The other morning I was driving over to my mom’s house, and there was a bird standing in the road, right in the middle of my lane. And I thought, “It’s funny how these birds always LOOK like they’re going to get hit in exchange for their nonchalance, and then they fly away at the last minute”—and within a few seconds later I was driving over the part of the road with the bird on it, yet without having seen a bird take flight at the last second, and there was a thunk, and when I looked behind me there was a dead bird in the road. It must have flown up JUST as I got to it, and then gotten hit by the front of the car before it got high enough. And the dim thing is that if it had just NOT FLOWN, it wouldn’t have gotten hit. This is like the worst fable ever.
This came on the heels of discovering YET ANOTHER bird in our house, killed by our cats. They are killing one pretty much every day now, despite me stringing MULTIPLE JINGLE BELLS on their collars. And on one hand I am settled with the idea of this being the natural order of things, and even with the idea that the thinning out of the slower/dumber birds makes the bird species stronger—but neither of these concepts leaves me settled with the part where that same morning there was a bird foot, JUST a bird foot, on my carpet. And a wing, JUST a wing, in the hallway. It makes me hate our cats, and of course I’ve long since stopped putting out food for the birds.
Anyway, that same day, when I hit and killed a bird with my car after spending part of my morning hating our cats as I cleaned up their recent kill, I drove past the same spot just a few minutes later on my way home, and the bird was gone. So, I mean, one possibility is that it got nipped up by some other animal, or got hit by another car in a way that flung it off the road (though the car would have had to be way out of its lane to manage that). But you know what I think is most likely? I’ll bet what actually happened, rather than my theory of it flying right in front of my car at the exact wrong time, is that it flew up AFTER my car was already ABOVE it, and it bonked its head really hard and got stunned, like birds sometimes do when they fly into a window but not hard enough to kill themselves. And then it lay there in the road for awhile, recovering itself. And then it sprang up and flew off. (Hey, now you could TOTALLY use this in a fable!)
Of COURSE that’s what happened. Absolutely. I refuse to believe otherwise. I am easily traumatized by dead animals in the road, thanks to a terrible experience awhile ago, so that last version is the one I’m believing.
Here’s the terrible story. Don’t read it if you’re feeling squeamish still.
Very early this year I called Jim, hysterical, on my way home because I had encountered a huge, beautiful, not-quite-dead but nearly DECAPITATED FTLOG deer lying in the road. It was having a seizure, I think, just shaking uncontrollably. Saddest thing I’ve ever seen in real life. I seriously about had a nervous breakdown. I called Jim screeching, “Come down here and kill this poor deer and put it out of its misery PLEASE!”
Of course he didn’t, and instead calmly called the local blah blah whatever, and within half hour they had “removed” the deer, but I couldn’t even drive on that road for a few days. Poor beautiful deer.
Yes, that is exactly what happened. He hit his head and got knocked out and then flew away. Because if another car hit him, I think there would be… evidence. (Ack.)
And I know what you mean by hating the cats. We love the cats and they can be so loving and affectionate in return… And it’s so unsettling to be reminded that they are not little people in fur costumes, but are actually animals that capture and torture and kill other animals. It’s… horrifying.
(I still love cats, by the way.)
Agreed. That’s what happened. I heard a story last night of an outdoor cat whose leg was found–JUST one back leg, and the collar. *shudder* That was unsettling to me to, even though I suppose it was the order of things, kind of (it was a coyote who ate the cat, apparently).
That’s actually very likely what happened. One summer I worked for a graduate student in ornithology who would screech to the side of the road any time she saw a freshly-hit songbird, pick up the bird and tuck it in her shirt (I guess often hit birdies die of hypothermia, esp. in high country Colorado where it’s 38 degrees in the morning), and then let it go later in the day when it had warmed up and recovered.
She also would do this to rodents and WEASELS that got chilled in her Haveaheart mammal traps. She was CRAZY. But it really seemed to work.
Oh. I thought maybe a cat found the dead bird on the road and took it home.
But I guess cats are hunters – not, what is? – savagers? Can’t remember.
I’ll take your theory, too.
I was JUST having the “It’s funny how these birds always LOOK like they’re going to get hit in exchange for their nonchalance, and then they fly away at the last minute” daydream whilst driving the other day! Weird!
Also, I’m so glad my cat is an inside cat now. He used to be an indoor/outdoor cat and he brought back all kinds of treasures. Bugs, rodents, MOLES, birds. Ugh it was disgusting and he’d play around with them forever.
OK, for some reason the “sprang up” part of this bird story is absolutely cracking me up. I just picture this bird, laying there, then coming to its senses and LEAPING to its feet, like “what am I doing here?” and flying away. Funny stuff.
Our cats are indoor only. It is all they have ever known, and they seem perfectly content. I would be so worried about them if they were outside, I can’t even imagine it. I also think the natural order of things is when animals kill the food they need to eat because they don’t have another food source.
