Three little words: STREAMING EAGLE CAM

Eagle Snatch sounds dirty eh?

Update: the camera has moved here.

Nesting bald eagle streaming webcam, brought to you live by the guy in whose yard they’ve been hanging out for 14 years. And yes, there’s eggs people, there’s eggs! The feed is not without flaws, but then, it’s hanging out in the bedroom of two of the most impressive predators the world has ever seen.

Background on the Eagle Cam

Last week, the website went online as the eagles laid two eggs that are expected to hatch by the end of the month.

Retired accountant David Carrick said he has been keeping an eye on the pair of eagles in his secluded property for 14 years. But about 18 months ago – with government permission – he got an even closer look, installing a camera in the nest while the eagles were away on their annual migration.

He said the eagles noticed the enclosed camera and “pecked at it” and then got on with their lives.

Now up to two million hits a day and growing. I’m sooooooooo jealous!

Eaglewhatchoolookinat?I am reminded, as I so often am, of a story that makes Americans look bad. Yeah, I’m a bitch: I’m fine with it. My friend Christi and I were returning to Vancouver from Victoria via the Swartz Bay ferry. It had been a beautiful day: warm, clear, and windy the way it gets on Vancouver Island, with the air pummelling you as if you were just a stray plastic bag in its hands. The kind of day that makes you think, if you had just exactly the right jacket, you could become a kite, or at least an oversized flying squirrel. Okay, maybe not you. But I could, I’m real small.

So it was that kind of day. And we’d seen the typical Active Passian and Gulf Islandian and Beacon Hill Parkian and Lower Mainlandian wildlife that day, which is to say more than just a handful of raptors. So we, being no fools, scrambled onto the ferry and went straight for the windowseats; it always takes the tourists ages to figure out where to sit. They seem to think, if they bumble around long enough, a Lido Deck will materialize and Julie the perky activities director will tell them where to go. As a result, they spend a great deal of time tumbling up and down the stairs like large, squashy Pachinko balls and end up wherever gravity finally has its way with them, usually the buffet.

As Christi and I settled into our window seats, tucking our backpacks under the seats, a group of Americans passed us by, looking for places to plug in their laptops. A nasal cry rent the air.

“Can you believe it? What was the point of this whole trip? Why did we have to leave and come here? Victoria is just like Seattle.”

At that moment, in all innocence (for once in my life) I looked out the window and said, “Oh look, a bald eagle.”

Christi replied, in a loudly incredulous voice, “ANOTHER one?”

New: Update on Eagles

Other eagle news on the raincoaster blog:

Catalina Island Eagles

Colorado Eagle Cam with three chicks

The latest on the Hornby Island eagles

The brand-spankin’ new Eagle Cam outside Swartz Bay

EVEN NEWER-ER

Peregrine Falcon Cam

Customs is your friend

Polar BearYou might not believe me when I say that, but Customs is your friend. Specifically, the customs agent who goes through your luggage and finds the four hundred pounds of bear meat from Canada, along with the approximately 60,000,000 worms with which it was infested.

Don't mess with Canada! We'll poison your skinny French ass! 2, 4, 6, 8, time for us to infestate!

Of course, if you knew the first thing about cooking wild game, you'd never have had the problem in the first place. The headline really should read "Don't Eat Canadian Bear Sashimi." People who don't know how to eat bear should not shoot bear, and if they do they definitely shouldn't stow it in their luggage, sneak it across the Atlantic, and invite a snotload of their soon-to-be-ex friends over for a feast.

Don't eat Canadian bears: French health officials 

[and yeah, you can read an invisible "or" in there too if you're feeling mean]

PARIS, April 3, 2006 (AFP) – France's health watchdogs have issued an unusual warning about bear meat, citing the case of French hunters who shot a bear in Canada, ate the meat and then fell violently sick with a parasitic disease…The bulletin warned hunters against "the common mistake of thinking that meat that comes from animals which have been hunted in the wild is always healthy."
 
Those who ate fully-cooked portions of meat suffered no ill-effects, but those who had even a mouthful of portions that were rare fell ill. The meat was found to be crawling with the worms — the average was 295 larvae per gramme.

It is, of course, still permissable and even on occasion encouraged, to eat Canadians. But ask nicely first.

and sometimes you don’t WANT to know

TIASearches that led people to my blog yesterday:

curling porn, "And with strange aeons death may die, " viggo mortensen porn, cocaine corner, wendy messner cbc, hooker story, red corvette middle age

Supah. So somewhere out there are several people with unslaked curling fetishes, some random Cthulhu cultists, and many, many sexually deprived, desperate middle-aged keyboard jockeys.

But…Wendy Messner????? Now THAT is kinky.

Mark your calendar…just not where your wife can see

And now we present this month's unmissable social event: MEAT 'n MIX

Thousands of happy customers can't be wrong. Get your fresh meat from Jamie Lee Hamilton, a woman with decades of experience in the flesh-peddling industry. Now you can own, instead of rent!

MEAT n MIXJamie Lee Hamilton
One-Woman NGO

Hi Friends,

Just a reminder of my One-Woman NGO MEAT n MIX happy hour on Friday March 31 from 4:30-7:30pm at the remodelled MIX pub in Mark James Lotus Hotel. The Lotus is located at 455 Abbott Street. You can visit my website at www.jamieleehamilton.com or Mix at www.lgbtmix.com

What is Meat n Mix you ask?
Well simply it is a number of Meat Draws
occurring on the last Friday of every month to benefit my One-Womean NGO which provides advocacy and support services to women and men involved in the sex trade.

This monthly event is an opportunity to come relax
after a hard week of work, be entertained, enjoy some good company, have a pint or martini or two and win some meat while supporting a good cause. Fun, surprises and give-a-ways.

Mark [last Friday of the month] on your calender for Meat n Mix from 4:30-7:30pm at Mix pub in the Lotus Hotel.

Cheers

Jamie Lee

The last time she was an NGO, Grandma's House got shut down for being a brothel and she ended up feuding to the point of death threats with the other board members and getting her medicine cut off by a vindictive government that wanted to force her to turn over the Society's books. So this should be worth watching.

Best Resignation in History

Well, it's a resignation the way defenestration is a method of retirement, but still, awesome nonetheless. Got this via Mistress Cowfish. In early February of this year this note was posted on the door of the Blenz cafe on Hastings Street, across from Simon Fraser University.

I'm going to take a tiny moment here to express how very much I loathe Blenz coffee. It's thin, bitter and transparent; everything you want in a supermodel, nothing you want to face first thing in the morning. This isn't arabica; hell, I'd lay odds it's not even semitica.

Anyway, to get back to the point of this post…Blenz and awe-inspiring resignations therefrom; the place was always busy, but apparently at least four people didn't care for the management at this particular franchise: the four people who worked there. What I'm loving most about this note is that it's written in the same mealymouthed style as millions of interminable management lectures delivered worldwide. "Be more of a people person," asshole.

Comments from vicarious comrades-in-arms here.

Blenz Hastings