Halloween night something flew in front of my face. It was not a bird, it was a bat. I jumped, but after a few seasons at the campground and Hess' Lodge I wasn't really afraid. There is still a cover-your-head response, however. Ah, the bat stories I will tell you one of these days.
But today it is about birds. I love birds. I am a novice bird-watcher. I have my binoculars in the car. I reference my Audubon volume regularly. I feed birds, I watch them, I chase the cat who stares at the bush where they nest. I listen for the first mating call of the cardinal around Ash Wednesday and the last song of the robins in September. Not hear the birds? Or even worse, not listen for them? How sad!
I remember well the first bald eagle I ever saw soaring above me. I stared in awe at his massive wingspread...the way he glided...the bright white of his head....wow. Words cannot describe the thrill of seeing the pair taking care of their young...the eaglets, looking like chubby turkeys, wobbling on the edge of the several-foot nest...Mom or Dad diving for fish, talons extended, so fast and magnificent.
How about the day we arrived in time to see the migration of a thousand or more songbirds? The parking lot was full of wings that day. Bluebirds and scarlet tanagers, indigo buntings, golden wings and black ones in the trees and on the ground. It was the first time and the last that I was so privileged. That very same day I saw a pileated woodpecker--a Woody Woodpecker type, only in a red-white-black color scheme instead of blue.
I've gotten to know some birds that return to our abode every year, maybe three or four years in a row. There was the grackle with a single white feather, the robin with his white face. Every couple of years white crowned sparrows stop by, passing through to refuel on their way where? To the tundra? There was a cardinal who would sit in the tree out front with the blue jay. Together they made quite a duet, but only when the cat was nearby. Amazing.
I watch the Canada geese. What parenting skills they have! They watch the goslings cross the street, standing patrol to keep them in line. At the beach, the babies had a hard time hopping up over the concrete wall. The adults guided the ones who couldn't make it to an easier access and nudged each one. I've seen them getting into formation, one group at a time, practicing their flight south. Sometimes I think the geese are the most intelligent birds on earth.
No, I have no fear of seagulls even after watching Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" at least a dozen times. I will sit at the breakwaters and listen to them laugh, or let them amuse me as they dive. What characters they are! I like to see them and their tern cousins pluck a fish from the lake, devour it in one gulp, go back for seconds.
My favorite waterbird is the great blue heron. I've watched them stalk their prey, be it fish or frog. Slowly, quietly...then snap! They eat their fill, tossing the remains on the shore for the raccoons to finish off. I see them in flight, their unmistakable silhouette, the big wings pumping steadily as they make their way back to the rookery. I've seen them, a hundred at a time, feeding the young, teaching them to fly. What a sight. Nature takes care of its own.
I've seen the birds cling to wood siding when a storm was approaching, feed off bugs and spiders and act a bit nuts before an earthquake. Birds are far more instinctive than we give them credit for being.
My Mom had a friend who was petrified of birds, and guess what? The birds would always hang on her window screens and fly into her house and her car. I remember being there when she called Mom from the closet. She was waiting for her husband to come home so he could chase the bird outdoors. On the other end of the spectrum is my friend Pat whose husband built a bird feeder that comes right into their den. The birds have become so tame that she can feed them and they don't fly away. Neither do the squirrels who find the buffet very convenient.
No, I am not afraid of birds, but I do startle when they bang into the window on occasion, or, like today, when the little twerp and a couple of his buddies insisted on hanging on our window screens.
Sorry, birdies, but that sent a chill.
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