🦅Eagles and ⛏️Dwarves

HLGStrider said:

I just don't see a tree capable of holding a BIG eagle nest.

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I think a Mallorn, which held up the talan of Celeborn and Galadriel, could cope with a simple (albeit large) eirie. There are trees alive today, even in the UK that are 1000 years old, with huge girths. I imagine some of the old trees of the forests of Middle-earth were older, thicker and taller. Is there an Ent around on these boards who can settle this dispute?

I still have problems with the math, Eld. An eagles nest can weigh over a ton. I remember reading the record somewhere and I think it was 10,000 pounds, but that was at least ten years ago, and in that ten years my brain may have tripled or doubled the amount. Then a small eagle has a wingspan of thirty feet as opposed to our eagles having a wingspan of what? Nine feet? If you assume their nests are proportionately the same size as the eagles in our world we are talking about 30,000 pounds here, minimum.

Did I do that math right?

From the Silmarillion: Chapter 2: Of Aulë and Yavanna

Then Yavanna was glad, and she stood up, reaching her arms towards the heavens, and she said: 'High shall climb the trees of Kementári, that the Eagles of the King may house therein!'
But Manwë rose also, and it seemed that he stood to such a height that his voice came down to Yavanna as from the paths of the winds.
'Nay,' he said, 'only the trees of Aulë will be tall enough. In the mountains the Eagles shall house, and hear the voices of those who call upon us. But in the forests shall walk the Shepherds of the Trees.'

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I think this is a reasonably clear answer to where they built their homes

Touche! Mountains it is, then; and the eagles have only one reason left to distrust the dwarves (though I remember the scene in Mirkwood in The Hobbit when they were a bit twang-happy with their bows and arrows, so maybe there are two reasons after all - just different ones).