Bird of prey swoops to snatch duck and carries it in talons before catch escapes
The beady eyed harrier spotted the duck minding its own business before swooping in and snatching it in its talons. The bird carried its would-be dinner in for several metres before the duck made a break for freedom



This is the awe-inspiring moment a bird of prey who fancied duck for its dinner made a bold attempt to catch a super-size meal.

These images, which you could call quackers, show the western marsh harrier as it swooped down to snatch the unsuspecting duck.

Gripping it firmly in its gnarly talons, the beady-eyed raptor carried the aquatic bird in its claws over wetlands.

Vishesh Kamboj caught the dramatic scenes on camera in Keshopur Wetland, north India.

He managed to get a series of powerful images.

Vishesh said the huge harrier managed to carry the duck across the vegetation before the creature squirmed free.

The 38-year-old, who is a court judge, said: "It left me stunned and surprised.

"I had never seen this raptor going for such a big prey in the past. Nature is full of abundance and always leaves us speechless but, at the same time, craving for more."



According to Vishesh, the disorientated duck scurried back to the pond after it wriggled out of the bird's claws.

The harrier was left reeling and forced to look for its next meal elsewhere.

Vishesh continued: "To my utter surprise, the harrier had an alive duck hanging from one of its talons.

"It managed to pull the duck up in the air for some metres but later on, due to sheer weight of the duck and gravity doing its job.



"The duck slipped from the talon and fell back into the vegetation.

"On finding its catch had slipped away, the western marsh harrier flew away from the spot."

The western marsh harrier is a particularly large variety of the species.

A bird of prey from temperate and subtropical western Eurasia and adjacent Africa, it is also known as the Eurasian marsh harrier.

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world- ... k-23247964

[hija]

Why not try learning a new language?



Of course, learning a new language is no quick feat. Luckily, the payoff of a single lesson can provide instant gratification. Researchers from Germany and Spain had 36 participants read two sentences containing the same foreign word: “Every Sunday the grandmother went to the jedin” and “The man was buried in the jedin.” When asked what jedin means, the folks who correctly guessed “graveyard” showed reactions in the same pleasure-sensing parts of the brain you’d expect from food, sex, gambling, and other satisfying stimuli. (Though when it comes to words, over­indulgence is encouraged.)

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Welcome to The mobi weekly news magazine
IN OTHER NEWS
WEDNESDAY JANUARY 6
What is it?
Here is your chance to become an "ACE REPORTER" for our weekly news magazine.
It is your job to fine weird, funny or "good feel" stories from around the world and share them with our readers in our weekly magazine

How do you play?
Just post a story that you have come across that made you smile, laugh, feel good...
BUT NOTHING DEPRESSING

EXAMPLE POST

​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
Heads are seen turning in surprise and amusement in the hilarious photographs.
The incident happened at Teufelssee Lake - a bathing spot in the Grunwell Forest in Berlin, Germany.

Rules:
Each Edition of IN OTHER NEWS will be open for 7 days...
You may post One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can enter only once a day
Each news day will start when I post announcing it
OR at:
9:00 AM CHICAGO TIME (UTC -6)
3:00 PM GMT (UTC -0)
on those days I space out and forget to post or can't due to Real Life
Stories may be accompanied with images - but No big images, please! 800x800 pixels wide maximum
Videos are allowed, but please keep them to under a minute, and post a short summary for those that don't like to click on videos
No Duplicate stories - Where a post has been edited resulting in duplicates, then the last one in time gets disallowed.
And please limit this to reasonably family friendly stories

Reward:
Each news story posted that I feel is acceptable (must be a real story, too few words or simply a headline are not considered acceptable) will earn you 50 WRZ$
If you post multiple stories on any given day, you will only earn 50 WRZ$ for the first story of the Day
Special Bonus - Each week I will award "The Pulitzer Prize" for the best story of the week
The weekly winner of the "The Pulitzer Prize" will receive a 100 WRZ$ bonus
It's just my personal opinion, so my judgement is final

So help bring GOOD news to the members of mobi, and join our reporting team...

IN OTHER NEWS

Naked fugitive rescued from tree by fishermen
The man was covered in mud, cuts and insect bites - and said he had lived off snails for four days.



Two fishermen have rescued a naked fugitive who they found sitting on a tree branch in Australian crocodile habitat.

Kev Joiner and Cam Fraust, both recreational fishers, found the 40-year-old in East Point, close to the city of Darwin on Sunday.

