Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Bird Brain
It’s been a little birdy around here lately. I’ve had a sighting of the Stow Lake herons, and I think I saw the peregrines climbing a thermal not far from my office. So, here’s a little more bird stuff. I know I had a bird story not too long ago but what the hell. It’s a whole biological family for god’s sake. They can handle a little narrative discontinuity.
It was several months ago that Kel told me about the flocks out by where she works. The area abuts the north bay, close enough to open water that all kinds of birds stumble by on their fluttery way to wherever birds go. Some of Kel’s colleagues know quite a bit about the birds, much more than I do – they recognize breeds I’ve barely heard of, woodtits and flummoxed flamewaders and all sorts like that; and they also understand birdy behaviors about which I know nothing, like aggression displays and kiting and flummoxed flamewading and such. These women are basically the repositories of all avian data, and I try to stay out of their way when it comes to such things. There are subjects about which I consider myself expert, and those about which I consider myself merely conversant; as to talking with Kel’s friends about birds, I try to keep my mouth shut and my ears open. These women know what they’re talking about, bird-wise, and there’s no reason for me to subject myself to superfluous embarrassment by foredoomed efforts to keep up with them.
Except, some months ago, Kel started telling me about these crazy flocks of birds that started showing up around where she works. As she described it, it happened every day just before dusk: hundreds and hundreds of little black birds would come together in these amazing formations, gathering from the four corners into huge masses that swerved and burbled and pulled like taffy in the air before recongealing into molten blobs, countless little black birds sucked into pulsating globular blots as if by their own gravitational opacity, separating mitotally into masses that parted and expanded and shifted and rejoined again in whole new constructions, ever evolving, ever moving….
That’s not exactly how she described it, I guess. She didn’t really even use words; she mostly used hand-gestures and widespread arms, but I thought I got the idea. “Little black birds, right?”
“Yeah, and they tower way up high, and then come right back into like a low flat thing, and they make this really weird sound….”
That nailed it for me. “Oh, starlings.”
I thought this was an easy one. However, Kel informed me that her friends had reached a different conclusion. “K & L say they’re robins.”
“Robins?,” I asked incredulously. “At dusk? In flocks? Black? What kind of robins are they thinking of?”
Kel didn’t know. All she knew was that her friends knew about such things, and they said they were robins. I didn’t argue - but I harbored a lingering uncertainty.
It was a few weeks later that the MIJ ran a story about the strangely viscous flocks above the 101 in San Rafael. Starlings, it announced. Vindication was mine. It tasted better than chicken, and it looked cool too.
More bird stuff later on. Now, a bit of fun. (fun to be provided by blog visitor.)(that’s you.)