Bird-brains

I love birds.  Well, sometimes it's actually a love-hate kind of thing.



I love their singing and their bright colors, like the Goldfinches we saw all summer bathing shamelessly in the open in our birdbath, or the Bluebirds that were eating berries off our pear tree a couple autumns ago.  I love sitting in a group of trees, listening to their varied songs, a cacophony of different choruses, yet all blending together in that beautiful chime of a new spring.  And doesn't everyone look for those first Robins of spring, with their fat red breasts puffed out with pride at being one of the first harbingers of the season?  They just crack me up when they're on the hunt, hopping around the yard, then they stop short and turn their heads to the side, looking (listening?) for that elusive worm.  How do they do it?  Then the peck and some sort of squirming thing is usually in the grasp of their beak.......or not.  Sometimes it's a miss.  

I love how, on a winter's day, they skip and cheep and chirp through the snow around the bird feeder, those in the feeder scattering the seed all around and OUT of the feeder.  Then the ground feeders, the smaller birds, the Sparrows, the Juncos (Snowbirds), Mourning Doves and the rest gobble them up.  I enjoyed how they all scattered, but not too far away, when I would go to fill the feeder, then swoop in almost as soon as I turned away to see what offerings I had left them.  Those Chickadees in their happy black caps, the Nuthatches daringly walking upside down on branches, obviously the acrobats of bird-dom, the Titmice with their feathers standing up on their heads, scandalized at the strangeness of their names.  Not mice or mouses, after all!

Sometimes birds are quite quarrelsome.  Oh, I expect it when a nest of young-in's is involved.  A nest is a bird's castle, after all.  And what mother or father would not protect its child, be it an egg or a ball of fuzz with a gaping beak?  I remember when I was a pre-teen (this is when my nephews would bring up covered wagons, but it was really late 60's), a pair of Barn Swallows took residence in our detached garage.  By the time the nestlings left home, the Swallows were wrecks from our constant invasions and we were in no better condition from being dived at regularly by the frantic parents who would miss our heads by, it seemed, centimeters.

But Sparrows at a feeder seem to waste so much time flying at one another, trying to keep territory, or take over territory, when every bird has pretty much the same seed everywhere in endless supply.  They'll fight over a twig on a bush, the branch of a tree, a spot on a wire --  they bear witness to the adage that the grass is always greener on the other side.  Even Robins, who seem to be above such things, will squabble a bit. The other day I saw three of them searching a bit of grass, hunting for prey, in a large clipped yard near my office.  Plenty for all, really, vast in bird terms.  Then one dived at another's feet, chasing him about two feet away.  The put-upon bird looked around and vented its frustration on the third, diving at THAT one's feet, sending it flying off a bit.  Then the first one was at it again, all thought of the hunt gone as all three began chasing each other around over a four foot square bit of ground in a 50 foot square field.  Surely there is a spiritual lesson there somewhere!

Mourning Doves strike me as kind of odd.  Their cry is mournful enough to deserve their name, to be sure, and my friend, Christine, has gotten down the skill of imitating them very well.  She will stand in our driveway and look at a lone dove on a wire and coo to it. It tilts its head and looks at her quizzically.  Christine coos a few more times and soon the dove answers and they have a little conversation going.  Soon, however, Christine must coo something offensive because the dove abruptly flies off with a final whir of wings and that whistling coo they make, in apparent indignation.  But I really find them odd -- the doves, not Christine -- because of their strange reluctance to fly.

I sometimes wonder if they're a little neurotic, which might be another reason why they are mournful Mourning Doves.  Nearly every day I will encounter one or two at least once while I'm driving to work, and where are they?  In the road.  Not NEXT to the road, not in a field kind of NEAR to the road, but IN the road.  Moreover, I know these birds are capable of flight, and I am bearing down on them at about 45 or 50 MPH but they start WALKING away.  I hit the brakes, of course, and hope they will fly.  No, their only acknowledgement of their danger is that they will begin to WALK FASTER, their heads jerking frantically in time......yet walking.  I'm nearly on top of them now, "STUPID BIRDS" I gasp, and finally they take wing, a slow and low flight, 6 inches from my bumper, and flit to the side of the road.  Sometimes I'm not sure if a tire has clipped a few feathers on the way past, but usually I look back and there are no little carcasses, so I know they get away.

Robins seem to have this same distaste for flying.  They walk an awful lot for a species that were given by God the wonderful gift of flight.  Maybe it's because God also gave them such teeny weeny little brains.  Their eensy weensy little brain pans must be about the size of a pencil eraser, after all.  I understand the walking when they're hunting worms.  But they walk entirely too much, in my opinion.  I've seen them walk right across a road, a two lane road, instead of flying.  Isn't that just a little daring for something that could be squished under one tire of a vehicle?  And, like the Mourning Dove, instead of flying when my car is coming, I get this fast walk, then a REALLY fast walk, with the head bob bob bobbin' along, along, but if I do hit it, there will be no more throbbin' that old sweet song in the Robin household tonight, let me tell you.  But no flying, sometimes not at all, and I've actually, I'm ashamed to stay, come to a NEAR STOP when there is no traffic.  I'm a sucker for wildlife and hate roadkill, though I've never cried over a possum or skunk.  I have been upset by cats, rabbits, squirrels, chippies (Chipmunks, to you), deer, etc. It just seems I shouldn't be so upset over animals when children lose their lives daily due to abuse or want of good food or health care.
                       But to continue =>

One day I came home from work and Christine looked at the front of my car and -- uh oh.  Sticking out of the front of the grill of my car were, I tell you no lie, two stiff bird feet.  MURDERESS.  At least I felt that way until we took the bird out and saw what kind it was.  It was a Robin.  Then I knew the truth.  Not murder, but SUICIDE.  I know this not because of the Robin's penchant for walking, but because of their other equally insane habit of swooping across the road at about a FOOT off the ground RIGHT IN FRONT of my car.  Are Robins, as walkers and low-flying swoopers, afraid of heights or something?

All of this makes one thing Jesus said in Scripture very clear to me.  Of COURSE he watches over Sparrows, even though they are small, a dime a dozen, and argumentative.  To watch over Mourning Doves and suicidal Robins would be MUCH too tiresome, even for Him.

Right, I'm no Bluebird, but Bluebirds don't mind sharing!