A Day for the Birds

[rejectomorph]

Before dawn, the acorn woodpecker was back, perched atop the telephone pole in front of my house, bowing and dancing, waking the other birds with his odd song. In the afternoon, I was awakened by blue jays screeching outside my window. In the evening, I noticed more crows cawing than usual. Then, there was a sudden burst of loud caws from a large number of crows somewhere up the street. I went out to see what the fuss was about, and saw about two dozen crows perched in two adjacent pine trees. Every few minutes, they would start their screeching, and it sounded as though there were dozens of them that I couldn't see. I watched the trees for a while. From time to time, two or three crows would take off, circle about, and return to the trees, always accompanied by an eruption of squawking.

Finally, there was a huge explosion of noise from the crows, and a great mass of them took off at once. The sky was full of wheeling shapes, and I could hear the flutter of their wings as well as their caws. There must have been close to a hundred of them swooping and darting about. About a dozen of the crows veered off from the mass and flew south, passing over my house, making an amazing amount of noise. The other birds returned to the trees. A few minutes later, most of that group took to the air and flew away to the north. Whatever the disturbance had been about, it was clearly over, at least for the moment.

About an hour later, I went outside again, and there was my old friend the acorn woodpecker, doing his dance atop the telephone pole in the gathering dusk, ending the day as it had begun. Birds are just born entertainers.

Comments

[hyperina.livejournal.com]

birds! wondrous creatures