The friends said they heard Luke Voskresensky shout out for help as they were setting crab traps from their dinghy in the swamp.

They said Voskresensky - who was covered in mud, cuts and insect bites - begged them for a drink of clean water, and said that he had been living off snails for four days.

Mr Fraust said he had been using his clothes "for bits and pieces over the way".

"It didn't make sense to us. He had a nest made up in the tree, and he was only laying a metre above the water and there were crocs in the water so he has done well to survive."

Mr Joiner said the pair were initially unsure about bringing Voskresensky on board with them.

He said: "Once we'd seen how bad he was and how many cuts he had all over him and he was dehydrated and pretty weak... we thought we'd better get him in the boat.



"We thought he just must have had a big night after new year's and got lost and done himself a mischief in the bush…"

Mr Faust said he gave Voskresensky his shorts and a beer as the trio went back to Darwin.

He said: "He looked like he needed a beer, although he was in a bad way."

There was an ambulance crew waiting by a boat ramp upon their arrival.

Voskresensky was taken to a hospital in Darwin, where he was placed under police guard as he was treated.

Police said he had been on bail after being charged with armed robbery, multiple aggravated assaults, deprivation of liberty and stealing.

He had removed his electronic monitoring device last week to evade police.

Voskresensky's hospital admission meant that he was pardoned from attending court to face new charges of breaching bail and aggravated assault, court official Xavier La Canna said.

His next court date is 9 February.

Mr Faust said he decided against visiting Voskresensky in hospital after finding out he was wanted by police.

https://news.sky.com/story/naked-fugiti ... n-12180515

[Fatima99]

This Lizard Has His Own Cookbook For Humans and it’s Utterly Adorable



Lenny, a one-year-old central bearded dragon, can be seen with tiny pots of soup, miniature biscuits, and dinky cheeses in his debut book ‘Chef Lenny: Cooking for Humans.’

The cookbook was the brainchild of Lenny’s owner Valerie Musser, a chef and lizard lover from Redmond in Washington state.

“It was my quarantine project,” said Valerie, a mom-of-three who ran a small catering business before the pandemic hit.

“I’d been writing a cookbook for about 10 years but never really had the time to sit down and sort through it.”

With quarantine, Valerie suddenly found herself with the surplus of time she’d be looking for. Before long, she’d bought Lenny the lizard a little chef’s hat from Etsy. “He actually loves wearing hats and posing for photos,” she said, “so I started making miniature food for him to show off with.”

All the miniature food in the book is real and the dishes are Valerie’s favorite comfort foods that she serves to her family, with chicken pot pie, blueberry muffins, and home-cooked tacos all featuring.

“Initially I posted a few pictures of Lenny cooking on Instagram and the feedback was so positive, people were writing things like, ‘this made my day’ and ‘this really cheered me up,’” Valerie explained, “so I realized that people actually needed this.”

Valerie said that Lenny has the perfect personality to be a chef. “He is very pretentious,” she joked. “His body language is kind of crazy, he wants what he wants, he’s very demanding and he’s kind of a snob about food, very fussy, so this project fits him very well.”

In fact, Lenny won’t even eat from a dish but prefers to be hand-fed.

Lizards are very expressive creatures, Valerie explains. They can dream and have nightmares and they use their body language to convey their feelings. They’ll change their coloring if they are angry or cold, “and if the tips of their scales go orange it means they are super happy.”

The 134-page cookbook is available on Etsy and Amazon with the option of bespoke dietary alterations on request.

Man hilariously bewilders his cat with incredibly realistic socks that look like paws



A man, known only as Mr Majed, has gone viral on social media and it's all thanks to a hilarious pair of socks he wore.

His daughter, Huda, shared photos of her dad wearing socks that look just like animal paws and their family's cat, Omei, was very confused about them.

Huda, 18, posted the snaps on Twitter, where they went viral, garnering over 400,000 likes and more than 91,000 retweets.

The socks look so realistic that Omei clearly doesn't know what to make of them and the expression of pure bewilderment on the cat's face has had people cracking up.



Responding to the tweet, one person wrote: "This is horrible, I want ten."

Another said: "I literally laugh so hard on this."

Shopee, the company that sells the socks, also replied to the tweet, calling Mr Majed "A man with impeccable taste".

Although Huda admits she was initially a little embarrassed by her dad's sock purchase, she knows it’s just her parent being true to himself.

Speaking to Jam Press, she said: "My dad bought the socks from Shopee.

