Saturday, January 8, 2011

Rhymes With Blitzkrieg

One second post-bird. Note mussed hair.
Dave stood rigid in the back yard. "The birds," he said. "They're after me."

His tone was flat, as though he had just divulged that the FBI had planted a chip in his brain.

I'm used to this kind of thing. It doesn't even disturb me anymore. Some of our newer neighbors, however, may not have had time to adjust. Many of them are still scarred by the afternoon we spent on the back porch when Dave was trying to teach me how to lip-fart. There was a lot of spraying, and correcting. I wasn't very good at it. It probably sounded like an argument between Sylvester the Cat and Joe Lieberman.

"Okay, honey," I said. "Let's just keep that to ourselves, okay?"

Then a bird dropped out of the sky and crashed beak-first into his forehead. I jumped back. "Holy shit!" I said. "What was that?"

Dave looked bleak and resigned. A second bird swooped down and strafed the front of his shirt. He trudged towards the laundry.

Many people believe that being pooped on by a bird is a sign of good luck. This is just how people are. You could be standing on the sidewalk and get your torso flattened by a runaway truck and as long as you've still got one lung going up and down, people will refer to you as lucky. If you then got coated with bird poop, well, might as well buy a lottery ticket: your good fortune knows no bounds.

There have been a number of stories in the news of birds dive-bombing people. One blackbird in San Francisco was so famous and reliable, people sat in lawn chairs across the street just to watch the blitzkrieg. Brought nachos, and everything. And a red-tailed hawk made news in Stonington, Connecticut, whacking people upside the head, even the ones that did not look like pigeons.

Then there was the mail carrier in Tulsa who was repeatedly harassed by a mockingbird. As a former mail carrier, I am surprised this even became an issue. Anyone who has been tailed all day by a chubby postal supervisor in polyester pants and a white belt carrying a clipboard should be able to take a mockingbird in stride. However the station manager reportedly did take the customary action and distributed the standard bad-dog form letter to all the patrons on the carrier's route, crossing out "dog" and inserting "mockingbird." (Dog letters are the official postal response to a threat by a vicious dog. The supervisor prints one out, puts it in an envelope and hands it to the carrier to deliver to the house with the vicious dog. To which the carrier says, "no, you.")

Among the useful tidbits I learned in my career was the observation that when you come upon a truly heroic pile of bird poop, no matter how curious it makes you, you're better off not looking up to see where it came from. You'd think this would be obvious, but it isn't. I once told that story to a group of friends one evening, and the very next day we were touring an ancient church and came upon a line of encrusted bird poop on the floor that stretched the width of the church like the net on a ping-pong table. Every single person looked straight up at the cable strung between the walls. Fortunately, nothing adverse happened, because Dave had lagged behind and drawn all the birds.

Last year, birds in Florida were affected by the harsh winter, which caused the palm berries to rot and ferment, adding a zing to the birds' diet. Birds were crashing into things, pooping inappropriately, staying up too late and singing "Danny Boy" into the wee hours. And bombing people.

Dave's tormentors are stone cold sober. Presumably he looks particularly threatening to nesting birds who are trying to protect their young, or who are trying to impress potential mates. I know I find it impressive. I could watch for hours. But for those who object to this kind of attention, there are several ways to deflect it. You can carry an open umbrella at all times. Or you could print out a large set of eyes and tape them to the back of your head. Neither of these solutions is likely to shine up Dave's reputation around here.

It isn't just birds. All flying things are attracted to Dave. We've used that to our advantage while picnicking, setting him off to the side a ways where he glumly ingests his hot dog while enveloped in a nimbus of mosquitoes. Perhaps he would be useful on a birding expedition as well. We can set him out in the field, throw away the spotting scopes and anticipate a close encounter. He's tall and has a big head. Maybe if he stands real still near the water, he might even accumulate an osprey nest.

But now that birds are falling out of the sky in rafts, in Arkansas, and Louisiana, and Sweden, I think it's best we just keep him inside. I'm as concerned about the birds as anybody. No one knows what's going on, and it can't be good. But if this kind of thing keeps up, my baby is going to be in for a serious denting.

17 comments:

  1. "It probably sounded like an argument between Sylvester the Cat and Joe Lieberman." - I'm glad my coffee had cooled off a little bit before I read that line else my nose may never have recovered.

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  2. Poor Dave! Maybe he has a built-in radar that attracts them, or repels them, or whatever. I think you're right to keep him inside.

    I laughed out loud many times in this one, Murr. You have outdone yourself, to my great enjoyment! :-)

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  3. I took my 15 year old sone with me down the street one day to pick mulberries from the three there. there was a mockingbird protecting it's nest nearby and kept swooping at my son. when he complained about it I pooh poohed it and him and then the bird swooped down and pecked him on the head. I laughed my ass off. He was not quite so amused telling me "Ma, it's not funny". He dislikes birds to this day.

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  4. A year or so ago I was sight seeing in Pioneer Courthouse Square with guests from Georgia. A very constipated pigeon let loose down the shirt front of one of my guests. I didn't feel lucky, I felt embarrassed. But, what can you do? Always carry a packet of wet wipes in your purse, that's what I do.

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  5. Thank you for alerting the world to this dastardly avian menace. I had no idea. Thank heavens that some public-spirited polluters in Arkansas have begun to strike back at the feathered fiends.

