Today's Apocalypse Sign: Maybe Hitchcock Had It Right

BIRDS ON A WIRE

I stopped wearing a watch some time ago. Not because I don't like watches...and not because I don't particularly like wearing them (which now doing a lot of computer work, a watch IS annoying to wear). I think I tried using my internal clock as a less obvious purveyor of time. Clearly all living creatures have some sort of internal time keeping function.

With that said, I still am amazed at some things I see in the world around us. Nothing more than the show I see every night at 5PM. These birds seem to know when the work day is done and it is time to party. They are loud, swooping, and everywhere. On this day the slight foggy and dreary weather added to the atmosphere and off-putting feeling.

You will want to enlarge these shots...

They are in the tree tops, on every power line, light fixture, vehicle roof top, the ground...thousands!!

The spacing between some of them is exact and repeated for several birds in a row.

Every once in a while most will take to flight and relocate on another line or fixture...Hitchcockian

There appears to be a caste system...the upper class get the highest wire, the middle class are crowded together below them and the poor or the weak get the lowest wire. And as we know shit obeys the laws of gravity on the wire.

One of the biggest parties appears to be on the top of the building. Those in waiting take up positions on the entry wire.

 It really is a interesting dynamic to watch. In the last picture I had watched from below (not directly of course) and noticed that obvious gaps were left in the order of the line. Bird after bird would attempt to land in a space between two others only to be 'scolded" out of there. Sometimes it would take 3 or 4 different birds attempting to land before one was accepted.

After about a half an hour of constant din and periodic power struggles and jockeying for position, the entire avian flock falls silent and takes to the air. Thousands, en masse. Their black bodies darkening the already dimming sky. On the ground taking all this in is a little unnerving. Like the feeling you ARE in Hitchcock's movie as these low-flyer's swarm everywhere. You get the sudden thought that if they had a mind to they could collectively take you down and out in a pecking frenzy. Then in minutes they are gone and nothing but the sound of cars on the road can be heard.

Tomorrow they will do it again. And they don't need a watch.

Today's Apocalypse Sign: Falling From The Sky

Drunk Bird

You know, the further you go in life the less you "hear for the first time". However, this week, I heard for the first time about the cedar waxwings and their penchant for yaupon berries.

I have heard about apocalyptic signs like plagues of locust and toads raining out of the sky, but this was a first.

In Garland, TX (which is where I live believe it or not, for 20 years) we were subject to birds flying along and just falling out of the sky. Streets in some neighborhoods were littered with dead and dying cedar waxwings. One busy highway had birds falling out of the sky onto the windshields of fast moving cars. Nothing like that to get your heart pumping on the way to work.

Apparently the berries of the yaupon bush are too tempting for these birds migrating back to Canada and they cannot stop eating them. The fermenting berries actually make these birds drunk and they pass out while flying. All the dead birds were found with mouthfuls of these berries.

Heaven help us.


I have missed updating on the STM. Which means I missed both the 10,000 follower and 5,000,000 hit mark. So this is where he is today:

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A Today Show appearance...the gift that keeps on giving.

Until next time...if you are driving through north Texas during the next month, watch for birds falling from the sky.