Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Strange Bird Incident

It's been far too long since I've written here.  It's not that nothing noteworthy happens in my life... it's simply finding the time to sit and write.

But tonight I break the dry spell because something really odd just happened... something I've never seen before.  I was working in the shop after closing, with the lights on, including lights right near the front window.  Suddenly I heard a soft "thump", followed by a fluttering sound... then another thump, some more fluttering, then silence.  I looked over just as the fluttering was dying down, just in time to realize a bird had just flown into the glass window, and now lay pressed against the glass, wings spread, face pressed right to the glass.

Apparently it was drawn by the light. I looked closely at it, and it was clear it was a chimney swift. A pretty common bird here in the evening, but I've never seen one do what this one was doing. Concerned, and seeing that it didn't seem to be at all inclined to extricate itself, I turned off the lights, then went outside to see if there was anything I could do. I was afraid the little guy had been injured, but a few seconds after I stepped outside, with a great flurry of wings, he took off, a bit unsteady at first, and flew across our lot and vanished.

Curious, I poked around online a bit and found advice for how to get a swift out of your living room if it comes down your chimney... and sure enough, one of the first steps is to turn off the lights, so it is drawn back up the chimney by the light outside.  Who knew?

1 comment:

abuworks said...

Good story, good experience; thanks for sharing!

In Africa, Uganda to be specific, the experience is the same! Birds get trapped all the time and in numerous species.

What is probably different is that kids who are usually fond of trapped birds tie them with 100- metre-long strings to play with them like kites.

As these poor things attempt to fly off, they are pulled back. This sometimes leads to their death or escape if they're lucky.

Sunbirds are the more frequent victims. Although it's very hard to catch them when they fly from one flower to another in search of nector, their vanity or confusion when in front of reflective glass windows, they become fools they're!

I've on several times rescued many!