Word: flocks
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...whack a hole in the edge of a wing; jet engines suck up birds like giant vacuum cleaners and suffer serious internal damage. One Dutch military pilot was almost killed when his jet inhaled five gulls on take-off and crashed into a barrier. Another crashed after vacuuming a flock of partridges. In 1959, 25% of Dutch military aircraft was out of action because of bird trouble...
...able to get through with photographic negatives (up to 20 frames of 35 mm. film in a plastic capsule) where modern communications are blacked out. The pigeons broke into journalism when the great 1923 earthquake turned Tokyo into a shambles, forced editors to rely on a small signal-corps flock. The birds soon earned the title "Hato-san."* As recently as 1959, when a typhoon smashed the industrial city of Nagoya, leaving telephone and wirephoto services dead, the Nagoya Chubu Nippon used its 200 birds to rush negatives from inundated suburbs...
...front-page scoop. Wings beat for Mainichi again when U.S. Interior Secretary Stewart Udall climbed Mount Fuji in 1961. Halfway to the summit, a cameraman released two pigeons which covered the 70 air miles to Tokyo just in time for the evening edition. The Mainichi flock scored its latest coo last October, flying in with pictures of a sailing race...
...intuitive understanding," he remembers with surprise. "I could actually tell what they were saying. I began to spend hours with them; they became brothers and sisters to me." He learned to imitate their sounds so well that he was accepted as a full-fledged member of the flock. Only when his voice changed did the chickens realize that he was not really one of them...
...think they are boasting or saying "Thank heaven that's over." He believes that it all goes back to the old days when wild hens laid eggs in hidden nests. After each delivery, the hen gave a loud cackle to regain contact with the rest of the flock...