BIRDIES

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