Clumsy Birds
If the forecast holds, this week will be marked by something very welcome…the arrival (FINALLY) of summertime weather! I don’t trust a forecast any further than I can throw one these days, and that’s not far, but in the case that this hold…rejoice!!
The last couple weeks though have been marked by something that the forecasts don’t seem to have in their models. I don’t know why. Seems like an event all it’s own worthy of a forecast or a play by play. I speak of the arrival of clumsy ass fledgling birds…literally everywhere. It is that time of season where the just barely big enoughs of all sorts are being either coaxed out to outright kicked out of their nests. And the process of watching them manage their new found wings in a world fraught with WTF’s is genuinely as comical as it is terrifying. I laugh out loud at each instance just before feeling the need to take them in and wrap them in a warm towel in an attempt to ease their fears. They are literally everywhere! And though most of this observation is done in from afar, I have had three close encounters.
The first set of clumsy birds that I encountered were sitting in the middle of the road, commiserating about their unexpected regrets around their new found freedom. They dreamed for weeks of being out of the nest, and now they were, but this being a bird thing is no joke! In hind sight I imagine one saying “They warned us, but not enough”. I was pummeling down the road and saw them up ahead. I slowed. They didn’t move. I slowed more. They looked at me befuddled. I slowed and rolled right up, now curious as to why these two were so ambiguous about saving their own lives when suddenly, they decided to do just that, in the most obtuse spectacle of bird flight I have ever seen! They may have even run into each other before zigzagging with minimal control in all sorts of directions. I laughed realizing what had just happened, noticing that they were, of course, plump and awkward looking adolescence with barely real feathers just trying, and almost failing, to make their way. Driving is easy by comparison, and I continued on my way as well.
Encounter number two was in the barn. I was going for a shovel. Two very coordinated robins darted out from an over hang with a spitfire fury. They left behind a round little learner who fell to the floor and looked up at me trembling with eyes wide, it’s fearful stare never leaving me, as if saying to itself “and what is THAT now?!?!”.
Oh the tumbling!! I don’t even know how to explain it.
“Don’t worry, little dude. I just need a shovel. Just watch out for the cats, okay?”. I get my shovel, I leave and I wonder what the bird equivalent to a sigh of relief might be.
In the most recent close encounter, I had decided to mow around the greenhouses and the barn. The general area of the farm really. Everything had grown way our of control (normal July situation) and the threat of rain clouds throughout the day made it risky to prep beds for the next day, so this was a good default task. To do so brought me close to the deer fence with a rather large tractor. I had to straddle the fence to get as close a cut as I could. I looked up ahead, and there they were, 3 young punk birds sitting at eye level on the fence, swaying in an effort to keep balance on the wire. They were looking at me. I was looking at them. I get closer. I can see their panic. As I got within a few feet, two of the three went for it! They launched themselves from the fence and fluttered off frantically with a maniacal lack of coordination. The third one, maybe feeling extra trapped because it was in the middle of the other two, stayed. With a face full of fear, it watched me come within a foot. I assume that I was so close at that point that it didn’t trust its own flying abilities to carry it safely elsewhere and not directly into my mouth. I passed by the poor bird, face to face, 65 horses of diesel rattling it’s poor little ears. It looked at me. I looked at it. It pooped. I apologized as I drove by. I would have liked to have known what happened next, but I had to keep paying attention to that fence, so I don’t know in what direction it ultimately, clumsily escaped to.