Sunday, February 25, 2007
Bird-Bush-Bird-Bush
At the standard 2:1 conversion rate, this picture of the bush beside our house probably shows 6 or 7 BHEs (bird in hand equivalents), although it’s very difficult to tell precisely. If what you want to do is unobtrusively hang out in a light brown and off-white bush, these guy have got the coloration down. I may be mistaking one or two for tangles of branches, or vice versa.
The sparrows do favor this stretch of bush, which is a combination of the world’s lamest forsythia, bittersweet, and some other very tenacious vine, in part, I’m sure, for its camouflage potential. As soon as the sun gets on it these cold mornings, they start coming, hopping from one branch to another, pushing each other out of locations, flying off and returning. And judging by the sidewalk underneath, pooping. (If you didn’t have to worry about them taking a dump in your hand, the ratio might be as high as 3:1. It does reduce the desirability a little.)
I like to think that this entertainment is my reward for putting out water for them through the winter, although I’m sure there is really no connection. Unlike Androcles' Lion, these guys aren’t going to return a favor if they can. It doesn’t work that way.
I have a fable of my own:
One day, killing time on a sunny day in Washington DC eating a muffin on a park
bench, I noticed several sparrows hopping about, looking for food. I broke off
part of my muffin and set it down on the ground. Several hours later, walking
along a leafy avenue to attend a lecture that my friend Hank Greenspan was
giving at the Holocaust Museum, a large gob of bird crap landed on my shoulder.
Moral: Nature doesn’t give you what you deserve. Nature gives you what it gives
you.
