Two things.
We have these big windows that reflect the sky. I’ve thought about putting those silhouette dealies on the glass, so birds won’t run into the glass. But so far, only a couple of birds have hit a window and then only glancingly.
One little sparrow decided to battle his image for part of an afternoon, but I figure he has his own issues.
But Halloween morning, I was sitting at my desk behind one of these big windows, when a bird flew straight at my face and slammed into the glass. I yelped at the shock, then sat stunned as the Cooper’s hawk that had clearly been on the bird’s tail drew up and landed on the bird feeder with a few hops to adjust. He assessed the situation, then flew off. Below me, the little bird twitched. I hoped it might recover, but the arrow of liquid where it’s bowels had released pointed to a different ending.
It had broken its neck instantly, panicked to escape the hawk.
The irony to me is that it died anyway. And the hawk didn’t get its meal either.
When we picked up our rental car in California, the week before last, I commented to my colleague that, since our car was in slot B-17, that now the song would be stuck in my head.
She, of course, had no idea what I was talking about.
So I had to sing it for her. “Please, Mr., please… don’t play B-17, it was our song, it was his song, now it’s oohhhhhh-ver.” She’d never heard it. I had no idea when I’d heard it last.
Then, tonight, on my third week of business travel in a row, I’m in the grocery store at 10 o’clock at night for a pit stop with my other colleague (okay, we were buying wine) in our journey from the Lansing airport to the Hampton Inn that will be our home for the week. Guess what song comes on the background music. And I knew what it was from the opening measures.
“I don’t ehhhh-vah want to hear that song again….”
It was just too bizarre.
What does it all mean? Nothing, no doubt. We flee one thing, only to crash into another. We remember an old song and it chases us to another place and finds us again.
So be it.
Sometimes it's a jolt for me to be reminded that you are a biologist by education. I think that most of us didn't even KNOW birds have bowels!
Anyway, I find it so sad when we discover a body of a crashed bird beneath one of our windows. Now I'm beginning to shoo our resident hawk away because I don't feel it's fair to lure birds to our feeders just so he can have his choice of entrees. There's plenty of wildlife out there. Let him scrounge.