I think we are in the minority with not letting our cats roam outside, but I wouldn’t rest easy not knowing if they were safe or not.
You are totally right! If it was dead, there would be evidence of the event on the road. Even if a cat or dog took off with it there would be a mark or debris left.
Good conclusion!
As further proof my verificaiton word is boings, as in, ‘He boings up after a bonk on the head.’
My mom is often in a rage of cat hate when her mostly-inside-but-often-escapes-into-the-backyard cat stalks her birds. But the birds give as well as they get, often dive-bombing the cat to the point that she’s begging to come back in.
You just brought back a memory of a time in my childhood when one of my cats threw up and right on top of the pile of vomit, was a rib cage! I am not sure how they swallowed a whole rib cage (It wasn’t exactly very big), but I am assuming they swallowed it whole and threw it back up. The only other option is that they carefully ate around it and then picked it up with their teeth and lay it on top of the pile of regurgitated mouse.
Oh! What a nice ending to the story. Maybe the bird got some sense bashed in and next time he will FLY AWAY!
I think I may have hit a bird this morning, after playing chicken with it just like you did. I heard no thunk and it was on a sharp curve in the road, so I couldn’t see if it was in the road.
And earlier this week, as I was walking into my office building, I saw a bird laying on the bushes next to the building, either stunned or dead. I’ve told the landlords many times that I don’t understand why they build the huge tall buildings and then COVER THEM WITH MIRRORS. Poor birds.
I bet that is what happened!
In our old house we had a cat door into the garage and then another into the house. Our old cat would bring in a ton of different stuff, but the night he brought in the bleeding but very much alive rabbit was the night we decided we would NOT be putting a cat door into the house in our new house. We only put one into the garage because I still shudder at the thought of the blood EVERYWHERE (think bleeding and running).
That was fun. Cats suck sometimes.
A few weeks ago, back in the first-blooming weeks of spring when the birds were all a twitter and in love, I was entering an on-ramp for the highway when two robins obviously doing some sort of mating ritual flew in front of my car. I heard a thunk and looked back to see one robin fluttering around in the air and the other dragging itself across the road…right into the path of a truck. I didn’t actually SEE the bird get run over, so I can now imagine he was fine but at the time I made up a whole crazy story in my head about the still alive but broken hearted other robin who refused to leave the body of her mate behind and ended up also hit by a car because of LOVE. BIRD LOVE. I wept pitifully all the way home.
Of course, I am also suffering from extreme post-partum hormones.
If you ever want to have nightmares, let me tell you the story about my cat catching a LIVE BAT and putting it on my head while I was sleeping. Good times.
Is it bad that I snorted with laughter at the “isn’t it funny how they always look like they’re going to…BONK”.? Probably.
Um, were you driving in Denver this morning? Because as I was out for my morning walk, I witnessed that EXACT SAME THING happen with the bird and the car and the bird not flying away until it was juuuuust-too-late and then there was the bird, askew on the side of the road. My jaw hit the ground and my eyes bugged out and I thought, “Oh lovely. Now I get to relive THAT in my head all day.”
And now here I am, READING ABOUT IT ON YOUR BLOG! Mind officially blown.
Alex- Wouldn’t that be CRAZY?? But no. Not in Denver. (Sadly. Denver is AWESOME. Or I assume it is, based on the one time I went to a camp in Colorado somewhere. I now think of all of Colorado as awesome. And full of horseback-riding opportunities -slash- singalongs.)
it was a phoenix. my cat used to do that whole bird thing only with mice. nothing more unsettling in the morning than a mouse head.
This sounds just like your Fred vs Percy Weasley theory. Which was RIGHT. ~Laura
I pretend animals I see dead on the side of the road are sleeping. It works unless there is rigor.
I played the ultimate game of chicken with a Dove on Saturday. It took flight just as I was about 3 feet from it, BUT flew in the direction I was driving right at grill hight and not very fast. So I had to slow down as I don’t think it would have taken well to a bump from behind. Then all of a sudden the damn thing landed on the road again, still right in my path. Finally it did take off, towards the side of the road, but for a while there I thought I was part of some community anti-speeding trial.
My cat used to leave her half-eaten treasures like little land mines on the hall carpet for me to step on, on dark mornings.
Something that MAY make Sarah, way up the top there, feel a little better – I once had to tour an abbatoir/slaughterhouse for my job, and noted with queasy interest that recently killed deer spasm for a minute or two, even though they are in fact dead.
The ONLY time I’ve ever hit an animal with my car was a BUNNY… ON EASTER. It was in the middle of my lane and I heard a little “ting!” of him hitting the underside of my car. When I looked in the rearview mirror he was still there, but when I drove back later he was gone. I’m hoping he just got an owie on his ears and I didn’t actually kill the Easter Bunny.