COMMENTARY BY IRV RIKON
I like birds. I'm not the sort of guy who
goes sloshing through muddy marshes or climbs breathlessly over improbable mountain peaks to see
them, but I enjoy watching and hearing them when they're in my habitat.
Take for example the small (and larger) birds that
dangle on electric wires stretching across public utility poles.
Especially towards dusk sometimes a dozen or more will perch closely together
at traffic intersections. I wonder: Are they actually watching the
traffic? What images do their bird brains interpret? Those passing
vehicles (as we see them) are they some sort of monster or simply a curiosity
to the birds? I find it amusing and quite amazing that they can adapt to a
human environment and make it part of their own.
When I lived in the urban centers of New Jersey and
New York, relatively few bird species were there. Sparrows were
ubiquitous. In spring, robins and blue jays would arrive. For the
most part, that was it. When I began to travel, I realized that pigeons
were in almost every urban center people were. Folks greeted them in mixed
fashion. Some noticed only their droppings. Others noted that if one
stood in place offering food, pigeons would eat out of one's hand, occasionally
sitting on one's head to do it.
Which reminds me of the old joke: A poor,
despondent fellow was outdoors praying when a bird's droppings fell on his
head. Desperately, he looked skyward: "Lord, see what I
mean? For other people that same bird sings!"
Then there's the mockingbird. When I first
came here, outside my bedroom window stood a tree. There a mockingbird decided
to make its home. Mockingbirds sing—day and night. This mockingbird
kept this human being awake. And so what I termed "The Mockingbird
War" began. I bought a water pistol and fired it when I viewed the
bird. I don't think I ever hit it, though I tried. But the bird also
perceived it as war: It recognized me and would try to attack me as I left
my apartment. Eventually the bird moved elsewhere, and the tree was taken
down for the reason it was too close to the building, and insects were climbing
up into the condos.
Mockingbirds deserve more than one paragraph. Scientists
have determined they can memorize over 600 different bird calls and return and
retain them. It's not just bird calls: A woman downstairs from my
condo had a cat. The bird would meow like a cat, tormenting the
feline. I've read of a couple who rented a small hotel room. The
hotel was being repaired, with machinery blasting all day. At night, the
pair hoped to get some rest. But no! A nearby mockingbird mimicked
the machine, and they couldn't sleep! Now, I love to listen to the
mockingbirds (when they're some distance away). They sing in springtime during
mating season and keep changing tunes. I marvel. I'm even quite
convinced some of the tunes mockingbirds sing are original.
Here we have a lot of crows. Crows are credited
with being the most intelligent of all birds. They're the only bird
species to be found on every continent, a testimony to their gift of
survival. Seldom to be seen alone (mockingbirds are loners), they come and
go in small flocks. They have good memories a sense of humor. Watch
them, and you'll see.
Sometimes a chicken can be detected, probably after
escaping from a coop. Some people don't recognize a "chicken" as
a bird, possibly because it looks different from most birds, but also they
think of "chicken" as dinner. Yet almost everyone likes to see
newborn chicks follow their mother around. The same is true of ducklings
and their moms.
We have several kinds of ducks in our area. "Florida
Weekly" newspaper recently made a faux pas. It had a cover story on
the "maligned" muscovy duck and on the next-to-last page a
"Highlights from local menus" that featured an entrée of "Seared
duck." I like all the ducks I see in the wild. Most will eat out of
your hand if you offer food. One day I was feeding a duck, and in its
excitement it stepped on my foot. No problem: I was wearing
shoes. But I wondered: Didn't the duck feel the tactile difference
between grass and shoe leather?
Water fowl of various types inhabit our
region. Visible near the ocean are pelicans. Someone, not I, long ago
wrote:
"A
wonderful bird is the pelican.
Its
bill can hold more than its belican (belly can)".
We've several species of water birds and wading
birds. Ibises are generally but not exclusively white. They have long
necks and feet, the feet so skinny I wonder how bones, muscles, blood vessels
and nerves can fit into such a narrow passageway. On land ibises are
amusing to watch. They usually band together in a small flock of a dozen
or so sweeping across lawns and eating yet staying so close to each other as
almost to seem a single unit. Sometimes they cross a street to get to
another lawn, but they walk, despite having big wings.
Speaking of long necks, I was once pinched by a
swan. I was lakeside, feeding a few ducks, and hadn't noticed it. But
apparently it nipped me because I wasn't feeding it. Swans are graceful
and lovely to look at in the water, yet they are known for having a
temper. (Among birds, the wingless African ostrich has the longest
neck. Its head can be nine feet above ground. Its big feet enable it
to run over 40 miles an hour.)
Parrots are occasionally to be seen in South Florida,
usually but not always as pets. Having many colors, they're beautiful to
human eyes, and they can be trained to speak human words (not so with
mockingbirds).
Also from time to time come birds of prey. We have
owls, ever interesting to see for the reason they, alone among bird species,
have eyes looking forward, straight ahead, not on the sides as other birds
do. Vultures occasionally pause to rest here when they fly north-south and
vice versa.
In my travels I've come upon penguins, another wingless bird. On
land they look like awkward young men dressed in formal attire going to a
prom. In the water they swim like fish, their wings having evolved into
flippers. I once saw a lone baby penguin in Argentina and spoke gently to
it. Then I bobbed my head from side to side. It imitated my
movements. Soon a park ranger approached and said I should not be doing
that. So I stopped. But I wondered: Had I taught the kid a new
language?
On one of Indonesia's islands, Laura and I viewed a large
caged bird of a type that was unfamiliar to us. When it viewed Laura, it
kept repeating her
name: "Lau-ruh! Lau-ruh! Lau-ruh!" That
experience was rather eerie. Was this the bird's natural call or, if one
believes in reincarnation, had they met in a former lifetime?
Finally, there were the birds not seen. In
Peru, among other tropical places, lives a bird called "blue-footed booby." On
average three feet in height, with a five-foot wingspan, it's an aquatic bird,
rather clumsy on land, and has blue feet. According to those who study
such matters, the bluer the feet of the male the more sexually attracted is the
female. But I've not seen one of these "live." Another bird I
hoped to see but didn't was the black condor, a species of eagle that can have
a wing span of fourteen feet! Perhaps it's best not to have encountered
that one.
Then there's the dodo bird:
"Dodo bird,
Dodo bird, was you da missing link?
Tell me,
tell me, I ain't heard how you become extinc'.
Dodo bird,
Dodo bird, I really sympathize.
I'll put
in my good word: You was the nicest guys."
I wrote that.
Irv Rikon
