Post #14122

At the age of 40, the eagle breaks its beak and tears out all its feathers. Is this story true? There is a legend that gives you goosebumps. The Legend of the Old Eagle. By the age of forty, a powerful bird turns into a helpless creature. The feathers become too heavy to fly, the beak is too long to grasp prey, and the claws are too large to perch on branches. Only a painful rebirth saves the poor fellow from agony. A proud eagle goes to the mountains. He smashes his beak on rocks, crushes his claws into dust, and rips feathers from his chest. He waits 150 days and soars into the sky, finding himself again, like a phoenix! A beautiful parable. But still curious, how true is this inspiring description of the brutal overcoming of the midlife crisis? Spoiler: 0%. Nothing. Not a single word of the parable corresponds to reality. The gag begins with the very first lines of the legend. From the age of the bird. Do you know what an eagle looks like at the age of forty? Like a pile of bones crumbling to dust! The retirement age for the symbol of democracy is within 20-30 years, which means that he simply will not live to reach the age in the parable. What about the claws and beak? They probably grow throughout their lives, and this can become a problem. Yes, but under certain conditions. Lock the bird in a room with soft walls and feed it exclusively puree from a spoon. In this case, the beak and claws will actually grow so large that they will begin to interfere with the bird. Birds' claws and beaks are made of keratin, a tissue similar to our nails. In the wild, the whole world is a file for birds. The rock on which the golden eagle perched, the pine branch supporting the eagle, the bones of the swallowed victim, a convenient stone, as if specially created to clean the beak on it. The corneas grow constantly just to keep up with this constant abrasion. The plumage of birds also does not become heavier over time, because it changes regularly. Molting occurs once a year. But don’t expect to find an eagle as naked as a plucked chicken in the wilderness. The whole process happens gradually. First, some feathers fall out and grow back, then others. To lose all clothing and the ability to fly is tantamount to voluntary death. Here we gradually approach the thesis about 150 days. You see, no known flying bird can live for 5 months without food. Flight is an extremely energy-consuming thing. It takes a lot of calories to lift a carcass off the ground. That’s why the body of flying birds works like a stove—if you forget to add wood on time, it will cool down. To be fair, large birds of prey need less food than, for example, sparrows. Those need reinforcements every half hour. Large birds are able to survive without food for up to two weeks thanks to their fat reserves. But not longer! What do old eagles really do? Live your best life! The bird of prey, wise from experience, has its own territory. No one will risk crossing it: having cho