Today we visited a castle built in the 16th century, that was owned by Josephine Baker from 1947-1975. And those were the two least interesting things that happened. Sure, the castle was beautiful. Sure, it was cool to tour the renovated rooms where Josephine and her family lived, entertained and were generally fabulous. And, it was definitely cool to learn about how Josephine helped the French resistance during WWII, and spoke at the March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr. I mean, this is a badass lady.
BUT THEN THERE WAS A GOD DAMNED BIRD SHOW.
As in, they keep and breed birds of prey, owls and falcons and such, on the grounds of this castle, and they train the birds to fly around the trainer guy and catch stuff and generally be awesome and jaw-dropping for groups of elderly French and British tourists.
I am not sure how a 16th century chateau, Josephine Baker and TRAINED BIRDS OF PREY fit together, but they do. AND IT IS GOD DAMNED ASTOUNDING.
What’s funny is the lady immediately behind this bird was really scared of birds, and would jump up every time a bird got near her. Maybe skip the BIRD SHOW?
I thought that picture of Carcassonne at night was the raddest picture ever taken, but I was wrong. This is:
Big god damned owl, clearly photobombing Nic’s picture of the castle
AND THEN THIS.
Ok. So they have a lot of owls and birds of prey at this castle. They have snowy owls (many Harry Potter jokes were had, Linda, we took a picture for you), falcons, etc.
THEY ALSO HAVE A FUCKING BALD EAGLE.
THE BALD EAGLE CAN DO TRICKS.
IT FLIES BACK AND FORTH TO THE BIRD GUY.
I find this mind blowing. Apparently bald eagles aren’t endangered anymore, so perhaps America has become fairly lax about letting them out of the country. When I was a kid, we had bake sales to raise money to help the endangered bald eagles, for Christ’s sake. AND NOW, HERE IS ONE IN A BIRD SHOW AT A CASTLE IN FRANCE.
DEAR AMERICA, ARE YOU AWARE THAT THE FRENCH HAVE A BALD EAGLE. PLEASE RESPOND SOONEST.
Please excuse me while I go come to terms with the fact that not only can just anyone acquire a bald eagle, but they can also teach it to do tricks.
ALL of our eagles in Canada are trained this way. It’s a commonwealth thing. Just the Amercians who are late to the party.
Figures
okay so… i am a loyal follower of this blog and i think that the first picture of the owl is FAR better than the second picture. it’s GREAT. that lady is SO AFRAID. also, now can you imagine the boner a national geographic photographer gets when he gets the shot of the shark eating the seal in midair?
That is a kickass picture of the owl. I would like to see the eagle next. Thank you