"He discovered the app and started shopping for weird, random things ever since Covid-19 began.

"I can’t believe he is dead*** serious about buying and wearing the cat socks."

But it turns out this isn't the only amusing feline-themed item in the family home as Mr Majed has also bought other fun products in honour of his two cats, Bobo and Omei.

Huda explained: "My dad loves cats a lot. He even has cat patches embroidered on his jean pockets and cat stickers all over his toilet bowl.

"He’s just very goofy and dorky as a person and happened to came across funny socks (boomer things)."

To keep himself entertained during the pandemic, like many others, Mr Majed has also ordered a number of other unusual items - including a treasure chest that he’s using as a coffee table and “silly” wallpaper to go on doors.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-new ... y-23263558

[BigGlen]

This orgy got him into trouble!!!



We all needed cheering up after a tough year, so thanks to Hungarian MEP József Szájer who, along with more than 20 acquaintances, was caught pants-down at a lockdown-busting sex party in the center of Brussels in December. Breaking the lockdown is bad enough but when you’re a far-right politician with a history of cracking down on LGBTQI rights and are caught at a gay orgy, the irony-meter goes through the roof.

Clearly realizing what the consequences were going to be when the police came knocking, Szájer climbed out of the window still with his pants down and shimmied down a drainpipe. In his backpack were, according to Belgian prosecutors, “narcotics.” He was dropped by his party, Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz, faster than you can say “rule-of-law violation.”

[PennySerenade]

Be kind, please rewind: One Toronto tavern is offering VHS rental service



TORONTO -- If 2020 was the kind of year that left you pining for simpler times, an east-end Toronto tavern is serving up movie classics along with its selection of craft beers.

In an effort to survive lockdown legislation, Farside Bar has turned into a video rental store. That’s not a typo.

The bar has created a membership-based, VHS rental service—the type of thing that went out of fashion more than a decade ago.

There’s a little bit of healthy desperation,” explained Mike Reynolds, self-confessed videophile and co-owner of Farside Bar. “It’s been rough for restaurateurs this year, but I had 5,000 tapes sitting in the back room, so why not? It’s a resource I already had.



Prior to the pandemic, Farside regularly played host to movie night watch-alongs, so the transition was natural thematically. The antiquated technology presented Reynolds with a few problems, but he was able to source surplus VCR‘a from thrift stores, along with HDMI adaptors to enable the machines, many of which were manufactured in the 80’s and 90’s, to operate on today’s HDTV’s.

“Look at music, once it became streamable everyone started buying records again. We don’t have the relationship we used to with the media we’re consuming. It’s nice to turn on the TV, not be connected to the internet and reconnect with some old movies. There’s a comfort in that. We need that right now.”



Reynolds points out he has a lot of titles that aren’t available on streaming services due to licensing issues or simply because they’re older and obscure. A surprise hit has been mix tapes, recordings people took directly from their televisions, complete with commercials from the 80’s.

“It’s just the aesthetic of it, the feel. You have to physically put in the tape, play with the tracking. There’s a real kitsch factor,” he said.

“It harkens back to the Blockbuster Video days and seeing tapes on the shelf. I find there’s too many streaming services now. Say I want to watch a movie, I have to Google if it’s available in Canada, and on what streaming service. It takes half an hour and in that amount of time you could come down here, grab a few beers and a VCR with the movie.”

[Fivetide]

Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch sold to billionaire for $22 million



Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch in California has found a new owner in billionaire businessman Ron Burkle. Burkle views the 2,700-acre property in Los Olivos, near Santa Barbara, as a land banking opportunity, his spokesman said Thursday in an email.

The Wall Street Journal reports the property was sold for $22 million to Burkle, an associate of the late pop star and co-founder of the investment firm Yucaipa Companies.

The asking price of the property was $100 million in 2016 then dropped to $67 million a year later.

In addition to a 12,500 square-foot main residence and a 3,700 square-foot pool house, the property boasts a separate building with a 50-seat movie theater and a dance studio.

Other features on the ranch are a "Disney-style" train station, a fire house and barn.

Burkle's spokesman said the billionaire had been eyeing Zaca Lake — which adjoins the property — for a new Soho House, a members-only club with locations in Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Toronto. Burkle ultimately decided the location was too remote and expensive for a club.

Burkle is the controlling shareholder of Soho House.

After Burkle saw the property from the air, he put in an offer to purchase.

