourself and you, you forget that in pictures, especially, your charisma is not coming through.

[1655] It's a still image.

[1656] And in life, it's you.

[1657] It's your full self.

[1658] And people love that and love you.

[1659] So just don't put so much stock in these pictures.

[1660] Yeah.

[1661] also can I say that I saw that video and I think the person who took it I love and we love her but I don't think it was shot in a way that captured you and that captured like it didn't actually look like you and I even when I was watching it I was like like this I would have shot it differently and again most people are not thinking about that when they take photos but but the way so much goes into a photo so much goes into a video and the way that it's you know shot can make a world of a difference and that has nothing to do with how you know that doesn't change your body overnight right right because of the someone shooting it in a way that you know distorts it um yeah and also that's life we don't have control over everyone who's going to take your picture and take your video and whatever and you it's it's fine like ultimately what are you going to do you got to kind of throw your hands up and say well i like myself that's going to have to be that yes And that's the most important part to like, right?

[1662] Like if it was the opposite, I'd be like, oh, that's tough.

[1663] But you love you and you're amazing and beautiful.

[1664] And wow, like that's the most important part.

[1665] Yeah.

[1666] All right.

[1667] Great.

[1668] So that's what we do.

[1669] That is synced.

[1670] Yeah, check us out.

[1671] We launched, as I said, yesterday on all platforms wherever you get your podcast.

[1672] And we are weekly.

[1673] So join us.

[1674] Can we?

[1675] Bye.

[1676] Follow Armchair Expert on the Wondry app, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[1677] You can listen to every episode of Armchair Expert early and ad free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

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