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America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

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Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#191

Post by throwanem »

systemvoltage wrote: post #155
post_below wrote: post #128

As superpower mascots go, I think the eagle turned out to be pretty much perfect. Large, powerful, masters of their environment, noble from a distance. Up close, easily scared, shameless scavengers who love the opportunity to steal prey from other creatures. Note: No intention of starting a political conversation, as a resident of said superpower I just love the irony.

If your intent wasn’t to start a political flame war, what is the insight you’re providing here? Every animal needs to survive and will do anything to get by including scavenging. That’s nature. At this very moment, millions of things are getting eaten alive. Welcome to the brutality of Mother Nature. It’s not very charitable to say something deeply provocative and putting a note to defend. It only reflects your prej…

Ospreys only scavenge if it's that or starve. Bald eagles scavenge by preference and will harass or kill other raptors, frequently including ospreys, rather than do the difficult and dangerous work of taking prey themselves.

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#192

Post by throwanem »

kilroy123 wrote: post #143
post_below wrote: post #128

As superpower mascots go, I think the eagle turned out to be pretty much perfect. Large, powerful, masters of their environment, noble from a distance. Up close, easily scared, shameless scavengers who love the opportunity to steal prey from other creatures. Note: No intention of starting a political conversation, as a resident of said superpower I just love the irony.

I've seen one in the wild. Actually a beautiful animal.

I've seen many in the wild. There is no less visually interesting raptor on the planet, including vultures.

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#193

Post by throwanem »

lasc4r wrote: post #183
MarkSweep wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to reply that “it could be worse: Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird”. But some research says he did not say exactly that, rather he said “ the Turkey is in Comparison [to the bald eagle] a much more respectable Bird” https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/american-myths-b...

Eagles eat the dead cows on our farm. As I understand it from 1 minute of google searching Turkeys do not partake of dead flesh. Much more gentlemanly if you ask me.

Given the option, I suppose I'd rather have my flesh eaten after I die than before. But I respect vultures, which subsist entirely on carrion and are highly specialized to do so. Bald eagles are just too lazy to hunt unless they're forced to.

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#194

Post by throwanem »

WalterBright wrote: post #121

They are always circling over my yard, as they have a nest in the nearby greenbelt. The fun thing is there's a line through my property. The eagles' territory is west of the line, the hawks' is to the east. Sometimes they fight over the location of that line. The hawks are half the size of the eagles, but they don't take no ** from the eagles, and it's a fair fight. The hawks usually win the tussle and drive the eagl…

What kind of hawks, do you know?

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#195

Post by SllX »

mkl wrote: post #139
tomatotomato37 wrote: post #4

I find it amusing the article had to clarify the lower 48 states. In the majority of the United States bald eagles are a rare and majestic sight. In Alaska they are on par with seagulls.

Tangentially, why do Americans call their middle 48 states the "lower 48"? Alaska is north of them and Hawaii is south of them. Does "lower" mean "east" somehow? If lower meant south as on a map, the actual lower 48 would be everything except Alaska and Minnesota.

It’s a useful like-grouping term, which is why we still use it. Hawaii refers to it as the mainland and Alaska refers to it as the lower 48 because you can’t get from Alaska or Hawaii to the lower 48 without either crossing international waters by air or sea or going through another country overland.

It does come up when discussing shipping and transportation, but Alaska and Hawaii also each have a distinct enough culture and distinctly different set of challenges. Every State along the Colorado river is part of an interstate compact to manage water rights, but if Alaska has a dispute with British Columbia over some resource along their borders, that’s an international matter that pulls in the Department of State and Canada’s, Foreign Office? I know some of the British offices but I’m actually not familiar with Canada’s government agency nomenclature.

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#196

Post by NDizzle »

Ancapistani wrote: post #182
NDizzle wrote: post #14

I just moved back to Arkansas after being in California for 20 years. Here's a picture a local took along AR highway 59. 7 bald eagles hanging out. https://scontent-dfw5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/155912289_4304... I have some good shots of one eating breakfast behind my house as well. Kind of gory though.

Hello, neighbor :) I’m a couple of hours east of you, but it’s rare to see other Arkansans on HN.

Hi, thanks. Glad to see you on here as well. I grew up a couple hours east of where I am now. Berryville.

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#197

Post by longshui »

fermienrico wrote: post #161
post_below wrote: post #128

As superpower mascots go, I think the eagle turned out to be pretty much perfect. Large, powerful, masters of their environment, noble from a distance. Up close, easily scared, shameless scavengers who love the opportunity to steal prey from other creatures. Note: No intention of starting a political conversation, as a resident of said superpower I just love the irony.

As superpower mascots go, I think the eagle turned out to be pretty much perfect. Large, powerful, masters of their environment, noble from a distance. Up close, intelligent, optimally utilizing resources through scavenging, leaving nothing to waste and who love the opportunity to provide to their young ones and benefit other creatures through symbiosis. One can spin it whatever which way.

in my opinion, intelligence is good or is not intelligence, its stupidity

but even letting this opinion aside, crows, magpies, and parrots can run loops around their "intelligence"

one can spin it in any way, but some ways are more shameless then others

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#199

Post by slymon99 »

mkl wrote: post #139
tomatotomato37 wrote: post #4

I find it amusing the article had to clarify the lower 48 states. In the majority of the United States bald eagles are a rare and majestic sight. In Alaska they are on par with seagulls.

Tangentially, why do Americans call their middle 48 states the "lower 48"? Alaska is north of them and Hawaii is south of them. Does "lower" mean "east" somehow? If lower meant south as on a map, the actual lower 48 would be everything except Alaska and Minnesota.

The technical term is "contiguous united states"

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#200

Post by dragonwriter »

mkl wrote: post #139
tomatotomato37 wrote: post #4

I find it amusing the article had to clarify the lower 48 states. In the majority of the United States bald eagles are a rare and majestic sight. In Alaska they are on par with seagulls.

Tangentially, why do Americans call their middle 48 states the "lower 48"? Alaska is north of them and Hawaii is south of them. Does "lower" mean "east" somehow? If lower meant south as on a map, the actual lower 48 would be everything except Alaska and Minnesota.

> Tangentially, why do Americans call their middle 48 states the "lower 48"?

Because for a while it was accurate, and the usage stuck even after it changed (Alaska was admitted before Hawai’i.)

A similar reason a large swath of the north-central part of the continental US is called the Midwest. (In Census uses, where the smaller divisions have more modern/accurate names, this is ironic because the Midwest region consists of the West North Central and East North Central divisions.)

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