See video for an aerial view of the extensive property grounds here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRj_pYKzcc0&feature=emb_title

[hija]

‘Gamechanging’: supermarkets help inspire record number to embrace Veganuary



A record half a million people have signed up to the 31-day Veganuary challenge so far this year, as supermarkets realise the economic potential of plant-based diets

A decade ago, it was slim pickings for vegans in UK supermarkets, which offered little in the way of plant-based meals – Linda McCartney was about as good as it got.

Fast forward 10 years and the vegan diet is not only booming in popularity, but being driven partly by supermarkets. According to Veganuary, a campaign to get people to embrace veganism in January, the UK’s grocery giants have helped inspire a record 500,000 people to make the pledge this year. New vegan products and dedicated Veganuary pages on supermarket websites, it says, have helped enlist new recruits.

“The way British supermarkets have embraced Veganuary this year is truly gamechanging,” said Veganuary’s Toni Vernelli. “They are not simply using it as a marketing opportunity, but are promoting the many benefits of plant-based eating and encouraging people to give it a try. As bastions of our food supply, they know that the only sustainable way forward is plant-focused.”

With the UK market for vegan food products predicted to swell to £658m this year, there is of course a financial incentive for supermarkets to jump on the (meat-free) gravy train and offer more plant-based foodstuffs. Enter Asda, which announced this week that it will trial a vegan butcher counter at its Watford store.

Further evidence that plant-based diets have broken into the mainstream is also provided by Deliveroo, which reported this week that orders for vegan takeaways have surged by 163 per cent so far this year.

As well as being a boon for bottom lines, veganism is also beneficial to the environment. A 2019 study by the University of Oxford concluded that adopting a plant-based diet could be the single biggest way for people to improve their health and that of the planet.

[johngriffen]

I sometimes get REALLY DEPRESSED reviewing the news these days.
It's always about a global pandemic threatening life as we know it,
protests around the world, stupid politicians, natural disasters,
or some other really bad story.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

Welcome to The mobi weekly news magazine
IN OTHER NEWS
THURSDAY JANUARY 7
What is it?
Here is your chance to become an "ACE REPORTER" for our weekly news magazine.
It is your job to fine weird, funny or "good feel" stories from around the world and share them with our readers in our weekly magazine

How do you play?
Just post a story that you have come across that made you smile, laugh, feel good...
BUT NOTHING DEPRESSING

EXAMPLE POST

​Naked sunbather chases wild boar through park after it steals his laptop bag

A naked sunbather was seen chasing wild boar through a park after it stole his laptop bag.
Amusing photographs from Germany show the man running after the animal to try and claim the plastic bag back.
But the cheeky boar and its two piglets appear to be too quick for the sunbather, who can't keep up with their speedy little trotters.
As the incident unfolds, groups of friends and family sat on the grass watch on and laugh.
Heads are seen turning in surprise and amusement in the hilarious photographs.
The incident happened at Teufelssee Lake - a bathing spot in the Grunwell Forest in Berlin, Germany.

Rules:
Each Edition of IN OTHER NEWS will be open for 7 days...
You may post One Story in any 24 hour period
So in other words, you can enter only once a day
Each news day will start when I post announcing it
OR at:
9:00 AM CHICAGO TIME (UTC -6)
3:00 PM GMT (UTC -0)
on those days I space out and forget to post or can't due to Real Life
Stories may be accompanied with images - but No big images, please! 800x800 pixels wide maximum
Videos are allowed, but please keep them to under a minute, and post a short summary for those that don't like to click on videos
No Duplicate stories - Where a post has been edited resulting in duplicates, then the last one in time gets disallowed.
And please limit this to reasonably family friendly stories

Reward:
Each news story posted that I feel is acceptable (must be a real story, too few words or simply a headline are not considered acceptable) will earn you 50 WRZ$
If you post multiple stories on any given day, you will only earn 50 WRZ$ for the first story of the Day
Special Bonus - Each week I will award "The Pulitzer Prize" for the best story of the week
The weekly winner of the "The Pulitzer Prize" will receive a 100 WRZ$ bonus
It's just my personal opinion, so my judgement is final

So help bring GOOD news to the members of mobi, and join our reporting team...

IN OTHER NEWS

[BigGlen]

Police find reported 'severed foot' was mannequin part

Jan. 6 (UPI) -- A Canadian police officer investigating a witness' report of a severed foot at the side of a road made a considerably less alarming discovery -- a discarded mannequin foot.

The Delta Police Department in British Columbia said an officer on foot in Ladner was stopped by a passing driver.

