A convocation of eagles soars

"Then, like a curtain parting, the main body of the Penobscot River opened before us," Robert Klose wrote in his CMS nature essay "A convocation of eagles" a couple of years back. "They were unmistakable: Mostly males, but a couple of females, too. Bald eagles, gliding and diving about the water. 'Have you ever seen such a large flock of bald eagles?' Anton asked. 'Flock?' I echoed. 'I think the word is "convocation." A convocation of eagles.'" Above, "ambassador for his species" Challenger "participates in an event marking the removal of the bald eagle from the endangered species list 28 June, 2007 at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC." (Getty Images photo)

"A convocation of eagles," the perfect totem for our Tea Party Clan," we twittered John Hawkins of Right Wing News this morning in response to Item #9 of his "10 Random Thoughts in 140 Characters Or Less" linked at Twitter:

In my book, there is no "leader" or "spokesman" for the Tea Party movement. It's a pack, not a herd.

Definitely not a herd, but a pack isn't quite right either. Think alpha dogs or wolves. That doesn't catch the spirit of us tea-partying "masses yearning to breathe free" of creeping statism. A convocation of eagles soars.

Update: "Just saw your latest post!!! Last time I looked, it wasn't there. AWESOME!!!" writes our imail correspondent:

We: I LOVE Challenger the Bald Eagle. Even though he is actually a welfare bird!

She: That is, of course, what the bloodless Left fears the most … the convocation of eagles.

We: He blew out of the family nest as an infant and was hand-raised by people. They say he thinks he's a human and can't fend for himself. Goes begging for food when they try to "release" him in the wild. So they brought him back into the fold and feed him in exchange for his ambassadorial career.

National service in exchange for government handouts. President Obama would love it!

Comments

[Connecticut Yankee]

How about a pride of lions? They belong to the same family (Felidae) as Tiny, after all.

[goomp]

This is what has happened to the eagles who made up the backbone of the Republic of the USA. Soft upbringing without needing a sense of responsibility for the outcome of one's welfare has led to eagles who don't know that they are responsible for their welfare, not some caretaker.

[retriever]

The encouraging thing is that the eagles were all but extinct, and now look what a comeback they have made. So a few become welfare scroungers but most of them are not....We had one last year over our suburban lot and I was quite alarmed as both cats were out , but it was after rabbit somewhere else I think.

[Teresa]

You're quite right.

"Herd" isn't a good word as it connotes a mass of beings standing about with no particular aim.

"Pack" implies there are many, but they do follow a particular leader.

After heading to dictionary.com to look at their thesaurus in relation to "herd" - I like "assemblage". I think that has the right feeling to it. (although I'm sure it has too many syllables for the libs to understand it)

Sadly I don't see a more concise single syllable word. Maybe we should make one up.

[Stoutcat]

Lovely, lovely!

Why am I not surprised that you read the Monitor?

[kimsch]

A few years ago we went to Davenport, Iowa in January. There were hundreds of bald eagles flying over the Mississippi river. It was absolutely beautiful.

Pod of whales, pride of lions, congregation of alligators, flight of birds, bellowing of bullfinches, army of caterpillars, a murder of crows or a storytelling of crows, a cast of falcons, a charm of finches, an implausibility of gnus, a party of jays, a lounge of lizards, a watch of nightingales, a parliament of owls, a pandemonium of parrots, a coterie of prairie dogs, a rhumba of rattlesnakes, an unkindness of ravens, a stubbornness of rhinoceroses, an exultation of skylarks, a streak of tigers, a knot of toads, a crossing of zebras.