Pfeilstorch

109 gyomu 33 8/16/2025, 9:07:49 AM en.wikipedia.org ↗

Comments (33)

EvanAnderson · 2h ago

I saw a Canada goose with an arrow through its neck frequenting the retention pond near a community college where I worked. The arrow was almost parallel to the ground in orientation. I called a local wildlife rescue but never heard if they trapped the bird. Hopefully they did and were able to remove the arrow. I was surprised how well the bird was getting around.

baxter001 · 2h ago

> I was surprised how well the bird was getting around.

SurvivorBias.png except it's a silhouette of a goose with numerous red arrows drawn over it.

dvh · 2h ago

The interesting part is that before that people thought birds are changing form in winter or hibernate.

gyomu · 2h ago

Yes, that's also what caught my attention. I landed on this article by way of reading about barnacles, and that the Barnacle Goose is named as such because it was thought it was born from barnacles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnacle_goose

Maybe it's hard for us to realize how filled with superstition the world used to be; and how so little was understood and in such minuscule proportions compared to today, such that most anything could appear plausible under the right circumstances.

akk0 · 1h ago

The false hypotheses of the past become the superstitions of the future. I can see how "birds hatch from barnacles" and "birds travel thousands of kilometers twice a year" mightve once sounded equally plausible, especially given that you can't exactly follow a migrating bird very far.

procgen · 2h ago

Reminds me of the theory that insects like flies spontaneously emerge from decaying matter and dung. I wonder what magical thoughts we're taking for granted today.

xdennis · 2h ago

The draft/promaja. In Eastern Europe people genuinely think that if you leave two windows open you'll get various diseases like cold/flu/headache/ear pain/etc.

I've tried to understand this belief. So if you stand outside and it's windy, that's perfectly fine. But if you're inside, and you open two windows, that's deadly, even if there's no draft to be felt. I think some people think it's even more deadly if you can't feel it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/skeptic/comments/1csstle/draft_myth...

LudwigNagasena · 32m ago

Being cold weakens your immune system. Draft air increases heat loss. There is nothing complex to understand. Outside you would wear a scarf or other appropriate clothing to not feel cold.

knackundback · 4m ago

That‘s one of the biggest health myths around. Cold weather does NOT weaken your immune system AT ALL (except if you‘re actually hypothermic, which is very different from just feeling uncomfortable). It’s the CONDITIONS that RESULT from cold weather that actually cause those infections to ramp up in winter (think more people staying inside in enclosed spaces).

otras · 1h ago

Sounds like the same energy as fan death in South Korea: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

akk0 · 1h ago

I don't know about colds and stuff, but I have a knee that's very sensitive and starts hurting from drafts (fans and AC blowing also triggers it, and cold and humidity makes it worse also, so it fluctuates quite a bit through the year). Being outside on a windy day doesn't have this effect.

portaouflop · 2h ago

“We are building thinking machines”

hnlmorg · 1h ago

> I wonder what magical thoughts we're taking for granted today.

I can think of a few:

- LLMs are intelligent

- fats are the cause of obesity and not sugar

- Elon Musk is a genius and not just an obnoxious narcissist who got lucky with the startup lottery

- companies can be trusted to self regulate

- asylum seekers risk their lives because they’re jealous of western society and not because the west meddled so much with the politics of developing counties that those countries are now war torn and people are literally fleeing for their life

- believing in the whisperings of an imaginary deity make you a better leader rather than a crackpot

- it’s ok for presidents to lie and commit crimes

- free speech only matters if you agree with the narrative

- people who support left wing politics are a fundamentally different species to people who support right wing politics / There can only be one political opinion and anyone who opposes it is “evil”

…I could go on

iafiaf · 45m ago

I "smell" a bias there. Keep your politics out please.

hnlmorg · 29m ago

Your sense of smell is off then.

I literally made a comment saying “everyone is the same regardless of political opinion”

troupo · 1h ago

> Elon Musk is a genius and not just an obnoxious narcissist who got lucky with the startup lottery

There's an undeniable truth that Musk had quite a unique talent: he could find and fund people to run outrageous startups and make them work.

The moment he tries to run anything himself, or have a say in anything, it turns out to be shit. And this has become worse over the past several years.

hermitcrab · 2h ago

"Aristotle declared that summer Redstarts annually transform themselves into Robins in winter."

https://engines.egr.uh.edu/episode/2228

ForceBru · 2h ago

Crazy stuff: "white storks that are injured by an arrow or spear while wintering in Africa and return to Europe with the projectile stuck in their bodies", they apparently helped people in 1822 learn that birds migrate?! Was it not widely known before that? Cool!

mapmeld · 1h ago

Some people thought that the birds flew to the moon in the winter!

homebrewer · 3h ago

Everyone immediately thought about the famous story of returning damaged airplanes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias#Military

k__ · 2h ago

"some theories of the time held that they turned into other kinds of birds, mice, or hibernated underwater"

What did people in Africa think? I mean, they also saw birds disappearing.

a3w · 1h ago

That "birds hibernated on the moon" is even stranger, unless you are into 18xx sci-fi.

fluorinerocket · 29m ago

That's a lot of extra drag for the poor stork, besides the pain of having an arrow in its neck

hermitcrab · 2h ago

IIRC there is an example in the Pitt-Rivers museum in Oxford, UK. The museum is packed full of amazing artefacts borrowed (ahem) from around the world and is well worth a visit:

https://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/

amelius · 2h ago

Wondering what the bird must have been thinking.

jstummbillig · 2h ago

I am injured, this is not great?

Retr0id · 2h ago

oof ouch my neck

api · 3h ago

Something funny about the first Pfeilstorch being found near Klutz. Sounds Monty Python-ish.

fnordian_slip · 3h ago

I thought of the discworld.

https://wiki.lspace.org/Klotz

a3w · 1h ago

I think the german names of Überwald are not just german sounding, but the author really meant it: A Klotz is a brick or block.

uhhhd · 2h ago

Does this hurt the bird?

hermitcrab · 2h ago

I expect it feels the same way about having an arrow through its throat as you would.

rikafurude21 · 3h ago

"The africans learned to aim for the body and the Pfeilstorch went extinct"

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Pfeilstorch

Comments (33)