harrierman🇧🇼

What is life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare.
Owl and Raptor ringer.
It is what it is. Not here to please anyone. Who/me

[Iceni Bird Monitoring Group @BirdIceni]

A combined group from Iceni and Natural England spent time in Hampshire liaising with Game Conservancy Wildlife Trust research staff learning the techniques of fitting telemetry tags to Oystercatchers to monitor their survival and forging activity. 1/3

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

An enjoyable few days down in #Hampshire learning how to tag day old #Oystercatcher chicks to study #avian and #mammalian predation. Thanks to @GWCT for the training. Now to transfer new found skills to #Norfolk

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

Nice cup of coffee, but why are they never hot enough?

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

#MarshHarrier and #barnowl having a good year after last year's disastrous one. Both checked under respective licenses

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

@Coral 20

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

For 8 years, people at Morgan Stanley called Rick Rescorla paranoid.

Then September 11th proved he was right.

Rick was a decorated Vietnam veteran who became Head of Security for Morgan Stanley at the World Trade Center.

In 1990, he walked through the underground parking garage and quietly warned:

“Someone could park a truck bomb here and bring this whole place down.”

Executives dismissed the concern as excessive.

Then came February 26, 1993.

A truck bomb exploded in the World Trade Center parking garage almost exactly where Rick predicted.

Six people died.
Over 1,000 were injured.

The evacuation was chaos.

Rick watched terrified employees stumble through smoke-filled stairwells for hours with no real preparation.

Afterward, he made a decision.

Morgan Stanley employees would practice evacuation drills every three months.

All 2,700 of them.

No exceptions.

People hated it.

The company occupied floors 44 through 74 of the South Tower.

That’s a very long walk down when you have meetings, deadlines, and places to be.

Employees complained constantly.

“He’s obsessed.”
“This is unnecessary.”
“He’s paranoid.”

Rick didn’t care.

He timed every evacuation.
Studied bottlenecks.
Adjusted routes.
Ran the drills again.

And during the drills, he sang old military songs to keep people calm while they descended the stairwells.

For 8 years, people rolled their eyes at him.

Then came September 11, 2001.

8:46 a.m.

The North Tower was hit.

An announcement in the South Tower told people to remain at their desks because the building was secure.

Rick ignored it.

He grabbed a bullhorn and ordered:

“Everyone out. Now.”

Then he personally directed employees through the stairwells floor by floor.

And he sang.

The same songs people once mocked during drills suddenly became the sound keeping frightened people calm as they escaped.

At 9:03 a.m., the South Tower was struck.

Rick was still inside helping people evacuate.

His coworkers begged him to leave.

He refused.

“As soon as everyone’s out.”

By 9:45 a.m., nearly all 2,700 Morgan Stanley employees had escaped safely.

Rick could have saved himself.

Instead, he turned around and went back up.

Searching for anyone left behind.

Before the tower collapsed, he called his wife one final time.

“If something happens to me, I want you to know you made my life.”

At 9:59 a.m., the South Tower collapsed with Rick still inside.

Final numbers:

Morgan Stanley employees inside that morning:
~2,700

Survived:
~2,687

Most of the 13 lost were in the direct impact zone where no evacuation could have reached them in time.

Rick Rescorla died alongside members of his security team while trying to save others.

But here’s the important part:

Rick didn’t save those people on September 11th.

He saved them for 8 years before it happened.

He saved them every time he forced another evacuation drill.
Every time people mocked him.
Every time he prepared anyway.

The coworkers who thought he was paranoid went home to their families because one man refused to stop taking danger seriously.

Sometimes preparation looks ridiculous until the day it looks like survival.

And sometimes the people everyone dismisses are the only ones truly paying attention.

Rick Rescorla died in the stairwell doing what he had trained for nearly a decade.

And thousands of ordinary lives continued because he never stopped preparing for the day nobody believed would come.

[Clive Ward @CliveWardauthor]

I could never really be friends with or spend any personal time with someone who doesn't immediately know the answer to this question. Sorry, but there it is. Not negotiable.

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

@acorncarver @B_Strawbridge Other ones alright if you're anti Trump (have no opinions either way as I can't change anything, although he's definitely "unique") or a cat lover (and I most definitely am not)

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

@acorncarver FK ringed and tagged near Cantley June 2025 from a brood of 4. Her 3 siblings 2 ♂️ and 1 ♀️. FP ringed nr Carlton a day later, 1 of 3 and his siblings 1 of each. Thank you 😊

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

@acorncarver Funny how you can go off people! #coys 🤣🤣

[Steven Barrett @SBarrettBar]

Mainland Europe is gone

It is pure glass now

North Africa has been incinerated

The Mediterranean sea is no more.

Safe yourselves x

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

Got there eventually

#Worldle #1585 (25.05.2026) 6/6 (100%)
🔥 Current Win Streak: 1 days
🟩⬜⬜⬜⬜⬅️
🟩🟨⬜⬜⬜⬅️
🟩🟩🟨⬜⬜⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜⬅️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟨➡️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉

https://t.co/FRQjHenk3h

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

She's gonna be a big gal

"CPP | Live Cams" https://t.co/fMbhV4e1VR

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

@Norf_Viz_Mig Thought I saw one over Cromer on Monday pm

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

And so it begins. This week has mainly been #peregrine ringing, #Goshawk monitoring and other survey work with #turtledove, #Nightjar, #woodcock, #MarshHarrier and #stonecurlew recorded under respective licencing

[Handre @Handre]

The Soviet whaling fleet killed 180,000 whales between 1948 and 1973, delivering rotten carcasses that nobody wanted to eat. Soviet citizens had zero demand for whale meat. The ships hunted anyway, fulfilling quotas handed down from central planners who counted tons of dead whale as economic output.

This was bureaucratic box-checking that nearly drove multiple whale species to extinction. Soviet whalers targeted endangered right whales and humpbacks specifically because they were larger, helping them hit tonnage targets faster. The meat rotted on deck during long voyages back to port, where officials dutifully recorded the numbers and sent reports to Moscow declaring another successful harvest.

Central planners measured success in tons harvested, not consumer satisfaction or long-term sustainability. Factory managers got promoted for exceeding whale quotas, regardless of whether anyone actually wanted whale meat (they didn't). The feedback mechanism that normally connects production to human needs had been severed entirely. When bureaucrats replace market prices with administrative targets, you get mass slaughter with zero purpose.

You still see this today every time politicians promise to "create jobs" in industries that lose money year after year. When government agencies measure their success by dollars spent rather than problems solved. When university administrators chase enrollment numbers instead of student outcomes.

Remove the profit motive and price signals, and you get 180,000 dead whales rotting in the sun while commissars celebrate meeting their targets. You don't get rational planning.

Socialism is fundamentally destructive to the environment and inevitably leads to ecological disasters.

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

Team work makes it all happen

https://t.co/MZ4UtybV9c

[harrierman🇧🇼 @HarriermanPhil]

But, but......

"The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now so large it is home to dozens of species of life, prompting debate over cleanup efforts - https://t.co/HCSqET0t0i" https://t.co/HtjdgYPVW8

[Darran Hill @Hill_Darran]

The only message you can take from this as a serving officer?
Don’t bother. The public get the policing it deserves.
Thinking of joining? Don’t.
Sad times, but inevitable.

https://t.co/vWnowGuYbi