Eagle Attack (page 2 of 4)

A Loud, Raucous Cry

Paragliding is not all scenic beauty and tranquillity, however. There are broken bones and fatalities. A Chinese paraglider training for the 2007 World Championship was sucked into a thunder cell and killed by a bolt of lightning. Moss herself had had her share of bruises. A year earlier, her canopy malfunctioned in strong winds, and she landed hanging upside down in an Australian gum tree.

Now she found a strong thermal and rode it, spiraling upward in a helix to 6,000 feet. The 77 cells in her canopy puffed with air, and her vario altimeter sounded off. A vario beeps rapidly in a rising pitch, what Moss calls a happy sound, when the wing is full and the glider is soaring up. It puts out a “sad” declining pitch when the glider is going down.

There are times in a strong thermal when, Moss says, it feels like the hand of God is yanking her upward. It gives her a head rush and sets her heart thumping. Moments like this remind her why she first got into paragliding.

She had always been an outdoors kind of girl, having grown up on an English farm and spent her time horseback riding and rock climbing. But it was a trip to the Alps, when she watched a paraglider soaring among the peaks, that inspired her to take up the sport.

Now, at 39, she’d become a full-time professional paraglider and earned her living through sponsorship, promotion and motivational speaking.

The sun was high, coming straight down over Moss’s shoulder. She could see her shadow rippling on the rocks below—not a good sign. She knew she was flying too low and began to search for a stronger thermal.

At about 8,000 feet, she heard the first screech—the loud, raucous cry of a wedge-tailed eagle. These raptors have been described as tigers of the air because they dominate their territory. They are Australia’s largest predatory birds, with wingspans of six feet. The bigger females can weigh as much as 12 pounds. Wedge-tails prey on other birds, reptiles and mammals such as rabbits. With razor-sharp talons, they can dive with enough force to kill young kangaroos.

Paragliders encounter any number of weather-related problems. But Moss had never experienced anything like this. She was worried because the eagle was making such a ruckus. The red-brown bird’s screech was bloodcurdling. She glanced around, wondering where it was. Suddenly she felt a hard thump behind her. Frightened, she glanced up and saw the top surface of the glider deform. The eagle had knocked the air out of some of the biggest cells in the canopy.

Moss now saw the eagle in front of her, about 30 feet away. It gave another deafening screech and veered off to the right, up and behind her, out of sight. Then, to her left, Moss spotted a second bird, its cry more threatening than its mate’s. The pair of eagles began circling her in a coordinated attack. First, one peeled off and swooped at her from behind, then the other one came in from a different angle.

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