Where Eagles Dare
Bald eagles. Big, feisty, fighting creatures. Lousy fathers sometimes.
They're like your cousin Richie, is what they are. This is why you hope Richie isn't showing up for your aunt's wake. He'll show up drunk and want to fight your cousin Nelson.
Richie has kids in your town, and the two nearest towns, the ones close enough to be easily reached by public transportation.
Richie doesn't see the kids, and he doesn't send the child support because a certain kind of man will work harder at conception than he will at any other facet of carrying on the species.
The best you can say about Richie as a father is that he has a very strong procreational drive, and he hasn't actually eaten one of his kids yet.
So, Richie is a better dad than at least one bald eagle.
Down in West Virginia, an unnamed bald eagle father ate one of his babies.
The big bird was being watched by the National Conservation Training Center. Richie is being watched by family court, a probation officer and your state's Department of Children and Family Services. The center was hoping for a better outcome. So is Richie's probation officer and the woman from Children and Family Services.
The conservation people said that just prior to the eating, the eagle "seemed confused," and "was rough with the eaglet," phrases echoed by at least one criminal incident report involving Richie's kids, or the kids of the woman he was living with a couple years ago.
The male eagle that did the baby-eating didn't always live with that particular female eagle. There was another male living there, but he left, and the new eagle moved in quick. Richie did the same thing with a woman who lived in an A-frame over by where they park the school buses at night.
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