For the Birds

Bird Brain

I find it exceedingly distracting to feed the park sparrows with crumbs from my sandwich. I sit almost blank minded tossing the littlest scraps to individual birds, watching the bright little intelligence in the ones who have figured out whither comes the manna, and the bold ones who fly even up to my table or bench expectantly to collect their due. I like watching the really young ones, recently out of the nest, not sure yet how to feed themselves, turning up their beaks wide open, and fluttering their wings, making a ruckus until one of their nest mates shares some food. I wonder about these little families, how they seem to stick together, and for how long before getting mixed in the throng?

Birds are everywhere in the city. Each tree is a high-rise apartment. The street light crossbeams are tubular penthouse abodes. Nests sprout under fire escapes, driving the apartment dwellers a little mad with all the peeping and chatter, or stuffed in holey masonry like tenement dwellers in the Lower Eastside.

The Sparrows are my favorite, little nut brown balls of fluff, genius camouflage patterns perfect for hiding in trees, I’d love to wear those patterns myself, the females all brown, the males with their black hoodies. And I’ve come to recognize other many other city breeds. The stalky, gawky legged starling chicks with their alien star-field feathers and long beaks quick to pounce on any morsel, they grow fast and the next you see them flying swiftly in pairs or groups racing alongside the BQE. Going where, I wonder, visiting, sightseeing? Do they, too, migrate around this city, living in different neighborhoods as their fortunes shift? You always hear the Jay-bird, its brash squawk has a New Yawkness to its accent that is otherwise rarely heard anymore. In the parks you might see a Cardinal popping around in the bushes, the bright eyed blackbirds bathing in the dirt, or waterfowl lounging on the shore. If you’re really lucky you may see a red-tailed hawk soaring high above a park, or roosting in the eaves of some high cast iron building.

Once I was in Central Park, and the jays were angrily mobbing a red tailed hawk that was perched on a lower branch of a plane tree. When the mobbing became too much, the hawk would fly a few yards away but it was sticking around. Then suddenly, it swept down on a bird, perhaps injured or sick, sitting in the grass. It took its victim up into a tree, and the jays indignant with rage and fear for their stricken fellow divebombed it trying to force it to relinquish its still struggling prey. It looked like a pigeon, not a jay, but the society of birds is more communal than we’d think. Again, patiently, the hawk would move a little ways, until finally it flew off, its now limp meal firmly clutched in its iron claws.

A friend once asked me how, living in great Gotham, I got my nature fix. Didn’t I miss hiking in the mountains, or walking the sylvan woods or the immersing myself, as I once did daily, in the ocean? Didn’t I need to recharge myself?! How could I stand just living in the city!? I realized that the most nature I get was feeding these birds. Tossing crumbs to the birds is when I get outside the tiny myopic world of human affairs and out of myself. Watching birds putzing about in their environs brings me back to my own human place in nature and helps put things into a more natural perspective. That’s how I recharge, and why it’s so distracting to me. As I watch those bright eyed hungry little things, so quickly reacting to the sight of these relative loaves of bread being tossed through the air at them, and it’s refreshing to know nothing but satisfaction for that primal need and the godlike provision incarnate. It’s as good as looking at the moon floating in the sky, a reminder of something older and bigger than my humanity and my life, but feeding the birds is more connected, humbler, and more immediate than the Moon.

You can forget about those dull eyed eating machines called pigeons, though. Those flying rats and dung dropping vermin of the sky don’t share my sandwich.