I Ain't Afraid of No Birds...OK, Yes I Am

See Sponsors Below Ps 103/95: The Lord is kind & merciful...If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

I’m not afraid of them as a species, per say.
 
I mean, some of them are quite remarkable, actually.
 
Elegant, glorious, beautiful --- majestic, even.
 
Then there are the other cretins.
 
Sinister. Dirty. Creepy. Freaking scary to the core, yo.
 
I mean, let’s be real. You can call them Aves as a class but in the history of like, history, they have long been catalogued under the scariest of all groups: reptiles.
 
Shudder.
 
I speak, of course, of the warm-blooded, winged vertebrate that can swim, dive, jump, sing, lay eggs, star as the main course in countless types of delectable appetizers, snacks, and entrees and, drumroll please --- fly.
 
At the risk of evoking startling scenes from one of Alfred Hitchcock’s biggest hits, I speak, of course, of our fluttering friends: birds.
 
Apparently, there are three main types:

• Tweety birds, which are self-explanatory. Think sparrows, finches, robins… the cutie patootie little ones that make the sweet little cheep, cheep, cheeps. I love them.

 

• Ducky birds, which float on water. Doves, swans, etc. These are cool, for the most part…except for the ones that have tried to eat me. More later.

 

• Hawk-Like Birds a/k/a Birds of Prey. These are the bad butts of the bird biosphere, baby. Hawks, eagles, condors, falcons, owls, and osprey – I’m in awe and wonder. Period.

 
Then again, buzzards and vultures? Oh hex to the no. Ditto ravens. I know they are not technically birds of prey because they’re vegetarians like me --- but they’re terrifying, even Edgar Allen Poe thought so.
 
My relationship with birds is, well, complicated. On the one hand, other than the occasional bite of turkey on Thanksgiving, I’m one with the cattle and fowl, a’ight?
 
Then again, as a former runner (and now power walker), I have had MORE than my fair share of birds divebombing me. Jonathon Livingston seagull is the worst culprit.
 
I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to avoid being swooped up by some ginormous gull. Dude, exactly how small IS your brain? Hmm.
 
Clearly larger than the pigeon who landed in my garage recently. This guy was NOT at the top of his class at the cuckoo conservatory, yo.
 
So, he lands on the top of my garage door…only to absolutely not have any freaking clue how to fly back out the door.
 
Which is open. To the outside. With a gaping hole big enough to accommodate a small monster truck to pass beneath. It’s the garage door, for the love of Pete, you dolt.
 
Certainly not owl-worthy behavior. I digress.
 
Alas, this pudden-headed pigeon could NOT figure it out. To cajole him, I kept slowly closing and reopening the garage door just enough to get him to fly around.
 
Which he did. Straight into my face, if we had no screen door between the breezeway and this bird brain. NOT KIDDING.
 
He literally dove into my forehead, at which point I screamed and he dropped to the floor. Did I mention I had a Zoom call in four seconds?
 
I had no time to tend to the fallen fool so I went slowly out to the garage upon conclusion of my meeting an hour later…only to find, he had flown the coop!
 
Any-who, try as I might, I just can’t warm up to the thought of a feathered pet. Like, ever.
 
I think I’ll keep my bird-watching to the kind that requires extra-strength binoculars…from the inside window -- preferably the REAR one, Capisce?
 
Kimerer is a columnist who’s seen “The Birds” one too many times. Contact her about other types of potential pets via www.patriciakimerer.com 

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