Setanta wrote:The junvenile Bald Eagle was repatriated on an Aer Lingus flight in December of 1987. Can you imagine just how tired that bird was after crossing the Atlantic?
I hope they gave it a firstclass seat on the return trip.
I'm trying to imagine what it's like... you're an Eagle, you should know where you are going, but maybe you ate some bad salmon or something and you happen to pick a stormy night. Now it's dark, you are off course, you can't see any land below you and your instinctive direction system says you should be flying down the east coast of the US with land toward your right hand wing. So maybe you turn right and fly for a while, but no land. You don't know it, but you're actually flying east, in the dark, over an ocean. After two days you're hopelessly lost, unable to land, and not designed like an albatross for long ocean voyages. I'm not sure Eagles are self aware enough to know fear in this situation, or if they just keep flapping relentlessly in an attempt to keep above the ocean until they find land.
There must have been a pretty good easterly wind to get it across the Atlantic. I wonder how long it was in the air? Maybe there was a particularly unusual storm over the Atlantic in November of 1987?
