A few years ago I worked for the National Park Service on South Bass Island in Lake Erie, Ohio. After work I’d go for a short run and listen to the cacophony of Red-winged Blackbirds. One evening I was plodding along, when all of a sudden I heard the familiar call and…WHACK! I felt something hit the back of my head. “What the…?” Before I had time to finish my thought I was stunned by another WHACK! I was being blitzkrieged by 2.5 ounces and pointy beaks. My instincts kicked in, “Protect the eyes, protect the eyes!”
I stopped for a moment, hunkered down, and then started running in a crouched position with my arms over my face hoping to avoid a live re-enactment of The Birds. Finally, my naturalist brain kicked in and I realized I must have been too close to a nest. I just needed to keep running to get out of the birds’ space and they would go back to their nest and stop attacking my head.
Sometimes we never see things coming and then all of a sudden, WHACK!; an illness, the loss of a job, a sudden flat tire. It’s stunning for a moment. We may even stop dead in our tracks, our protection mechanisms kicking in, and then our brains and bodies sync up. It may take 30 seconds, it may take 30 months, but we realize we can’t stay in that stunned place forever. At some point, we must get going. It is in this moving on that we end up saving ourselves.
PS- Red-winged Blackbirds really are cool. Just give them some space. They have no problem asking for it if you don’t.
