Silly questions

So a lot of the funniest and most surreal questions come from poor wording, such as the oft-asked "Do you mate with the eagles?" People tend not to think before they ask a question, so you just have to figure out what they're trying to ask and then answer that question. And sometimes the questions are just so surreal that you don't really know what to say.

One I got the other day: "Do eagles fledge?" Translated literally, using MW this means "Do eagles acquire the feathers necessary for flight or independent activity and then leave the nest after acquiring such feathers" to which it was very tempting to respond "No, actually eagles stay chicks for their entire lives. In fact, a breeding pair of eagles will collect up to fifty chicks in the nest before it dies, after which the chicks fight each other and the winner gets to pluck the feathers of their parent and insert them into his or herself. You see, DDT levels got so high in eagles, that they can no longer grow feathers, so plumages have to be passed down from generation to generation." But luckily I am adept enough at dealing with these sorts of questions that I could translate that into "Do baby eagles leave the nest early enough that I will say 'awwwwwwww' when I hear how fast those cute little guys have to grow up." to which I responded "Yes. In fact eagles are fully grown after just ten weeks etc."

It's almost always a bad idea to point out that a question is stupid, because the tourist will almost always then persist or ask follow up questions to save face, which usually just ends up in some unnecessarily technical argument in which neither party is interested. For instance, I got one the other day asking me if we ever got any pregnant birds in, obviously wanting some sob story where a pregnant bird dies but we manage to save the baby which grows into a big healthy bird that saves a kid from a fire or something. The proper way to handle that would have been just to mention that sometimes oviducts do get clogged, and that it is very hard to tell until the egg rots, all the surrounding tissue necroses and the bird keels over. Gives information, avoids a dumb questions, and saves her face. Instead I dropped the ball and stupidly answered "Well......eagles... lay eggs.... like other birds." At which she got very red in the face and responded that of course she knew that and she was wondering if a bird ever comes in with a fertile egg still forming which got into the inevitable birds and bees questions about egg fertilization which led to shell glands and yolk depositing and such, all of which she pretended to know already. The whole time I just wanted to shake her and say "Look lady, I believe you know that birds lay eggs. It's fine that you asked a stupid question, but you don't need to now pretend to be a bird expert and make me spew out all this information that you aren't going to absorb. Just blush, say oops, and walk away."

Sometimes they immediately realize they asked a dumb question, which is fun. The other day Steve was doing the types of raptor quiz and gave them the "last one starts with a 'k'" hint. Some guy quickly said "Condor" and immediately flushed bright red and put his head in his hands. I completely lost it and had to retreat into the giftshop because I was laughing so hard.

Of course we say stupid stuff all the time. When you say the same thing enough times, you start to zone out and get caught in awkward constructions when you start paying attention again. And words always come out jumbled at the strangest times. Today Lindsay said "I'd be helpy to hap you that." and I think think every handler has informed the public that we sometimes supplement our birds' diet with beer, eliding 'bear' and 'deer' together. Some other good ones recently:
"So when a bird first comes to us it's injured or it's drunk."
"Now keep in mind, we are all wild birds in here."
"Golden eagles are a member of the moist eagle family."


Also - two more frenchie quotes in the past couple weeks:
When there were a lot of people looking at the bear that he couldn't seem to spot "Zey are all fools! Zey think zey see a baaar, but zey see nothing!" which made me think to myself "C'est ne pas une baaaaaaar" and I laughed to myself and he noticed.

And upon hearing why we tether the weathering birds "Zees are birds in bondage!" Bondage? Really? Who even says that?