Birds...

[fajrdrako]

A news item on Yahoo! started, 'Canada Geese and other birds pose a serious threat to aircraft, acting "like shrapnel to the engine" when sucked into the blades.'

Seems to me they have it backwards. Seems to me the plane poses a serious threat to the birds. They aren't going to get out of that alive.

Comments

[nuptse.livejournal.com]

Last night one of the news stations (I dunno if it was Fox or CNN) kept showing the same footage over and over of what appeared to be (already dead) chickens being sucked into an engine and shredded.
They even had super slo-mo footage from the inside of the birds actually being sliced into pieces.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, yuck! Poor feathery things. They didn't need that.

[duncanmac.livejournal.com]

UGGHHH. Was that footage *really* necessary?

Why is there no rating for gore the way there is for "adult" topics? Methinks that footage was in a cate-gore-y of its own. :-/

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I will ignore your pun, but fair warning, punster: too much more of this wanton abuse of the language, and I'll ban you! I have the power! Bwahahahaha.

As for gore: Yeah. We seem to have a zillion 'protections' from visual scenes of sex, but scenes of gore and gruesomeness are all over the place. I have a particularly hard time in October, when graphic ads for horror movies hit the TV screens. Faugh.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Yeah sex is gross but torture and death just fine. Didn't you know?

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I have such trouble keeping it straight - !

(Or maybe "straight" isn't the right word.)

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

LOL straight. *sigh*

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

I saw just on TV just after reading this comment. Ew.

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

This is disgusting, but true: when this happens on military aircraft like tankers - which don't have as much of a moulding/interior skin as commercial planes - birds in the engines make the craft smell like chicken.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Do they serve KFC on the flight?

[51stcenturyfox.livejournal.com]

Nope! Box nasties. (Cold sandwich, apple, etc.)

[dejla.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think it was kamikaze birds. They really want to kill us. If they can't do it by downing planes, they'll crap all over the lawns, and we'll slip on it, fall, and crack open our skulls.

Then the birds will rule the world!

(tongue firmly planted in cheek)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I think it was kamikaze birds. They really want to kill us. If they can't do it by downing planes, they'll crap all over the lawns, and we'll slip on it, fall, and crack open our skulls

You have a good point there. Have you seen the swans on the Avon River at Stratford, Ontario? They'll mug you for your ham sandwich. Without mercy. Don't ever cross a determined bird.

Then the birds will rule the world!

It's no secret that my strong-willed budgies already rule my household. With an iron feather, I tell you.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

"Have you seen the swans on the Avon River at Stratford, Ontario? They'll mug you for your ham sandwich. Without mercy. Don't ever cross a determined bird."

AHAHAHAHA oh those things are scary!!!!!!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

They are - and tough, too!

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

Very much so! I remember the first time I went, I tried eating at one of the picnic tables down by the river. Oh hell no! Birds surrounding me and glaring.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It really is a lovely place to eat lunch. But those birds are thugs. Clearly they learn to prey on tourists at an early age.

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

The geese at my apt complex are the same. Once I was on my cell by the lake, not eating anything, and they literally got into a gang and approached me and followed me everywhere. They just assumed I had food.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

They just assumed I had food.

Of course. Humans always have food. It's their duty to birdkind. (Stand and deliver!)

[filkferengi]

This conversation reminds me of the classic song "Star Chickens" by Pegasus-nominated Mac Carson:

Chills down my spine, heart going thud
Star Chickens out for blood.

[dejla.livejournal.com]

Yes, I know well to stay away from those swans. I remember them from high school and more recently. Swans are big nasty birds and THEY CAN HURT YOU.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Beware the killer swans!

They're pretty, though.

[dargie.livejournal.com]

I thought much the same thing. Fortunately it's quick.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes. There are worse ways for a bird to go. But... doesn't seem right. One minute you're flying along your migration path, minding your own business, the next minute you're shredded feathers.

It isn't the king of bird-predator you can keep an evolutionary eye open for.

[dargie.livejournal.com]

Actually, planes are new on the scene, so there could be an evolutionary process going on where some birds will learn to avoid areas where they're taking off or landing.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Hope so.

[gaycrow.livejournal.com]

I think the same thing. As soon as I heard the reporter say that the situation occurred because of bird strike, and a flock of Canada geese may have been involved, I felt awful. Poor bloody birds. :/

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Who owns the sky, anyway?

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Yes. I wince at the casual, thoughtless human-centrism in such things. As I was feeling horrible today as I read the papers, that miraculously fatality-free airline crash in New York City? With the pilot losing both engines but gliding the plane to a water landing on the Hudson River? Well, they lost both engines because of birds. And I thought of the birds. Apparently bird-to-engine happens fairly often, which makes me hurt.

then again, I saw a brilliant independent film last night, When Night Is Falling I think its name is, in which two people who run a small, fringe-dwelling circus full of marvelous people are having a serious discussion. One of them, Torie, is depressed because of funding from a foundation; she says after a moment of deep reflection: "Sometimes... I dream... of running away from the circus."

And the other, Timothy (with the actor just barely managing to stay in character and keep a straight face) replies with a great just-stop-this-nonsense voice: "Tory, grow up!"

I loved the utter cheek of it. (Rest of the movie was mostly mrvelous, too.)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I wince at the casual, thoughtless human-centrism in such things.

I don't think it's so much casual as pragmatic. It's all in the point of view. Perhaps the writer was not a bird-lover.

"Sometimes... I dream... of running away from the circus."

Grin.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Heh. Also reminding me of one of favorite moments from Northern Exposure, an episode in which the original version of Cirque du Soleil appeared as Somebody-or-other's Travelling Carnival of Wonderment (or some such). The leader of the group was a man who had been a university professor of physics. He and Chris had a deep conversation about how, if you look ever more closely at the structure of matter, you find basically only bits of semi-solid energy particals held together by only energy bonds. He said that that sort of thing bothered his sens of reality, and so he had left academia (and physics) behind to start up with the circus, which he felt was much more down-to-earth. This, from the leader of a group which included The Flying Man, who apparently actually could fly and who never spoke but only by choice; and the amazing jugglers and contortionists that Cirque is, of course, now quite famous for. But, then, these were the first times most of us had seen such wondrous things.

I like the joyous irony of it all.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

That all sounds like such fun.

The circus tends to make me think of the Flying Graysons.

[walkingowl.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely! And Boston Brand, too.