Everybody loves bacon!
May 5, 2011 5:51 PM Subscribe
Red kites; slow motion; bacon. What's not to love?
This (soothing music aside) does nothing to change my views that birds are just creepy fucking dinosaurs, just waiting for their chance to strike... just waiting.
posted by Panjandrum at 6:04 PM on May 5, 2011
posted by Panjandrum at 6:04 PM on May 5, 2011
The organization I volunteer with is having a recruiting session tonight, and I have to go and give a little talk about what a Day in the Life of a Hawkwatcher is like. Ours does not involve bacon, parking lots, or chairs. Or red kites, for that matter. If we scattered bacon on Hawk Hill we'd get ravens and turkey vultures.
posted by rtha at 6:13 PM on May 5, 2011
posted by rtha at 6:13 PM on May 5, 2011
I was kinda expecting a couple of Mefites to swoop through the picture in equally majestic slow motion snatching up some of that delicious bacon right from under the surprised birds' talons.
Or Paula Deen.
posted by hermitosis at 7:53 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]
Or Paula Deen.
posted by hermitosis at 7:53 PM on May 5, 2011 [2 favorites]
Did someone say bacon?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:56 PM on May 5, 2011
posted by JohnnyGunn at 7:56 PM on May 5, 2011
birds are just creepy fucking dinosaurs
Hitchcock mined the ancient mammalian wariness of dinosaurs in The Birds. Scavenging omnivorous have a bad reputation, crows are associated with battlefields (eating the dead) and thus distasteful to eat ("eating crow"). Perhaps it goes back 60 million years to the ancient mammalian brain when it evolved in a world dominated by giant chickens.
posted by stbalbach at 9:20 PM on May 5, 2011
Hitchcock mined the ancient mammalian wariness of dinosaurs in The Birds. Scavenging omnivorous have a bad reputation, crows are associated with battlefields (eating the dead) and thus distasteful to eat ("eating crow"). Perhaps it goes back 60 million years to the ancient mammalian brain when it evolved in a world dominated by giant chickens.
posted by stbalbach at 9:20 PM on May 5, 2011
Yay, red kites! Living in Oxford I'm lucky enough to see loads of red kites any time I go out into Oxfordshire or drive to London. They're amazing birds. Thanks for posting this.
posted by Richard Holden at 10:15 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by Richard Holden at 10:15 PM on May 5, 2011 [1 favorite]
Is it just me or did those kites seem to have incredibly bad aim? Seriously, it seemed as though they mostly got rocks despite that massive mess of bacon spread in the lot.
I, for one, am actually quite relieved by this. Birds make me extremely nervous...especially those of the raptor family.
posted by squasha at 11:29 PM on May 5, 2011
I, for one, am actually quite relieved by this. Birds make me extremely nervous...especially those of the raptor family.
posted by squasha at 11:29 PM on May 5, 2011
Far from being "creepy fucking dinosaurs", raptors of all kinds are incredibly beautiful birds. A peregrine in flight epitomises power and grace better than a 100 million dollar fighter plane. The reintroduction of red kites through Britain has been a wonderful success, after decades when twenty odd inbred pairs clung on in their last redoubts in Wales. The return of Ospreys followed by White Tailed Sea Eagles, Goshawks (largely through escaped falconer's birds) and so on has been really heartening. I just hope the prospects for Britain's harriers are as rosy in the future. You needn't worry about the talons of a Red Kite either, squasha, for raptors they've got the claws of kittens. As they're light gliding birds who live largely off small animals and carrion, they have the hitting power of a child's balloon. An angry Goshawk is a very different proposition, which is why I stuck to breeding Lanners, which are the sweetest natured birds in the world and put on a fine aerobatic show too.
posted by joannemullen at 4:08 AM on May 6, 2011
posted by joannemullen at 4:08 AM on May 6, 2011
Watched this while eating bacon praline. Lovely.
The film is beautiful too.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:27 AM on May 6, 2011
The film is beautiful too.
posted by kinnakeet at 5:27 AM on May 6, 2011
You needn't worry about the talons of a Red Kite either, squasha,
But what if squasha is made of bacon? Run! Hide!
which is why I stuck to breeding Lanners,
How cool! How did you get into that? Here in the U.S. we owe our current peregrine population, especially east of the Rockies, to falconers and their breeding programs and knowledge.
posted by rtha at 5:48 AM on May 6, 2011
But what if squasha is made of bacon? Run! Hide!
which is why I stuck to breeding Lanners,
How cool! How did you get into that? Here in the U.S. we owe our current peregrine population, especially east of the Rockies, to falconers and their breeding programs and knowledge.
posted by rtha at 5:48 AM on May 6, 2011
I also live in Oxford and see red kites (or "shitehawks" as the Elizabethans called them) all the time. The ones we see are most likely offspring of those reintroduced to the Chilterns in the late nineties, and as such, they're probably either Swedish or Spanish; sort of like a flying version of José Gonzalez, if you will.
posted by The Ultimate Olympian at 6:32 AM on May 6, 2011
posted by The Ultimate Olympian at 6:32 AM on May 6, 2011
I don't like bacon.
posted by Rarebit Fiend at 9:19 AM on May 6, 2011
posted by Rarebit Fiend at 9:19 AM on May 6, 2011
Those are some gorgeous birds. This post led me to discover that Pennsylvania does, in fact, have a falconry association. A girl can dream...
posted by troublewithwolves at 10:19 AM on May 6, 2011
posted by troublewithwolves at 10:19 AM on May 6, 2011
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