Blogs Jul 8, 2010 at 9:19 am

Comments

1
Oh my goodness. How bird-ist!
2
mudede you are such a dumbshit.
3
That Dutch Harbor story... yea - it's bizarre to be scratched by a wild animal... but how irritating is that verbage?? 'CARVED a rice-sized divot in her scalp, she said, leaving a BLOODY but superficial wound.' Good god. How bout focus on the RICE sized and SUPERFICIAL.

A bald eagle could have done much, much more harm.
4
Crows are smart and awesome creatures. Eagles are dumbshit cowards.
5
you will surely be shat on for your ignorance. crows are spectacular. and they're coming for you, charles.
6
Ravens put them both to shame: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrYPm6DD4…
7
There is a gigantic cloud of crows that's been gathering on the Eastside for years now. Sometimes it lands in the Factoria area, other times up around the Cascadia UW campus in Bothell...

You never see the cloud all take off at the same time, but even parts of it blacken the sky when they take to wing. Walking down a street where the crows cover every branch, every shoot and twig in an entire stand of trees on either side of the road, deafening you with their cawing and cackling is scarier than anything from Hitchcock.

One day soon, that entire cloud will take to the air one last time, and then scour the earth clean of every morsel of organic life, down to the gravel. I think it's close to self awareness...
8
Bald eagles are so wonderfully common up there they call them "Dutch Harbor Seagulls". They're mostly scavengers, of course; when they can, they watch the hardworking smaller birds to do the hard work of predation and then swoop in to steal the food.

A local once told me the most shameful thing he'd ever done involved getting his hands on a gun when he was a kid and looking for the largest common flying targets - the eagles. He hadn't been taught about them, and got a couple before he came to his senses.

The crow is labor, and the bald eagle is management.
9
We used to have a nest of bald eagles down at the lake next to our house in BC.

They're not that great.

Now, it is cool watching them fish, though.
10
Jeez, if it's not dogs it's birds. Give it up, Mudede - and go buy yourself a plastic bubble to blog from, you great girl's blouse.
11
Good Morning Charles,
I had a friend once in Cameroon who was dismounting from her motorcyle and got whacked by a vulture! Yeah, no kidding. It knocked her down. Thankfully, she was wearing a helmut.
12
@11, Helmut Newton or Helmut Lang? Surely not Helmut Kohl?
13
Crows and Eagles are mortal enemies, Charles, and you just pecked the wrong side.
14
If a crow dive-bombs you, be thankful. It is recognizing that you are a human worthy of it's interaction:)
15
@12,
Just "helmut" and not the band either:)
16
@8 makes an excellent analogy. Eagles read Ayn Rand, crows read Marx.
Eagles regularly steal the hard-won prey of other birds. Essentially they use force to control capital.

Crows are incredibly social, they care for members of their community, they join together to fight of common enemies and recognize quite distant relatives. Eagles, on the other hand, only care for themselves, their mates and offspring, everything else can go to hell.
17
Why, Charles? Back that shit up.
18
Saw a crow and a seagull chasing a bald eagle today on my walk to work on Capital Hill. Who new there were gay eagles.
19
They are protecting their young from people.
20
@16, 8, etc: I love watching crows gang up on eagles and other raptors. I've seen some epic crow v. hawk battles back East, and there must be daily crow v. eagle fights around Lake Washington, because I've seen a half dozen of them.
21
@7 I've seen them, in Factoria! I could not believe my eyes and ears at how many crows there were and how much noise they made. It was fucking amazing.
22
I am Allana Gustafson....What an honor to make the stranger, a life long ambition of mine!!!!! Moving from Seattle to Dutch Harbor was the hardest thing I have ever done. Let me clarify this chopped up phone interview that brought on this story. This damn bird has been WAY more aggressive than any other eagle in this town. I respect bald eagles because they are HUGE and have razor sharp talons. I did not in anyway provoke it, I wasn't even in eye sight of it's nest. I just decided to take me out for fun. I still get nervous when I see it. Fish and game has put up these great signs around nesting areas is black and white of a man franticly waving his arms about and an eagle trying to land on his head, LOVE IT!!! I've said my peace now. I miss you Seattle!!!!

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