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High Dudgeon

Posted by on May 9, 2011

I’m a bit under the weather today, but I’ve just spent a very pleasant hour lying in the backyard without anything particular happening in my brain. Very nice to be able to just lie there in some sunshine when sick.

For a while I got to watch our front-porch bird, whatever he is — some thought dove, some thought pigeon, so until further data is unearthed I shall call him a dudgeon — as he hopped around in the backyard looking for nest material. I like the way animals persevere, undaunted by their own supreme stupidness. My dudgeon found a twig he particularly liked — no different from any other twig, as far as I could see, but then I’ve never built a nest — and he would try picking it up and immediately drop it. Pick it up, immediately drop it. Up, drop. Up, drop. I don’t know if it was the weight or if dudgeon beaks just are not made to grasp things, but it was clearly an impossible situation. Then at one point the show varied a little when the wind blew the dropped twig about two inches forward and my dudgeon spent a good minute trying to figure out where it had gone. I guess lack of binocular vision might be playing a part here, but also my poor dudgeon really is such a bird brain.

Eventually he did manage to get the twig up into the tree, where I think he’s nesting instead of the porch now. I felt warm and fuzzy about this, and glad we could find a way to shelter his incoming family, until I remembered that tree might be one of the ones we’re cutting down this summer. Oh, well.

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