Thanks to Glen W. of Texas for sending me the link to this video clip. It involves a Russian paraglider pilot and an eagle over the Himalayas. They collide in mid-air, shown about 30 seconds into the video clip, followed by the pilot deploying his emergency parachute and descending safely to a heavily-wooded hilltop below. The rest of the video shows his attempts to disentangle himself and free the eagle from the strings and straps of his paraglider (which he manages to do successfully - skip forward to about the 9 minute mark to see the final stages of the process, and watch the eagle fly away, seemingly uninjured).
I bet that's one flight the pilot will never forget! Judging from the number of beeps in the recording, he must have used more than a few Russian words that are best left untranslated . . .
Peter
5 comments:
This video is incredible. Long but worth the wait. Wow! Thanks.
Kudo's to him for taking the time to free the bird! And I'd love to hear an un-beeped translations :-)
I speak no Russian but having had to free on of them from a dumpster once I bet I can come close.
He did a really good job getting it loose without hurting it.
I had to get a fish-hook out of a pelican once. Ye GODS that thing was a lot more pissed off than that eagle. Used that 2ft beak like it was a sword, too. We got it un-hooked with minimal damage, and being a saltwater bird infection was unlikely. We considered cutting the hook but the risk that he'd end up swallowing the pointy bit was too high. Fortunately it was hooked through the fairly stretchy under-mouth membrane or whatever you call it, so backing it out wasn't too bad.
This reminded me of a red-footed booby who dived after one of my fishing lures, many years ago.
Blessed thing was as agro as they come!
Took a well placed beach towel and two people holding the flapping parts down before I could extricate the lure out of its beak!
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