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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

#211

Post by z2 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #177
codemac wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except nations are a completely made up concept by groups of humans, rather than a deep survival drive of the individual when pushed into a life or death scenario.

> Except nations are a completely made up concept by groups of humans Every division of the universe into distinct constituents is a completely made up concept by groups of humans, including “humans” and “groups” thereof.

And what are individual humans but groups of cells trying to stave off entropy and survive just a bit longer?

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#212

Post by everly »

dcanelhas wrote: post #168
umvi wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the title is just using a plain old pun... "double entendre" usually implies there is a way to sexually interpret the phrase

Oh, I didn't know that! I thought the expression simply meant double understanding/meaning.

Huh, I also thought that and was surprised to learn this.

I'm curious how many people assume the same, as it seems to have become descriptively defined as any wordplay based on a dual-meaning.

Typically, I'm a fan of nuanced definitions because it makes language more useful but, in this case, I'll probably keep using it the same way because I don't feel that the sexual requirement adds much value.

'Pun' probably works in most cases but not all puns are double-meaning and puns also have a cornier/less clever connotation IME.

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#213

Post by fsckboy »

gcheong wrote: post #120
bliteben wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I go birding in a spot near Astoria, Oregon and have counted over 70 individual bald eagles from one spot, some trees will have 20 alone perched in them.

Grew up in Astoria (70’s - mid 80’s) and never saw that many at once. Would be interested to know where your spot is :). Although I’ve never seen them I’ve seen pictures of Snowy Owls at the South Jetty. https://www.jack-n-jill.net/blog/2012/12/south-jetty-snowy-o...

hate to get this discussion back on topic, but the headline for this article is "population soars": you're talking about 40 to 50 years ago!

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#214

Post by dragonwriter »

senkora wrote: post #147
mkl wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My first thought was that the term could’ve predated Hawaii becoming a state, which only happened in 1959. But that seems to be false; the term only started getting popular around 1967: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Lower+48&year_...

It's an informal term, and your looking at ngrams from books, which tend to favor formal language. i New informal uses that become popular in speech often have a las before they become widely used i'm books.

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#216

Post by stevula »

rdiddly wrote: post #115

This seems as good a time/place as any to remind everyone that the sound an eagle makes isn't the screech Hollywood has made you believe it is (that's a red-tailed hawk). It's actually relatively non-macho (for a superpower's mascot anyway) and sounds like it's laughing. The hawk says: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/sounds The eagle says: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Bald_Eagle/sounds

This is part of a larger phenomenon sometimes referred to as The Coconut Effect. The name comes from the practice of using coconut shells to produce the sound of horses galloping, even when the sound would not make sense in real life (e.g. galloping on a dirt path).

Once audiences become accustomed to certain sound effects, however inaccurate, they come to expect those sounds. When audiences expect the fake sound, they might even think the film/show is inaccurate if it uses a different, more accurate sound for the same effect.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheCoconutEffect

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#217

Post by [deleted] »

hkarthik wrote: post #124
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see reports about 'a dozen' etc suffering from lead ingestion. But no national statistics, just anecdotes. Considering that hunters shoot millions of lead bullets each year, it seems a small problem? It's suggested that birds eat guts from eviscerated animals that hunters leave behind. Perhaps a policy of burying or scattering the guts would solve the problem?

It's a much smaller scale problem than the pesticide issue. Here in Northern California, we're actually unable to use poisons on pest rodents like squirrels and rats since they often enter the ecosystem through raptors ingesting them. My friends with a lot of land were advised to get pellet guns and air rifles to deal with their squirrel problems. It's considered the lowest impact to the ecosystem and food chain.

[deleted]

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#218

Post by asdff »

wirrbel wrote: post #84
wiredfool wrote: post #6

Bald Eagles are HUGE. You don't realize it until one drops out of a tree near you and flies off. Either that or you see them feeding on road kill deer.

I am always reminded of this meme https://img.ifunny.co/images/70898eeb8bc2323e320aca74b03bb9a... "Basically a glorified seagull"

Honestly, seagulls are huge birds too. Male bald eagle has about the same wingspan as a seagull (5-6 feet).

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#219

Post by ldbooth »

rdiddly wrote: post #115

This seems as good a time/place as any to remind everyone that the sound an eagle makes isn't the screech Hollywood has made you believe it is (that's a red-tailed hawk). It's actually relatively non-macho (for a superpower's mascot anyway) and sounds like it's laughing. The hawk says: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-tailed_Hawk/sounds The eagle says: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Bald_Eagle/sounds

Thanks for confirming! ... Those were eagles I saw on that run months back :) Yea they have a funny bird call, super distinct staccato, unmistakable.

Re: America’s bald eagle population continues to soar

#220

Post by fermienrico »

throwanem wrote: post #189
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.

Oh, I agree. I stopped respecting bald eagles after the first time I watched one harass an osprey into dropping the fish that she had actually worked to catch, in order to steal it and eat without going to any real effort. You don't need to see an osprey fishing but once to recognize that they work hard for a living, and I've seen that more times than I can count. Bald eagles are just big lazy thieving bullies and I…

You might as well just scratch the entire animal kingdom off your favorites list, you're not going to like it very much.
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