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An Endless Buffet For Bald Eagles Life

Susan Matthews | Audubon | 19th September 2016

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The chickens at White Oak Pastures roam freely. Which is fun for the chickens — and even more fun for the 75 bald eagles which have taken up residence in the trees nearby. “The slaughter here is relentless”. For the bald eagles the farm is “an all-you-can-eat buffet”. Each day, each eagle kills and eats four chickens on average — a daily loss to the farm of about $1,000. “You’re supposed to give 10 percent to the church and we don’t really do that, but we’re giving 10 percent to nature” (3,200 words)

Leaving His Marks Thought

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In a “remarkable” new biography of Karl Marx, Gareth Steadman Jones “performs the delicate task of disassembling the doctrine without dismissing the thinker, cutting the wires that link the two with all the delicacy of a bomb disposal expert”. Marx warmed to the possibilities of democracy in his later years; but admitting as much would have meant “junking the fiery rhetoric of his twenties and thirties”; and whereas Marx had many gifts, “climbing down was not one of them” (5,030 words)

Tree School Science

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Trees learn. They learn to store water in winter, to lean against neighbouring trees for support. When they are desperately thirsty, they cry out, inaudibly to humans, at ultrasonic pitch. The sound comes from vibrations in the tree trunk when the flow of water from the roots to the leaves is interrupted. This is “a purely mechanical event”. But taken in isolation, the human voice is a purely mechanical event. What if the trees are warning one another that water is running low? (1,800 words)

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An Endless Buffet For Bald Eagles Life

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Leaving His Marks Thought

Tree School Science

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