On the eagle-like reflexes of eagles

[xiphias]

So, as most of you know, Theresa and Patrick Nielsen-Hayden have a blog, http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/

TNH linked to Cutting down The Great Tree of Avalon, where someone found an excerpt of an unbearably bad fantasy novel, and decided to comment on it, line-by-line.

Funny stuff, of course. But as we were reading, a couple bad guys were apparently attempting to kidnap an eagle-boy, and we got to the line:
But not before the boy awoke. With eagle-fast reflexes,
to which the commentator snarked, "Oh yes. Eagles are known around the world around for their reflexes."

I laughed at that, and told Lis that I knew all about eagle reflexes. My friend Charles had told me about them.

I haven't seen Charles Sheehan since high school, really -- I ran into him once on the street a couple years after that, but I don't think I've seen hide nor hair of him for probably nearly ten years. But I'll tell you this story of him, nonetheless:

So, one year, Charles Sheehan got a chance to go to Alaska and study eagles. It was a program for gifted high school students, in which they would be given the chance to do actual field research, in the actual field. They were given notebooks, pencils, and some training, and allowed to watch Alaskan bald eagles in their natural habitat.

Now, Chuck came back from Alaska with a number of stories -- how few good movie theaters there were in Juno, why it was a very bad idea to have a can of bear-mace blow up in your backpack when your whole party is hiking in close proximity, why it's rather frustrating to discover that the entire contents of the jump-kit that you're trying to use to help people who've been maced consists of a very large number of condoms, the bar brawl, laundry, and so forth.

But one of his stories actually involved the eagles that they were there to observe.

Charles told us that they were told, in their initial orientation, that bald eagles spent a great deal of time "conserving energy." And his observations confirmed this: page after page of "Eagle conserves energy. Still conserving energy. Yup. More energy conserved."

Somehow, it wasn't until he actually spent hours watching eagles that he realized what "Conserving Energy" means -- it means doing absolutely nothing.

He had notes in his field notebook: "10:56 AM -- EAGLE BLINKED! I SWEAR, I THINK I SAW HIM BLINK! AND HE THEN TURNED HIS HEAD!"

That would be a momentous occasion, you see.

But he did say that he did once see something exciting. He saw two eagles fight.

It was the most amazing day he'd seen. First, he saw an eagle catch a fish. Okay, fine. He saw ANOTHER bird catch a fish, and the eagle come over and steal it.

Then a second eagle saw that the first eagle had a fish.

So, there is a fish on the beach. And an eagle has it. And the second eagle comes over. And the two eagles run at each other, and jump into the air, and lock talons.

And, with talons locked, thud onto the sand.

And sit there, with locked talons, conserving energy.

The tide begins to come in.

After about five minutes, a wave comes, and washes the fish over which they are fighting back out to sea.

The eagles continue to conserve energy with locked talons.

The tide continues to come in.

A wave breaks over the eagles.

The eagles are gone.

Training his binoculars out to sea, he sees two particularly pathetic and bedraggled bald eagles swimming back to shore, using their wings in a sort of Australian crawl.Charles realizes that the United States would have been quite a bit better off if Ben Franklin had won that debate about the national bird. . .

Comments

[beardedone.livejournal.com]

What did Ben suggest the national bird to be? The dodo?

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Nope. The wild turkey. (Which, honestly, really /is/ pretty smart. It just /looks/ dumb.)

[brooksmoses]

The wild turkey. Which, in marked contrast to the white spherical farm-raised sort, is in fact a quite intelligent bird.

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

We have a number of wild turkeys living in the woods behind our house. They are very intelligent most of the time. During mating season, though, the males get a little crazy and confused. Had to send one away once who was trying to court me. Told him I was already married, and he should go find a nice, single turkey lady.

[amberdine.livejournal.com]

Wonderful! Both the eagle story and the original link. Dumb eagles. :)

Giggle.

[noveldevice.livejournal.com]

This made me laugh until I cried. Ovid, despite this set of poems being called the Tristia, is just boring me to tears.

[hangedwoman.livejournal.com]

*cough* "Juneau", please. It's a state capital, so I think it's fair to bitch.

Besides that, yeah, that's fair. Except that eagle cries are actually much prettier than the red-tailed hawk cries that are usually dubbed in whenever an eagle is shown in a movie or TV show.

