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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Animals The Song of the Eagles

Posted by Charles Mudede on Wed, Mar 3, 2010 at 8:34 AM

Unending are the pleasures of reading Kimberly A.C. Wilson, a reporter at The Oregonian, the best daily in the Pacific Northwest:

Have you noticed the flurry of news headlines in the last week about bald eagles in crisis? First, there was the eagle that crashed into a home in North Portland on Thursday. Then Sunday night there was an epic battle between two squabbling eagles in a Lake Oswego tree, leaving one badly injured. And now this, from Seattle's KOMO-TV station, about a frantic eagle, which got a talon tangled in a rope secured to a dock on Pine Lake in Sammamish, east of Seattle.

How can you beat that: "an epic battle between two squabbling eagles"?

Wilson saves the best writing for the end:

Brown, a raptor bird specialist, whistled what he calls "an eagle song," and apparently the big bird found comfort in that, if not a bit confused by the sounds. Brown ever so gently draped a blanket over the eagle's head.

Comfort and confusion—the difference between the two conditions is seen as not at all great. Wilson used to write for the PI, which was once the best daily in the region.

Comments (5) RSS

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I am thusly inspired:
http://www.symbolman.com/corpabuse.html

Posted by Joe M on March 3, 2010 at 8:52 AM

It was my understanding that the Bald Eagle had rebounded.

Posted by The Amazing Jim

on March 3, 2010 at 10:05 AM

@2, that's why you're seeing these stories. These few eagles are in distress, and are visible to us, because their populations are exploding, and they're everywhere all of a sudden (not really, but people are slow to notice). Urban eagles aren't that unusual anymore.

Posted by Fnarf

on March 3, 2010 at 10:23 AM

Not for nothing is newspaper known widely by its nickname, "The Boregonian".

Posted by Edmund Burke on March 3, 2010 at 11:34 AM

Was on my way to work one day recently, going through South Park, when I saw a bunch of birds swooping down to some smashed food item in the middle of the road. There were the usual suspects, pigeons, crows, seagulls... and one gigantic eagle (well, he SEEMED gigantic, in that company).

It was way cool, this big national symbol winging down with the rest of the crew, for road snackies. He had everybody on the bus craning their necks. (Ha! See what I did there??)

Posted by merry on March 3, 2010 at 12:06 PM