City Birdwatching

I saw the splat of a pigeon on the street Monday. One of its wings was stuck to the curbside, still waving, as in "Help," or, "I can still do this, no problem."

Tuesday, I came the other way, and saw the other wing. The width of the two-lane road now represented the entire bird. Twenty-four feet of pavement with two wings on either side. Not leaving.

Early morning Wednesday, outside the hotel riverwalk, two seagulls are fighting over the remnants of last night's Popeye's chicken dinner. Screaming, feinting, shaking loose the meat with tight jerks of the neck. A sparrow sneaks in and grabs a crumb from a shower of breading. A second smart one gets bold and flies off with the last bone's worth. Three others track it to the pebbled edge of a construction site.

Thursday: A small sparrow splayed in the shape of Somalia, dead in the shadow of a skyscraper. Then a huge crow, taking little hops ever closer. Does he want the sparrow? Yes. He keeps his eye on me, as he pecks and picks up the body of the sparrow. Rips some feathers off. Flies up to the park bench. Tears some more feathers off, they sail off into the wind like dandelion seeds. He gets a piece of meat. More feathers take flight without their bird. The crow is not pleased that I am watching, so he takes his prize and flies away, heavy like a military transport. I lose him in the varying windows of the condominiums.

On Friday, a floating bird in the municipal fountain. Not a water bird, just a big puff of feathermass, stickly legs dangling uselessly below. The beak is open, frozen in calling out – now closed! The beak is opening and closing. This little ball of head is held strenuously up over the water's surface, open and closing, silently calling. Close to dead? Close enough.

Saturday, a blue plastic tarp covering a sidewalk marketplace. It has recently rained, and everything is still in puddles. In the center of one covering, a bird, belly up, its tail feathers fanned like cards. No head. Just a body ending in neck. Where is the head? Is this a voodoo message? A message not to sell fake designer sunglasses? Maybe the bird had no head and that's why it crashed into a building. Not my mystery.

Sunday, a Flicker pecking energetically into a paper tree. Wiping his beak sideways against the flapping bark. Table, meal, napkin. For tomorrow will worry about itself.