I don’t think there is a traveler out there whose heart wouldn’t race upon hearing the warning: “Prepare for an emergency landing.” So I can just imagine what passengers on board a flight from the United Kingdom to Portugal felt this weekend when they heard a “tremendous bang” after takeoff, and then the dreaded emergency landing warning.
According to news reports, the “bang” passengers heard wasn’t a hydraulics problem or a piece of the plane snapping off; rather it was the sound of a swarm of bees being sucked into an engine. The good news is that no one was injured in the incident. However, the same can’t be said for the estimated 30,000 bees that died in the plane’s engine. Upon inspecting the affected engine an airline official said it “looked as if someone had shaken 1,000 cans of Coke and sprayed them on to it.” It took reportedly took maintenance workers 11 hours to thoroughly clean the engine.
It isn’t a swarm of bees, but rather, a flock of birds that’s causing a stir in upstate New York. The advent of summer means it’s bird watching time in the Adirondacks. Avid bird watchers are gearing up for the Great Adirondack Birding Celebration, which takes place this weekend at the Adirondack Park Agency Visitor Interpretive Center in the town of Paul Smiths. The event features birding trips, lectures, workshops and the popular Teddy Roosevelt Birding Challenge.
If you can’t make it out this weekend consider attending the Adirondack Birding Festival in Hamilton County, which takes place June 8-10 and June 15-17. The festival includes seminars and outings.
Finally, the exhibit that’s making bird enthusiasts flutter—Wings Over the Adirondacks—opens on July 4 at the Wild Center Natural History Museum of the Adirondacks in Tupper Lake. The exhibit features a series of outdoor interconnected tree houses called Skytowers linked by hanging bridge. It also includes a 50-foot-long covered bridge called “Feeder Alley” that’s surrounded by feeding and nesting stations.
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