"The driver appears quite distraught and states that there is a severed foot roadside by the pump house," the department said in a Facebook post.



The post said the officer went to the location and discovered the object was "luckily" not a human body part, but rather "the foot of a mannequin."

"If you happen upon a mannequin with a missing left foot, let them know that it can be found at the Delta Police Department," the post said.

Nova Scotia kite-surfer finds message in a bottle with diamond ring

A Nova Scotia man who went on the hunt for some lost kite-surfing equipment made an unexpected discovery -- a message in a bottle accompanied by a diamond ring.

Sebastien Allain said he was using some borrowed equipment when he went kite-surfing in Nova Scotia's Chezzetcook Bay and a strong gust of wind came along to ruin the experience.

"And there's a strong gust that came and just flicked the kite into the water, and the wind was offshore, so it drove the kite out to sea," Allain told CTV News.

Allain said he researched tides and winds and determined the kite may have ended up on one of several small islands nearby. He said he found the lost kite after about four hours of swimming and searching, and while on his way back to shore he found a bottle floating in the water.

He uncorked the bottle once he arrived home and found it discovered a three-page note and a small diamond ring.



"It's just crazy that I found the bottle and there was a diamond ring inside, and the funniest thing of all, is that I just proposed to my fiancee the week before," Allain said.

The note was authored by a man in his 70s who revealed he had been launching messages in bottles for about 30 years. The man wrote that the enclosed ring had belonged to his mother, who died in 2018.

Allain and his partner paid a visit to the man's home to bring him gifts and talk about his bottled messages.

"We brought him a little box of chocolates and stuff," Allain said.

The man told him a few of his bottles have been found over the years, including one that was discovered by a teacher and led to his receiving multiple Christmas cards from students.

Trina Davis Williams of Hamilton Parish, Bermuda, recently discovered a message in a bottle while walking on a local beach with her kids, daughter K'ah, 7, and son Kazai, 4. The message turned out to be from Orlando A. Thompson, an engineer who launched the bottle during his final voyage on National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration boat Albatross IV.

https://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2021/01/06 ... 609966555/

[Fatima99]

Colorblind 22-year-old sees color for the 1st time after putting on special glasses

An endearing viral video shows Mac Erves exclaiming as he looks at everyday objects in full color.



As a colorblind man, McKinley "Mac" Erves had never known exactly what he was missing. But his friends showed him a whole new world on Monday afternoon when they gifted him special colorblindness glasses for his 22nd birthday.

His genuine and endearing reaction to the glasses, which he says changed his life, immediately went viral online.

“I was at a loss for words,” Erves told TODAY. “For them to actually go out of their way and remember and do something for me like that when I never expressed how badly I wanted the glasses, it made me feel really good.”

As of Tuesday night, his video on Twitter had more than 150,000 likes and dozens of positive responses.

"The fact that I hardly ever mentioned my want for colorblind glasses and my friends literally went out of their way to get me a pair for my birthday just tells me how much they love my a-- and I couldn’t have asked for better people to call my brothers!!!" Erves wrote in his post.

Erves discovered he is colorblind in middle school when he took a color blindness test. It never bothered him before, he said, because he didn’t know what he was missing.

“This is probably one of the best gifts I’ve ever received in my life,” he said. “It is life-altering.”

Monster shark measuring almost eight metres washes up on Maine shore

A HUGE shark washed up on the shores of Maine, New England, with the beast measuring a monstrous 26 ft in length - and pictures of the terrifying beast have emerged.



Fishermen in the Greenland Cove in Maine were stunned to find the corpse of a huge shark on the shores. The shark in question is a basking shark - the second biggest of all its relatives. And this one in particular is a monster at 26ft - or almost eight metres long.
That makes it more than four times the length of the average human male.

Images of the spectacular animal show that it has slight decay, but otherwise it is still in all its glory.

Several people took to social media to speculate on what the shark was doing - although few in the Twittersphere were taking the animals death seriously.

One person wrote: "Was it Covid-19?"



Another person said: "I’d say it’s basking in the sun."

A third added: "No basking on the Maine beaches per Governor Janet Mills ... beach basking can increase risk of Covid."

The Maine Department of Marine Resources collected samples from the animal to determine how it died.

Samples will also be used to determine its diet, age and genetic analysis.


Basking sharks can grow to a staggering 40ft (12 metres) making it the second biggest fish in the ocean

https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/ ... es-wwf-evg