"Himself" Glaze Oil 8 x 8 If there is a bird season, it occurs in April. The air resonates with ringing calls which are less territorial than boastful, the field already having been won. My nomination for loudest and most distinctive would have to be given to the male cardinals who proclaim their fertility from the highest branches on the tallest trees throughout the neighbourhood.
This is the time of year when the birds remember having watched Hitchcock. YouTube is replete with hilarious episodes of large human beings terrified by birds one hundredth their weight. They flail, they stumble; when possible, they sprint. Someone in close vicinity inevitably chooses to record rather than rescue. And I have to say that I can understand the birds’ point of view. Here you are, trying to hatch a family and suddenly everyone and their dog invade the nursery. Only when a bird actually approaches the same weight class does the viewer start to feel uncomfortable: that poor man in Brampton who was being harassed by a turkey comes to mind, though I must say that the teenage golfer routed by a Canada Goose was pretty funny.
So I was actually feeling quite benign towards birds when I walked Theodore this week. But, I discovered, avian memory also includes Mel Brooks. I got bombed. And, darn it, I was wearing a newish coat which was mulberry rather than black and white, so many awkward conversations ensued on the long walk home.
Not that Jon and I are strangers to the stuff. Hand-raising both an orange-wing Amazon and a blue-and-gold macaw guarantees guano. But, for whatever reason, knowing the producer helps. And unlike the stealth bomber from above, Gussie and Bijou had the good manners to squat and lift their tails first so you had a chance to put them back on their perches in time. Good manners are also observable in the parent bird who disposes of each packet of home-grown fertilizer by flying it out of the nest. (Life Hack 586: Don't stand ten feet away from an active nest unless you have an umbrella.)
The epiphany of the week is not elevated but it is impassioned: “Dispensing private secretions from somewhere high in the sky on someone you’ve never even met is rude in the extreme. Neither a pooper nor a poopee be.”
I suppose it could have been worse. It might have been a 747.
This is the time of year when the birds remember having watched Hitchcock. YouTube is replete with hilarious episodes of large human beings terrified by birds one hundredth their weight. They flail, they stumble; when possible, they sprint. Someone in close vicinity inevitably chooses to record rather than rescue. And I have to say that I can understand the birds’ point of view. Here you are, trying to hatch a family and suddenly everyone and their dog invade the nursery. Only when a bird actually approaches the same weight class does the viewer start to feel uncomfortable: that poor man in Brampton who was being harassed by a turkey comes to mind, though I must say that the teenage golfer routed by a Canada Goose was pretty funny.
So I was actually feeling quite benign towards birds when I walked Theodore this week. But, I discovered, avian memory also includes Mel Brooks. I got bombed. And, darn it, I was wearing a newish coat which was mulberry rather than black and white, so many awkward conversations ensued on the long walk home.
Not that Jon and I are strangers to the stuff. Hand-raising both an orange-wing Amazon and a blue-and-gold macaw guarantees guano. But, for whatever reason, knowing the producer helps. And unlike the stealth bomber from above, Gussie and Bijou had the good manners to squat and lift their tails first so you had a chance to put them back on their perches in time. Good manners are also observable in the parent bird who disposes of each packet of home-grown fertilizer by flying it out of the nest. (Life Hack 586: Don't stand ten feet away from an active nest unless you have an umbrella.)
The epiphany of the week is not elevated but it is impassioned: “Dispensing private secretions from somewhere high in the sky on someone you’ve never even met is rude in the extreme. Neither a pooper nor a poopee be.”
I suppose it could have been worse. It might have been a 747.
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