A Bird Story

[TimH]

I was out baling all day and got this story second hand, when I got home, but will relate it as best I can.
My youngest son,12 years old, was out shooting gophers in a small pasture this afternoon. He is the kind of kid that is not easily scared but very easily PO'ed.
He was strolling along,doing his thing, when he was attacked by a pair of birds dive bombing him and squawking. He says that one of them kept circling him(as he tried to draw a bead on it) and the other one flew to the creek(about 1/4 mile away). Suddenly the one that had flown to the creek flew right over top of him and dropped a "catfish" at him(only missed by less than a foot)!!! Talk about one pi$$ed-off kid!!!
We figured out that these birds were common terns and the "catfish" was actually a frog( in between the tadpole and adult stages).
It was pretty funny to hear him tell it while he was still all "offended" by them ^%$$#@&^ birds having the nerve to throw a "catfish" at him!!
Made my day!!!

[Soapweed]

Cute story, TimH. When my dad was a young kid, he got too close to a curlew nest and the momma curlew dive-bombed him several times. He decided to just let her keep her eggs afterall.

Here is a picture of a chicken hawk. It looks capable of dumping catfish on small children.


The Chicken Hawk Ballet

Blackbirds and Bovines

[nr]

My husband's father (93) can remember when there was a bounty on chicken hawks in Minnesota. Maybe $.10 he thought.

Quite a picture, Soapweed! How many shots did it take to get the wings outspread? Recently I was trying to get a picture of a pileated woodpecker digging a deep hole in the ground at an old rotted apple tree site. Everytime I clicked his head was back underground!

TimH, my parents were canoeing and some birds began aerial attacks- so much so they almost went in the drink! But being bombed with
froglegs- that's a strange arms race.

[Mike]

Mocking birds will attack. Crows, cats, hawks, anything! They always work in two's and will actually peck a person in the right situation.

That's too funny about the "catfish". Wouldn't you have liked to have been hiding in the bushes and watching?

Watching a kildeer protecting her nest is a funny sight!

[Soapweed]

A friend of mine was at a community picnic one time. As several men were sitting at a picnic table which was under a tree, a bird that was seeking shade dropped a cool souvenior. A bald feller was the benefactor, and the white soothing "ointment" slithered down his forehead and went right between his glasses and his nose. No one knew quite what to say under the circumstances. My friend finally broke the silence by stating, "Water tends to seek its own level."

My mother-in-law was standing next to a dignified lady that endured a similar bird bomb attack. The attackee's words were, "Birds sing for some people."

[Faster horses]

When we lived in Wyoming, a very nice creek went through our place. In the trees along the creek lived a pair of owls. We were riding one particular morning and we were above the creek, actually fairly in line with the top of the trees. There was a big dropoff to our right of maybe 30-40 feet, into the creek. Along this drop off, were some holes. And in one of the holes was a nest with the baby owls. Anyway, this day the parent owls were acting rather frantic. My husband dismounted and walked over and looked down at the creek. There in the small grassy space before the creek, was a baby owl that had fallen out of the nest. It couldn't fly yet and the parents were frantic. So, he goes down and picks it up~he got a stick and got the baby owl on the stick without touching it. The baby owl looked huge, but didn't weigh anything.

Anyway, we had our dogs along, of course. One dog was a Sheltie, as I was raising them at that time. She was a neat little dog~and the other dogs were considerably bigger. Anyway, my husband had to take the long way around to get the bird back up to where I was with the horses and dogs. He eventually leaned way over and managed to get the baby owl back into the nest.

Before the mission was accomplished, however, the parent owls got VERY OWLY and attacked the sheltie dog. They rolled her completely over. And they did it more than once. The horses were spooking and it was quite exciting, all in all. But we (he) managed to get the baby back to its nest and we were able to get the heck out of there with everyone intact. It did get a little hairy, though!

Thanks for the memory~