Reversing the Numbness

Saturday, June 14, 2008

Bird Droppings

I've been thinking a lot lately about birds dying mid-flight. Certainly there are birds that have heart attacks or other instantly immobilizing health problems while they're flying, but I can't say that I've ever seen one just drop out of the air. Wouldn't that be surprising? Imagine if you were just walking along, or maybe riding your motorcycle or something, and a hawk comes crashing down on your head.

That would be surprising.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

It does happen. Just as people have strokes while driving 18-wheelers, birds drop out of the sky. Death happens when you've got other plans, no matter which species you are, it seems. I even used that as a plot device in a play I wrote in high school once.

Why the sudden preoccupation with feathered death? Oh, and I have a surprise for you in the pictures on my latest post! ;)

SleekPelt said...

teoh: If I was in your play, Teoh, I'd want the roll of the dying bird. (You could write the part in if you didn't actually have a bird in the script.) And I'm not sure why I've been thinking of birds dropping out of the sky, but I've been watching for them. When I'm on my bike, though, it's smarter for me to watch for deer. I'm off to see your latest post ... now.

Clash said...

Sleek: I saw a young red tail hawk drop dead out of a tree two summers ago while mowing my yard. The poor little fellow fell straight down from high atop a Georgia pine. After the rash of West Nile virus infections in our area, I called the Game and Fish Department and they came out and took him. They called back several weeks later to confirm that the virus was the cause of death.

That is not as dramatic as falling from a maximum altitude while floating on a current of summer air, but still…..

I remember reading a book as a child and have kind of thought of birds as people ever since. Ever hear of it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Livingston_Seagull

Helen Mansfield said...

Jonathan Livingston Seagul is some of the worst 70's touchy-feely claptrap I ever read.

I hate birds.

Now bears that die while masterbating ... that's some funny sh*t.

Clash said...

hm: Maybe, but I had a different perspective at 12-years-old. I have not read it since, but remembered it for some reason.

Susan Chipley said...

I've never seen a bird die mid-flight, but I knocked the hell out of one with a golf ball on my last golfing expedition. (Actually, it was my only golfing expedition.) It didn't kill it, but the poor thing was stunned. I'm pretty sure it recovered.

Not so for the cardinal I nailed with my car the other day. I thought the poor thing made it. I looked in my rearview mirror and saw one red feather floating to the ground and no sight of the bird. Three days later, my mom told me I had a cardinal hanging underneath the front of my car. YIKES!

josh williams said...

Just this week I watched a hawk being chased by a small bird, since this was in the far distance I cannot tell you the small birds name but the hawk was a Coopers Hawk, best guess.
The little bird chased the hawk and the hawk tried to run or fly away from this angry little bird which I admit I could not identify but it sure was irritated. I suspect the hawk robbed its nest. Nature working, sad that the little bird was robbed of its young but cool that it stood up for herself and flew the hawk into the the skies of humiliation.

SleekPelt said...

clash: That's a crazy story -- I bet it sucked to witness. Hawks are pretty cool. I never read that book, but I remember Neil Diamond doing the music for the movie version. I watched a YouTube clip of it, and ... wow.

helen mansfield: Do bears really die while masturbating? There's something so ... there's something so Michael Hutchence about that.

dm: I bet it was the only birdie you got that day. (Ugh. Sorry.)

Unknown said...

Oh by the way did you get a birdie on that drive.