Did you know that the Welsh name for Snowdonia is Eryri which means “home of the eagle”? I learnt this from that very useful publication The Week, which allows one to hoover up all sorts of titbits that you might otherwise have missed. After 150 years absence ten Golden Eagles are being re-introduced to the mountains, where hopefully they will live long and prosper. I had no idea that with their two metre wingspan they can fly at up to 150 mph in the dive. That puts them in second place behind the rather smaller Peregrine Falcon, which can hit an impressive 240mph in the stoop. The fastest bird in level flight is generally reckoned to be the White-Throated Needletail, which can be found in parts of Asia and Australia and can flap like a dyslexic on Countdown to hit 105 mph straight and level. There you are cruising along quite happily at 90 knots in your Tiger Moth when you get scooped by a W-TN heading home to the nest after a good day’s hunting, or flipped in the slipstream of a Golden Eagle as it homes in on a tasty bit of unsuspecting Welsh Lamb. I wonder what the hillside farmers will think? They will probably be as impressed as their counterparts in Eastern Germany who are now suffering at the hands of the legally protected wolf. Such has been the success of their re-generation (they were extinct in Germany for most of the Twentieth Century) that in 2017, 1,667 animals (mainly sheep and goats) were killed in 472 attacks. I am again indebted to The Week for this insight, which appears to suggest that on average a German wolf kills 3.5317 animals per attack…unless my logic is seriously flawed? Or unless the author was relying on statistics, which as we know come after “lies, damned lies and….”. Perhaps the German wolf is particularly voracious. The way things are going with German/US relations, Angela Merkel might well have one delivered to the White House.
Now that keeping Mexicans out of America is a “National Emergency”, I wonder if The Donald has thought of using wolves to patrol the border? Assuming they could be trained to attack only those heading North, it would be a lot cheaper than building The Great Wall of Chihuahua. Imagine too, fourteen pounds of Eagle heading your way at 150 mph; that might make you think twice about running cocaine into Texas. Getting a good animal trainer might be the ace in Donald’s pack, his Trump card so to speak.
A final thought; as Golden Eagles have a mate for life, it’s to be hoped that the ten birds that are being repatriated to The Devil’s Kitchen are in fact five pairs and not a random bunch arbitrarily snatched from some Highland eerie. In a carefully controlled environment in captivity these beautiful birds can live for over fifty years. They might even be able to celebrate a Golden Wedding anniversary. Boom boom!
ADayInTheStrifeOf 