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Old photo mock-up of a large raptor with a child... ??? (1 Viewer)

S

stevethehydra

Well-known member
I found this randomly posted in a facebook group (not a bird-related one). I assume that it is a cut-and-paste job, possibly involving a taxidermy specimen, but I was wondering about what species...

My first thought was Wedge-tailed Eagle, due to the long tail, uniformly dark plumage and generally "lanky" appearance, but the background looks like somewhere in Europe or eastern North America, not Australia (though of course there doesn't have to be a real location connection with something like this!). Golden Eagle is the species probably (if anything is) behind any real accounts of birds carrying off children, but I don't know if even a badly mounted stuffed one could look so long-tailed?

Another possibility I considered was a juv Lammergeier (another species that has been associated with these kind of legends). Any other thoughts?
 

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Flight of Fancy !!

Should have nailed the hind talon straight through the back of the head to shut that bl**dy kid up ! 3:)

Shred that ridiculous attire from the child too - to minimize aerodynamic drag ......... |:p|





Chosun :gh:
 
It doesn't match any real species. Looks like a prop made from pieces of skins and feathers, most probably for some old trick film. Like the phoenix from the Harry Potter movie is not any real bird species.
 
D Halas said:
I can't help with an identification of the eagle, but I can help you with the source of the photo – it's a still from the 1908 short film "Rescued from an Eagle's Nest". It was filmed in New York by the Edison Company.
Click to expand...
Nice find :t:

That nails the species then - Aquila mechanicalus featherus contraptionus !

More than you will ever want to see here:-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SXwnNB5jubI

And movie review here:-
https://medium.com/@trettleman/the-ridiculousness-of-rescued-from-an-eagles-nest-6506534c0a2b

I think it is a sad indictment on our 'civilization' that 100+ years on, parents are even more stoopid than this lot, natural selection of the dopey is still at play, Eagles are still persecuted, and if anything, it is them that should be afraid of us ..... :-C



Chosun :gh:
 
Of course if you were a Maori - things were a whole lot tougher !!

This fanciful clip of a Haast's Eagle predating humans shows perhaps the real encounters and trials of early Maori's ....... even though it features an outsized Harpy Eagle.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=H89iXWEKMMc

Tiger or Eagle - it shows that the old adage is true - you don't have to be able to outfight them, or outflee them - just run faster than the person next to you !

In the final wash up though, even the mighty Haast's Eagle succumbed to the usual fate: Humans 1 - Wildlife Nil ........ :-C

You can see where the legends evolve:-
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roc_(mythology)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haast's_eagle

Oh what a fantastic world it must have been ! :D





Chosun :gh:
 
Cinematic critique of several edits of the film here:-
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ehFrT2cE5JI

Just as in the first video clip I posted, the Mechanical Eagle has an uncanny talent of being able to fly backwards as well, like an outgrown hummingbird! lol. That toddler must have been well fed as that 'Eagle' had to expend quite some effort to lift it ! :)



Chosun :gh:
 
Thanks for the info!

I'm a little surprised that they built an animatronic rather than using stop-motion with a taxidermy specimen (as I would have assumed they would have done at the time... or was stop-motion not pioneered until later?). But I guess I was right that it wasn't proportioned quite like any real eagle (I can't help thinking that the designers were also possible influenced by vulture species, perhaps including Lammergeier...)
 
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