    Dave, and perhaps the world, should be grateful for the K/T extinction event. If you think pigeons are bad, just imagine if flying dinosaurs like pterodactyls were still around. We'd need steel-reinforced umbrellas to go outdoors, and a diarrhea attack from a sufficient altitude could cave in a car roof. As it is, Dave should probably avoid any zoo that displays ostriches. No telling what one of those things might do if it broke loose.

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  6. Now that you mention it, Dave has already had a terrible run-in with emus who wanted to see how he'd be as a soprano.

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  7. Many people believe that being pooped on by a bird is a sign of good luck.

    I didn't know that. We live near a big field and so the Canada Geese rain down luck on us and our car on a regular basis. Fortunately they make a lot of noise as they fly over which I particularly find lucky.

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  8. Every spring, the parking lot behind the museum where I work is guarded by red-winged blackbirds. The veteran employees are honor-bound to inform the newbies...or not.

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  9. Dave, just hold the cat out and see if there's an adjustment in the pecking order. Excerpt from "It's Hard to Shake Hands with a Snake." Setting: driving through a wildlife park.
    "The two pancake tortoises, out of East Africa, were interested in watching the lazy lions sunning themselves on rocky outcroppings not too different from the tortoises’ home habitat; but an ostrich we hadn’t noticed was interested in the tortoises. While Nitchkin’s mate, Willow, and I studied the lions out the driver’s side, the bird found an open window on the passengers’ side. From behind us, the ostrich thrust her head and the whole of her trunk-like neck into the car. Caught by surprise, I turned and stared at those fiery eyes and that impressive bill, as long as the whole tortoise and inches from my face. She was stretching toward Willow.
    "I might have been wrong; the ostrich might have been as curious about the strangely flat tortoise as the tortoise was curious about the wild animals around us, but I did not interpret this approach as a friendly gesture. Ostriches sometimes eat lizards, after all. Why not reptiles bearing the most flat and fragile shells of tortoisedom? As I stretched, too, holding Willow down beside the brake pedal, as far away as possible from that formidable bill still so close to my face, I felt the pressure of predation and rued the idiocy of forgetting to shut the window. Later I learned that, yes, ostriches bite—cameras, windows, hands, heads—especially those half-wild ostriches that people feed at ostrich farms and wildlife parks. You Tube is full of bite sequences such as 'Ostrich bite hurts ALOT.'"

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  10. It's nice that Dave is down with being an object of others entertainment, but perhaps a nice helmet for outdoor wearing would be in order. Maybe one from the Philadephia Eagles.

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  11. I think Dave's got the right idea - if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Make them his friends. (It appears he has, anyway.) I think the large head-nest works quite well for him. In any event, it's a handsome wardrobe addition.
    He's a good sport, that Dave.

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  12. Damn, you're funny.

    This also brought to mind the Dick Van Dyke episode in which a woodpecker attacks Ritchie every time he leaves the house. Not even the talented writers of that show thought of a bird's nest hat, contenting themselves with using a pith helmet.

    Heh, heh. "Pith helmet."

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  13. I think that this is really all about Dave having a mid-life crisis and deciding that he's going to get in touch with his inner Tippi Hedren.

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  14. Dave's problem seems a little unusual, although I admit I was once attacked by a large, black crow. It scared the metaphorical shit out of me, probably because I had Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" on my mind, but then I realized the bird was simply protecting its nearby nest and not trying to let me know that I was about to die. After that, I avoided the tree it had chosen for its home and we both lived in perfect harmony. Which reminds me, I could really use a Coke right about now.

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  15. Dave's problem seems a little unusual, although I admit I was once attacked by a large, black crow. It scared the metaphorical shit out of me, probably because I had Edgar Allen Poe's "The Raven" on my mind, but then I realized the bird was simply protecting its nearby nest and not trying to let me know that I was about to die. After that, I avoided the tree it had chosen for its home and we both lived in perfect harmony. Which reminds me, I could really use a Coke right about now.

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  16. I think that this is really all about Dave having a mid-life crisis and deciding that he's going to get in touch with his inner Tippi Hedren.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Dave, just hold the cat out and see if there's an adjustment in the pecking order. Excerpt from "It's Hard to Shake Hands with a Snake." Setting: driving through a wildlife park.
    "The two pancake tortoises, out of East Africa, were interested in watching the lazy lions sunning themselves on rocky outcroppings not too different from the tortoises’ home habitat; but an ostrich we hadn’t noticed was interested in the tortoises. While Nitchkin’s mate, Willow, and I studied the lions out the driver’s side, the bird found an open window on the passengers’ side. From behind us, the ostrich thrust her head and the whole of her trunk-like neck into the car. Caught by surprise, I turned and stared at those fiery eyes and that impressive bill, as long as the whole tortoise and inches from my face. She was stretching toward Willow.
    "I might have been wrong; the ostrich might have been as curious about the strangely flat tortoise as the tortoise was curious about the wild animals around us, but I did not interpret this approach as a friendly gesture. Ostriches sometimes eat lizards, after all. Why not reptiles bearing the most flat and fragile shells of tortoisedom? As I stretched, too, holding Willow down beside the brake pedal, as far away as possible from that formidable bill still so close to my face, I felt the pressure of predation and rued the idiocy of forgetting to shut the window. Later I learned that, yes, ostriches bite—cameras, windows, hands, heads—especially those half-wild ostriches that people feed at ostrich farms and wildlife parks. You Tube is full of bite sequences such as 'Ostrich bite hurts ALOT.'"

    ReplyDelete