Word: birde
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...perspective in the properly arranged facts . . . It is the messenger in the Greek tragedy who always gives a better commentary of the battle than the hero or his arms-bearer who shout bits of information around during the encounter. The newspaper cannot give the reader that bird's-eye view unless it is prepared to repeat every day a certain number of facts already reported earlier in the week...
...goony bird, a type of albatross, is an odd and charming creature which serves no useful purpose at all. It spends most of its life at sea and subsists entirely on a diet of fish-a fact which makes goonyburgers much too fishy for some human taste. Sailors gave it its name, because it is such a goony bird. One of the largest of all sea birds, it develops a wingspread of 7 ft.* It is capable of flying for many hours without resting. Like an airplane, it runs to get up flying speed, takes off into the wind, retracts...
...Navy air base, the goonies love to perch on the wings of aircraft-whether parked, landing or taking off. At times, they make Kamikaze dives at planes and manage to get sucked into propellers. This year, ten planes have been wrecked (no human casualties) by goony-bird action on Midway. With the advent of jet aircraft, the problem has become acute: a goony vacuumed into a forward induction vent could cause a jet to explode...
Last week the Department of Defense took official cognizance of the goony-bird problem, sent off a protest to the Fish & Wildlife Service. This week, as the November mating season drew near, Fish & Wildlife's Dr. Philip DuMont prepared to leave for Midway with plans for a three-phase attack. First, he will attempt a kind of planned parenthood, stealing and smashing goony eggs around the main airstrip. If this fails to discourage the goonies,* DuMont will try to make other, harmless parts of the atoll more alluring to goony birds, sprucing up the foliage, sanding over old runways...
...confused with the wingspread of the Air Force's "Goony Bird," the DC-3, which is 95 ft. *This tactic worked admirably during World War II in a similar situation on Ascension Island, involving sooty terns. Obviously convinced that one good tern deserves another, the birds multiplied so rapidly that they nearly took over Ascension, until the Air Transport Command began a program of egg-snatching...