Monday, November 7, 2011

Off The Main Road: La fleur qu’il m’avait jetée

I made a quick trip to the grocery store a mile or so away this morning. On the way back as I cut through the park I spotted this cute black phoebe perched on a tree watching my approach.

A black phoebe (Moucherolle noir) I saw months ago in the park. Alas I didn't get a picture of the one I met today.
Black phoebes are this area's sparrows. There are always a bunch of them around rustling in the bushes and on tree limbs. So, though I'm always saying hello and waving to them (I know they probably think me wacky, but I like watching how they react to that) I hadn't taken a photo of one in a long time... and certainly not this one this morning. He got a bit nervous and hopped to a higher limb as I got close. Then when he saw that I was not one of those nasty cats with the bad habit of looking at him as if he is a piece of Tartar steak, he started pecking at a bunch of leaves nearby. I was almost under him when he pecked loose a little flower -- it drifted a little in the gentle breeze and landed on my open fingers just as its dislodger hopped away into someone's backyard bush.

You do bring me flower, you do sing me love song...
Being a rational dude that I am, I'd have no trouble thinking that it is just a particularly nice sort of accident. Sentimentally, though, I'd like to think it a little present from a bird that appreciates weirdos who try to talk to him in a strangely unmelodic language as if he would abandon his infinitely more pleasant songs just for the sake of associating with a featherlessly slow-moving lump of ground-bounded biped. 


Maybe it was a female black phoebe, in which case I shall now call her 'Carmen,' and hope that doing so wouldn't condemn me to the fate of Don José (though exceptions can be made if I then get to look and sing like Jonas Kaufmann with my new featherly friend transforming into one Vesselina Kasarova... almost anything is worth that!!!).

2 comments:

bereweber said...

oh mister Smorg, i LOVE this post, and thank you for the name of this bird, I always see one of them on my neighbor's yard and plenty here when I walk on Murphy Canyon Road, but unlike sparrows, they always travel alone!! So it's a Black Phoebe, now I know it's species, every time i come across one i feel is good luck :)) as you remember I used to put seeds for the birds, so plenty of sparrows, mourning doves, blue scrub jays and others used to visit me, included a hawk who wanted to eat them all, but my little patio was a mess... and after too many 'accidents' where Herr Gato and Frau Kitty actually treated the birds like a Tartar Steak, I gave up and thought was better not to put seeds anymore... still the black phoebe always comes around, only standing on high branches, i bet he's laughing at Herr Gato from above...

lovely post mister Smorg, and hey!! it wasn't an accident, he did give you a flower :) and NO you are not the only one waving at birds, i say hello to them when they cross my path, and i can almost see them smiling back! :)

and funny!! my password word to post is excat, related eh?

Smorg said...

Hola bella Bere:
I'm very glad to be of service! :oD They (the black phoebes) seem to be everywhere, ay? I especially like them. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it, but I think they are really curious birds. I've had one hopping along from tree to tree with me as I walk through the park every so often. Then I'd get to the end of the park and he'd stay in the park tree as I took off the main road.

Heh, I know, it's hard watching our feline alter-egos acting felinely with their food species sometimes, ay?

I used to go hunting with the cat that stayed with me when I was going through high school. I called him Irwin, but I'm sure he called himself by a different name. He was particularly good at anticipating a bird's take off flight path, and would fix himself in such a spot that the bird literally flew right into him as it tried to fly off.

Thanks for telling me about your waving and talking to the birds, too. Now I don't feel like such a lunatic, 'cause you sure aren't one! :oD

Hope all is well up in...er... North Park?