The Birds

        If I were to write a list of things that I find fascinating that very few people do, one of my top 5 would be the Birds.  I don't mean the Alfred Hitchcock movie and I don't mean the 1960's psychedelic band spelled The Byrds, but the cluster of black birds or Grackles that meet in specific locations every night at sunset during flocking season.  Ours like to meet on the high wires at the intersection of Broadway and County Road 90.  Where do yours meet? 

        Now I know these are what they call Pest Birds, and they cause numerous problems.  Just checking a webpage called Birdbusters told me that their droppings can cause structural damage to buildings along with the bacteria that can carry disease.  Not good.  

          And yet, when I see the hordes of black birds race from one wire to the next as if they are playing a game of tag, I can't help but roll down my car window and listen to the music.  I always look around at the cars around me to see if the other drivers are as mesmerized by the birds as I am.  I've never seen a single head out a window watching intently as I do.  

       I realize there are drawbacks to the birds, and for people who must work near and park their cars by the nesting sites indeed have reason to call them pests.  And after a trip downtown, where this two second video was taken, I also found out the hard way the downside to birds. If only my camera would have been rolling to catch me with my hand out the window, singing praises to these beautiful grackles and their unified chorus when one of those darlings pooped on my hand.  Just hit the target dead on.  I know that bird must have laughed at unsuspected me.  

      Not so darling now. 

     But I'll forgive this one grievance, and take my chances the next time I sit at the intersection to gawk at those grackles. If you see me, roll down your window.  It's a marvelous sound.