Getting Close To Nature

My jungle perch has windows on all 4 sides, and they are all thrown open when I am up here.

Just now, a bird about the size of a robin came flying along and smacked into the glass of the closed half of the window about a foot in front of me. WHAP! He went down on the deck outside, out for the 10-count. Scared the hell out of me.

I instantly stood up (more in surprise) and went to peer out the window to see if the little fellow was alright. It was just a few seconds getting around my desk.

That was when his two bird friends, who were following along hot on the trail of the accident victim, realized what had happened, and made a last-minute desperate dodge to the left and towards the open window where I was just coming into view.

In full emergency avoidance mode, the two birds both barely managed to miss the edge of the window frame by fraction of an inch, managed to miss the top of my head by about a fraction of an inch, and managed to zoom out of the other open window without hitting anything. Pure luck.

The second and third birds were there and gone so fast, I didn't even have time to react. I just saw two flashes of brown in front of my face, and then turned my head in time to see the tail feathers disappearing over the edge of the balcony back behind me.

The original bird sat outside for about 3 or 4 minutes clearing his head, and then went on his way.

Hmm... now I'm kind of morbidly curious about how much it would have hurt to have two birds flying more or less at full speed crash one after the other into my face. Well, we'll file that ill-advised experiment away for some other day.

And no, dear readers: I will not be accepting your offers to smack me in the mouth with a couple of dead chickens, as much as you may want to... thank you all the same.