I saw a few bald eagles at a state park this winter.  They're very disappointing.  I wouldn't mind them going extinct so we could start telling the legend instead of having the piddly truth just hanging out in a tree for like 25 minutes while my farking lens is icing up and fingers are swelling and getting gross.  Stupid eagles.  Our national bird should be like, a half-cyborg bald eagle.  Give him a backstory.  Like, he and the Mexican flag's eagle went to the same eagle dojo, but then the evil drug dealing ninjas, maybe Persian falcons, they come with their drug money, and the Mexican flag's eagle needs the money for his little sister who has TB or something, so he shoots the wing off our eagle, and leaves him for dead, but America is there and we build him biatching airplane wings with like jets and missiles.  And that's how California became a state.

Aren't they tiny?  Swans are way scarier.  Swans don't give a fark, they'll charge you in the middle of a picnic.

This one was down the street.
/Talons

He looks like a stylish pigeon with her nails and lips did.  I can see a flock of them in my mind eating from one of those tiny bags of flaming hot cheetos talking gossip and chewing loudly.  I could kick that bird's ass.

staplermofo: Aren't they tiny?  Swans are way scarier.  Swans don't give a fark, they'll charge you in the middle of a picnic.


This bird would pick its teeth with a swan. If it had teeth that is...

LaChanz: This bird would pick its teeth with a swan. If it had teeth that is...

Give me a tranquilizer dart, some superglue and $5 in cockfighting blades and spurs and 2 weeks to train him and I could get a swan that would kick that eagle's ass.  I mean, we don't put naked people on our national symbols.  Let's deck this mofo out!  That eagle looks scruffy and dirty.  That look works when you're half machine, but not when you're all bird.  I'm just saying nature has handed us the baton here and we've not running with it.  That and bald eagles suck as-is.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/veganbutterfly/5808555957/

'Merca %#*# yeah!

Sadly that pic is more appropriate than I wish it were.

I see them regularly in my wooded yard. Sometimes two at once. I don't bother taking pictures anymore, but still stop what I'm doing to watch for a bit. Kinda glad they haven't picked our spot to nest.

I saw a pair of red-tailed hawks chasing one a few years ago. I bet the hawks approve of removal from the endangered species list. (And in turn hawks are mobbed by crows, and crows are mobbed by chickadees, and nobody mobs chickadees because they are so cute.)

Aren't they tiny? Swans are way scarier. Swans don't give a fark, they'll charge you in the middle of a picnic.

As non-native birds Mute Swans are not protected by federal law and you can toss them on the grill without violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act.

Yeah, they're not really that uncommon here anymore. Still cool to see, though.

We're lousy with bald eagles up here. They're like pigeons.

staplermofo: Aren't they tiny?  Swans are way scarier.  Swans don't give a fark, they'll charge you in the middle of a picnic.

That is why you have feet.
Use them.
BTW, you can punt a swan ~25 yards w/o injuring it.

/love me some tilde, Oh Boy!

Saw one sitting on a lightpost in the grocery store parking lot ladt month.

Another one flew next to me when I was riding my bike along the waterfront last summer.

And a couple of weeks ago one swooped down right over my head to get a roadkill squirrel when I was riding my bike -- scared the crap outta me at first for sure!

No shortage of eagles in Bellingham.

mike_d85: Saw a bald eagle snatch a squirrel off my driveway once.

I almost shiat myself.

I feed my chipminks daytime and flying squirrels @ night.
Little buggers will search my pockets for peanuts when I am sitting on my front porch.
We also have a pair of Cooper's Hawks in the neighborhood.
The male took a chipper not a foot from my feet, swung by a tree to smack it, and whoosh he was gone.
I can always find the hawk, listen to the crows.

No shortage of eagles in Bellingham.

Or farther north along the coast. "Endangered species" in U.S. law is a misnomer. Designations protect populations rather than species. In much of the lower 48 states eagles were rare, but they were happily chowing down on the abundant fish in Alaska. The Fox Squirrel is common, but the Delmarva subspecies is rare. Wolves are rare in some places, but abundant enough in Wyoming to potentially have their endangered status revoked (Congress ended up settling that dispute before the lawsuits were over).

I thought they were extinct?

I once missed a hawk by an inch as it flew over six lanes of highway traffic. It was carrying some dead rodent bigger than itself, probably a gopher. It just couldn't gain altitude and didn't want to drop its meal. I had to hit the brakes to keep from hitting it. You'd think the birds would learn to be at least 20 feet high before trying to cross.

Wangiss: You hang out with liberals.

My Addams Family Values reference was apparently lost on you, like tears in the rain.

Malcolm_Sex: The noble beaver is by far the greatest national animal.


I vote for the noble hedgehog.