Feathers

For over a month now at about 5:30 p.m. every day a big robin visits my backyard birdbath and has himself a high old time, repeatedly immersing himself and energetically flapping around and making water fly in all directions. When he’s done the birdbath is half empty (or half-full depending on your philosophical point of view) and the water supply has to be replenished. Both the bird and I are grateful for this daily occurrence and I swear on a stack of religious tomes (depending on your faith in ideological principles) that he thanks me thusly: he hops onto the rim of the birdbath, cocks his head to one side, looks me squarely in the eyes, chirps twice, and wings away. This is a true story and I have a couple of reliable witnesses to back me up. Of course I have anthropomorphized this birdy conversation to mean “thank you” and, going further, have named this bird “Butch” because he is obviously a beefy, macho member of his particular species. Naming him Robin, although gender neutral, would be just silly.

Further to avian reality, I recently read about a couple of birds whose migration paths have been tracked all the way from Alaska to New Zealand without so much as a brunch-break on the way. They are the bar-tailed godwit (photo here) and, a bit less prolific as to the length of its non-stop migration, the bristled-thighed curlew. The godwit has been clocked at 7,100 miles in nine days which pretty much sets a record for length of flight for a bird without stopping. Although none of these aviators are named Butch (probably) they are still to be admired for their instinctive tenacity and I also have to give kudos to the something-or-other ‘pologists who gave these birds their names. Godwits and curlews don’t need anthropomorphizing to gain our attention and admiration.