BEARSCARE

Here’s what happened. The plane took off like a normal airplane. As they ascended, something went horribly wrong, both engines failed and the pilot made an heroic and miraculous landing in the Hudson River. Everybody onboard, including both the pilot and copilot, survived. This has never happened before.

I accept that this guy is a hero and that the landing was a miracle. But how often do you hear about the cause of the crash? You may have heard that the airplane struck a bird. Well, it struck a flock of birds–big birds. Some got sucked into the engines. Do you have any idea how painful that is for the unlucky birds? Those jet engines sting! Imagine sticking your pinky finger in there!

Well, my point here is that the pilot is a hero, and that’s great, but what about the innocent birds that were killed? Will we ever know how many gave up their lives so those passengers could live? Birds have feelings too. I’m sure the ones that died had plans to go back to Canada to have more baby birds. Even though no humans died, we still have some mourning to do. I just wish the news outlets would stop being so cocky and show some respect.

As this page establishes itself as a true colossus of the internet with TEN THOUSAND page loads, I would like to take a moment to discuss pelicans. Today, a pelican landed on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA, stopping traffic for a long time. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to that bridge.

I first noticed pelicans while photographing crabs and flying men in North Carolina earlier this summer. They captured my imagination and also the imaginations of generations before me–the graceful wings, the dump-truck beak–they’re probably just the best birds. Here’s a picture of one from Wikipedia’s article on them.

Also, Pelican is a pretty great band.

I think pelicans were featured in The Flintstones, which is fine. But I could be wrong about that.

As far as I can tell, nothing of any interest whatsoever happened in the news today. So, we’re going to have a frank discussion about barn owls for a bit. Personally, I’ve always been a fan. I find owls to be totally sweet, but also totally creepy (in a good way). Figure 1 shows a pretty cool picture of one.

Figure 1

The barn owl is perhaps the most widespread of all the owls. This medium-sized predator is found on all continents except for Antarctica; they are scarce in the extreme northern reaches of North America and also in the Sahara Desert–but who would want to live in those places**? Not me.

Barn owls love rodents. Rats, mice, whatever–they eat them ALL. They have been known to eat more than one rodent per night and a nesting couple can consume over 1000 per year**. Figure 2 shows a barn owl flying. He’s probably looking for rats or mice.

Figure 2

These birds have really done a great job evolving. They’re pretty unstoppable and it seems like there’s no chance they’ll ever be extinct. My hat is off to barn owls. Now, I will leave you with this great film.

**All factual information taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_owl