re: Auburn Eagle flying at JH pics

I didn't know they had more than one.

I was a little underwhelmed by the eagle flight. I thought it would circle the whole stadium, when really it flew over MAYBE 4 sections. Just from the concourse to the field.

The stadium wasn't as loud as the Swamp, and not nearly as loud as Tiger Stadium. Part of that may be due to the smaller size, and the fact that it was a day game.

Also, our band is 10x better than yours. But very, very few schools have a band as good as the GBFTL.

Now the positives:

You all have a gorgeous campus. I really loved the small town feel of the entire city, and the fact that I could actually step off campus and not be in a warzone (hello, North Gates).

I stopped by my respective fraternity house and was impressed by the women. Love the accent.

Everyone was extremely hospitable, both before and after the game. Lots of free food, beer, and football discussion. We all hate Bama, so there is no reason not to get along.

You have one hell of a football team, one hell of a quarterback, and one hell of a coach (so it seems). I hope ya'll win out, and bring the SEC our fifth consecutive national championship. Hope to see the War Eagles/Tigers/Plainsmen on television in Glendale

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I was a little underwhelmed by the eagle flight. I thought it would circle the whole stadium, when really it flew over MAYBE 4 sections. Just from the concourse to the field.

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Yea there's two eagles and during games like yesterday that have the cable rigging for the skycam they use an older eagle that doesn't really circle the stadium to avoid the chances of a collision.

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Nova is a male golden eagle and he's really not very old.

The reason for the short flight is CBS sky-cam. ESPN's sky-cam can actually be removed from its mount on the cables and then they can move the cables VERY high (up to the top of the light posts). The flight has usually been pretty long (at least once around the stadium) for the ESPN games.

CBS, however, doesn't seem to have the capability to easily dismount their camera from the cables, thus the cable/cam is much lower, requiring almost a direct dive from the release point to the field.

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Have they ever had that problem occur or are they just being cautious? It seems like an eagle can see well enough to avoid cables

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Considering the trouble you can get in with the US government over mishandling eagles (federally protected, have to have USFWS license to keep one, etc.) I think it is just being over cautious.

They also do not fly the birds in bad weather or in high winds for fear they will get outside the seating bowl. Each one of the free flight birds has a radio tracking beacon attached to it on the off chance it gets out of a visual line of sight (during a midweek practice flight one flew out of the stadium and landed across the street on the baseball field) but there is so much activity in and around the stadium on gameday that they are scared of what might happen if the bird got outside of controlled situations. The outcome could be bad for the bird as well as anyone who tried to appraoch it (they do bite and the talons are very dangerous).

I remember that the first year ESPN had the skycam in JHS they didn't fly the bird because of the potential for something happening. The fans were quite pissed and I think the message from AU to ESPN was either figure out a way to get the cables up so we can fly or don't bring the skycam back.

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I wondered about that and did not realize you have two eagles.

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Auburn (or more precisely the Southern Raptor Center) actually has three eagles in permanent care. Tiger (War Eagle VI) is a 30 year old female golden eagle. If you ever came to Auburn prior to about 2001 or ever saw an Auburn football game home or road prior to 2000 or so Tiger was the eagle that lived in the big aiviary outside the stadium and stayed on the AU sidelines during games. She also started the free flight tradition in 2000 and flew in the opening ceremonies of the SLC Olympics in 2002. Tiger was found injured as a hatchling at Land Between the Lakes, Kentucky and brought to Auburn.

Nova (War Eagle VII) is a roughly seven year old male golden eagle hatched at the Montgomery Zoo. He took over as the face of the War Eagle a few years back. Spirit is the bald eagle.

I have heard that the determination of which bird (Spirit or Nova) flys pregame depends on the weather. Golden Eagles are much better suited for cooler weather, so Spirit will often fly the first few games until the summer heat breaks.

There is a reason that the War Eagle is by tradition a golden, but it is a long story and has less than a 5% chance of actually being true.

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big aiviary outside the stadium

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Do they still have one?

Some of those Auburn fans in that picture look like they're going to contract Avian flu from the eagle. Either that or they think they're field mice.

That is an awesome tradition. I have never been to a game at JHS, but I definitely will be trying to soon.

I wanna shoot that thing out of the air, maybe not a good idea in the stadium though