Sunday 2 October 2011

Rugby in Nature?

I like rugby. I don't follow any teams, mostly because I am lazy and cannot be bothered to keep up with it, though I do follow England during major competitions. As anyone who has not been living in a hole should know, the rugby world cup is currently being played in New Zealand and the knock-out stages begin this coming weekend. Due to the time difference I've had some early mornings in order to watch all of the England matches and even got up extra early to watch one of the Wales games (don't tell my ex this, but my second favourite team of the home nations is Wales, followed by Ireland). On Saturday, England will be playing France and will have their work cut out for them, as England are not playing to a high standard and could be outplayed by France if they play well (they haven't so far, but who knows?).

A couple of days ago I caught a bit of Life on the telly, which is a David Attenborough documentary from a couple of years ago. This particular episode was about birds and has some astonishing footage (look out for the bird which drops bones from a height in order to smash them and then devour them). The clip I want to share shows the red-billed tropicbird and frigate birds (man o' war birds). The tropicbirds have to run the gauntlet, trying to get their food back to their nests, whilst frigate birds attack them, trying to force them to let go of their prizes. It reminded me of rugby, watching players tackle each other for the ball. Obviously the differences are plentiful, as birds cannot form scrums in the air, but just watch this amazing clip:

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