On the eagle-like reflexes of eagles
Dec. 1st, 2005 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xiphiasSo, 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. . .
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. . .