An Event Creator

At twenty-seven inches tall and dressed in his sleek-fitting evening attire, the adeli penguin looks like a million bucks. A good day for a penguin is a day of “non-event.” It is a day where he has eaten a few fish, slid around on his belly to conserve resources, and has not been eaten himself! A good day for a penguin is one where he is able to wipe his brow at the end of it and proclaim, “I made it.”

Five thousand feet above the surface of the planet is another bird. The North American bald eagle is able to reach speeds of up to sixty-five miles per hour on the flat. His keen eyesight enables him to focus on two different items at the same time. When he descends upon his prey, he can reach speeds of up to 155 miles per hour, and he latches onto his prey with talons that exert up to 1,000 pounds of pressure per square inch. Eagles were not created to “just make it through the day.” A good day for an eagle is not a day where he has avoided the event, but rather, created the event. His idea of a good day is when the families of rodents, rabbits, and other small prey are left talking about the impact of the eagle they had encountered that day.