It’s a bird, it’s a plane … nope, it’s a bird
Don’t look up; you might get hit by a falling bird.
A spate of bird deaths has some people saying it’s a sign of the
apocalypse, but Hollywood tells us that the world is not going to
end until 2012. There’s got to be another reason.
This week in Healdsburg, north of San Francisco, a flock of 100
starlings was found dead near Hwy. 101. A Department of Fish and
Game spokesman said the birds may have crashed into a
tractor-trailer. Um, OK. I never heard that one before.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane … nope, it’s a bird
Don’t look up; you might get hit by a falling bird.
A spate of bird deaths has some people saying it’s a sign of the apocalypse, but Hollywood tells us that the world is not going to end until 2012. There’s got to be another reason.
This week in Healdsburg, north of San Francisco, a flock of 100 starlings was found dead near Hwy. 101. A Department of Fish and Game spokesman said the birds may have crashed into a tractor-trailer. Um, OK. I never heard that one before.
In Northern Italy, more than 700 dead turtle doves – and apparently no French hens – were found dead last weekend. No word on whether they dive-bombed a semi.
In Arkansas on New Year’s Eve, thousands of blackbirds seemingly fell from the sky, with similar reports coming in from Tennessee, Louisiana and Kentucky.
According to an Associated Press article, mass wildlife deaths are not uncommon, particularly among blackbirds, of which there are up to 200 million in the U.S.
That is reassuring, since I like birds, and I don’t particularly want them dropping on my head when I walk out to get the newspaper.
Not being a scientist, my only assumption is that the bird deaths are just a random act of nature. It’s a thinning of the flock; the completion of the circle of life; or the end of the world as we know it. I don’t like the latter choice, so let’s forget that one.
Perhaps as a karmic twist to my internal debate over the meaning of birds going bye-bye, I was shaken awake Wednesday morning by the 4.5-magnitude earthquake that hit San Benito County.
My first thought – as always – was, will this be “the one?” My second thought was, “Seriously? The one night I get to bed at a reasonable time and I’m jarred awake after midnight by what felt like a freight train running into my house?”
My third thought was, “Maybe I shouldn’t have questioned the intentions of Mother Nature in the column I was working on just before going to bed.”
And, since I was now wide awake, I even had a fourth thought (way too much thinking in the middle of the night): “What if that noise that shook me awake was a giant flock of birds crashing into my house?”
Perhaps my doubt about the apocalyptic nature of the avian deaths was coming home to roost, if you will, by the event happening to me. Was I wrong to chalk up the bird deaths to the vagaries of nature?
Since I’m a big fan of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic movie, “The Birds,” I know better than to trust the quietness and open my door to check on what the birds gathering around my house are doing.
At 1 in the morning, I was not going to go outside to see if a bunch of crows fell from the sky and landed on my roof. I did get up to check on my teenage boys, who did not feel or hear the earthquake (or the bird attack) and were sleeping like logs.
Thankfully, when the sun rose and I turned on the morning news, it was confirmed that an earthquake – not the crashing of birds to the ground – rattled our county. And when I went out to get the newspaper, there were no dead birds on my lawn, though I did notice a pair of doves eyeing me suspiciously from a nearby roof.
Time will tell if the bird deaths continue and whether they are more than a random occurrence. For now, keep an eye to the sky and watch for falling birds. And even if it’s not raining, it might not be a bad idea to carry an umbrella.
Adam Breen writes a blog at http://thebreenblog.blogspot.com and teaches newspaper and yearbook classes at San Benito High School. He is a reporter for The Pinnacle and is former editor of the Free Lance. He can be reached at
ab****@pi**********.com
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