[felis-sidus.livejournal.com]

Would you happen to know of a link to a recording of a genuine eagle cry? You've got me curious...

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

Didn't know this about eagle cries and red-tailed hawk cries - interesting. What does an eagle sound like?

[goljerp]

Very funny! The "conserving energy" part reminds me of a bird that Joy and I found in Central Park. Joy wanted to know what it was; I opined it might be a kingfisher, based on pure guesswork. That was enough for me, but Joy wasn't content. Some clever research turned up the Black-crowned night-heron as the bird we actually saw. The black-crowned night-heron's characteristic behavior is to crouch motionless. And, in fact, that's what it's mainly been doing when we've observed it. "Oh look," we say to each other, "There's a black-crowned night-heron engaging in its characteristic behavior!"

I'm glad we didn't have to go to Alaska to watch a bird doing nothing.

[i-ate-my-crusts.livejournal.com]

You've reminded me of the "barely aloft parrot" we discovered in Tasmania, which spent most of it's time lounging on the ground, and when you startled it, managed to only get about 2ft in the air, and land with a thump several metres away. Looked like gravity and this species of bird had come to some kind of arrangement.

We looked it up when we got home...

Never before has the phrase "Ground Parrot" seemed so appropriate.

Kakapo

[goljerp]

Douglas Adams, in Last Chance To See, has a hilarious description of the Kakapo, a flightless parrot which live(s/d) in New Zealand. One part, which I'm not doing justice to, is about how the Kakapo not only has lost the ability to fly, it has forgotten that it has lost the ability to fly.

Re: Kakapo

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Lives.

There are some left, but not many. (As in, a few hundred.) The world's only nocturnal parrot.

No, they can't fly. And from their slightly-stoned-looking behaviour I wouldn't be surprised to find that they'd forgotten.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

That's a very funny story, but, to be fair to the eagles, it doesn't have much to do with their reflexes. Reflexes are, by definition, automatic responses or reactions, and therefore must be precipitated by something happening. The eagles who were "conserving energy" didn't have anything to react to. The only case in the story where the eagles failed to react was when the waves washed over them, which I suspect was because they had somehow managed to stun each other.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Well, nothing in the story implies that "eagle-like reflexes" are particularly more impressive than "walrus-like reflexes".

And, frankly, the eagles had something like ten minutes to notice the waves. That's ten minutes according to a field journal, and a watch. Not one of our national bird's most impressive days.

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

Good points.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I've linked to this in my lj.

[rebmommy.livejournal.com]

funny, funny, funny - I needed a good laugh, right out loud. I am very, very tired and still need to get to the post office. Keep me laughing, ok?

is that like a parable or something?

[bellatrys.livejournal.com]

of the Great War, or the Cold War, maybe?

It reminds me of the stories of stags, since stags are often invoked by "natural law" chauvinists. Often two stags will get so caught up in their duel, that they never notice "their" doe going off with another buck, probably from the chess club. And others have taken the "survival of the fittest" to darwin Award levels, when skulls of stags who have gotten terminally gridlocked are discovered.

But hey, machismo rules!

[cheshyre]

You know, the expression "bird brain" wasn't invented in isolation...

BTW, if you do make spelling corrections, it's Teresa (no H) and no hyphen in their last names.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, man. That is some horrible writing there. And this is PUBLISHED fiction! What gives? EW EW EW!!

[jhitchin.livejournal.com]

Oops. Hadn't logged in there. Sorry.

Not that wild turkies are that much smarter

[(Anonymous)]

Do you want the photos I took of the turky trying to romance himself in the relection off the windows in the family room, the window in the back door, the window in the cellar door...?
Dad

[(Anonymous)]

I was in Mountain Alaty (Russia) archeological expedition in 80's and have seen a lot of eagls there. Don't know if it was mating season or something, but whenever two eagls were close they fight. In the air, like WWI dogfighting airplains, flying in slow circles and attacking each other from above or below. They were quite careful about humans - if eagle was sitting on the phone line pole (which they were doing a lot) and human was approaching nearest other pole the eagle would fly to the next pole, and after that to the next and so on. Once while I was climbing some hill a huge eagle scrambled just from under my feets with loud noise. I don't know who was more scared - me or eagle.