Bird Day 4-28-12

From the Daily Stuff, our shop newsletter [edited]

Yesterday was quite a “bird” day for me. I left just before 1pm and as I headed across the bridge I saw a large bird soaring in circles. It just didn’t look right for a vulture and it happened to cross the highway where I managed to get a good look at it. Yup, bald eagle!!!!

Just past Christler Lake in the marsh just north of it is a tree that’s had an eagle nest for as long as I’ve lived out here. Last winter the tree snapped off about 10 feet below where the nest had been. That didn’t stop ‘em. They rebuilt, smaller, since it snapped at a fork. There was one bird in the air and one in the nest when I went by although on the way home I didn’t see anyone, although there was a lump that could have been the “home bird” hunkered down. [Note from 11/21 – the tree finally went down in 2016 or so….]

Driving through Seal Rock there were the usual seagulls and cormorants on the rocks, and I’m pretty sure at least one pelican. On the way home there were a lot of pelicans playing in the water beyond the rocks and about a dozen perched. We saw several hawks in the place that I call “Hawk Alley”. It’s just east of the Spirit Mountain area on a long straight section of road at the beginning of the farming area. I also saw one that Fawkes said was a crow, that I wasn’t sure wasn’t a seagull. I saw it at an odd angle and it seemed to have pointed wings, but then I saw it from right below and… crow….

It was on the way home after I dropped Fawkes off that I had the weirdest experience. Tempus had made a box for me of popcorn for snacking. Fawkes and I got into it, but there was quite a bit left and I was getting into the part where there are a lot of hard, partly popped kernels as I was coming up on Boiler Bay, so I decided to stop at the park, thinking to watch the waves and finish off the good parts. I had one heck of a time getting into a parking space, driving just a couple of miles per hour because of the seagulls. I didn’t want to run over one.When I had pulled up and put the car into park, I grabbed the box of popcorn and just then heard a thump and clicking on the windshield. I was startled to see 3 sets of beady eyes and gaping beaks perched on the windshield wipers! I quoted from Finding Nemo, “Yer rats with *wings* …” and, adding to my bemusement, the one in the middle bobbed his head as though saying yes….

There were feet on the car roof and birds in front to the side and all around….. I was a little creeped out but not too badly. I wouldn’t try to nap in that situation. I got wigged out by Hitchcock’s, The Birds, back when I was a kid….

I rolled the window down about 5 inches and threw a handful of the seedy bits into the parking lot… instant feather-ball… there’s must have been 20 of the things fighting over it. Wow…. I waited until the melee settled and then pulled out another handful, only this time as I stuck my hand out the window to toss it, something grabbed my knuckle! I thought for a bit that maybe I had just caught my knuckle in the window track or something, but it’s not possible at that angle. I checked, later. I’m pretty sure that a gull grabbed me! I pulled my hand back in, minus popcorn, and looked at my knuckle. It ached a little like it had been knocked or squashed, but other than being red, no marks…. I dunno….

So, next I tossed a handful up and the wind blew it onto the windshield and the 3 there gobbled it up…and I pulled out the camera. I kept clicking and tossing handfuls. I have to develop the pictures today. I hope I got some good ones, but they gobbled all the bits and stayed right there, even after I started to move the car, long after I ran out of popcorn.

One actually clung to the windshield wiper until I put the car into forward, then glided off onto the grass as I avoided seagulls while rolling slowly out of the parking lot.

Page Created and published 11/23/21 (C)M. Bartlett, originally published (C)2012 M. Bartlett
Last updated 11/23/21