For the birds

Last summer there were reports of birds falling dead from the sky. The media ran with the stories, and while awaiting toxicology reports that never seemed to come, posited various theories as to what might have caused the birds to, essentially, drop dead. Struck by lightning maybe, seems plausible. Bird are in the sky, so is lightning, the 2 forces could meet. The birds may have been scared to death by the thunder, was another theory. Or , even more shocking, perhaps the birds were frightened to death by fireworks displays. If one bird heard a loud noise that stopped his heart, might that not have spread to the rest of his flock and they all fell dead too. But in this neck of the woods, there has been an area plagued by huge flocks of birds-blackbirds, starlings- and the city has tried every means to discourage them, including ultra-loud explosions beneath their gathering sites, and all it does is move them from one stand of trees to another, and the next day they're back. When I was a child, I remember a gentleman farmer who lived nearby who would shoot pigeons perched on the roof of his barn. If he shot a pigeon, that one was sure to fall dead, but I don't remember any other birds sitting nearby the shot bird, to fall dead from the loud explosion of the shotgun. And then----I read that a later bird group death was attributed to government sanctioned poisoning because they were destroying the livelihood by eating planted seeds. They were nuisance birds, not pretty at all, starlings, I believe, and so they had to die. BUT, we don't need to worry about the nice birds dying such a grisly death because the poison laid down for the offending birds was applied to food that is eaten exclusively by the bad birds. Really. We have birdfeeders in our back yard and it sure seems that all varieties of birds eat all varieties of food. Woodpeckers eat the seeds when there aren't any bugs nearby, the big birds eat the little seeds, the little birds eat the big seeds, maybe not their first choice but what's available. If I had some of that poisoned seed exclusive to the nuisance birds, and I spread it near my birdfeeder.........?

Really lost in transition

While I was reading the newspaper the other day (right away you know I'm an old person), I came across the inquiring reporter column. She had asked someone how hard he was going to fight for some cause or other. His answer as printed----"To the nail." Now I don't know if that's what he actually said. My guess would be that's what the reporter heard, and had no idea of what "tooth and nail" means. Both terms do sound alike, and no one cares what is meant anyway. Ask a question. Get an answer. That's the idea, right.