STIRRING
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
Founded in 1999, Stirring is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals on the internet.
Stirring is an electronic quarterly journal.
BUD JENNINGS
Dear Professor Ouiseauphile:
Please let me introduce myself as a committed admirer of birds and an assiduous observer of their activities. My heart swells at the sight of a wren landing on a fence post. I nearly swoon when I hear a mourning dove’s call. And from me, even a seagull expertly lancing a small paper sack of jettisoned French fries evokes an admiration others would reserve for a Nobel laureate. As for the benighted, nimble-witted corvids, I might venture that they would be more adept than the elected officials presently leading the body politic. I frequently jest that if the Linnaean Class Aves were Genus Homo, Species sapiens, they would brand me a stalker and file a restraining order. —But to the impetus for my clarion call: In the last year, I have repeatedly descried something alarmingly extraordinary in the way birds interact with automobile traffic, which I will detail herein. And because I am a layman without standing in the ornithological community, I hope that you will be moved by this epistle, investigate these assertions independently and in keeping with the precepts of the scientific method—and when your findings corroborate my own, use your own esteemed voice to address this urgent matter before we find ourselves teetering at the precipice of a global cataclysm. (I have contacted other eminent ethologists, but my overtures have been rebuffed, ignored, demeaned, disregarded—and, in the response from Dr. Maximus Paulus at Cornell, deemed unfit to print and line a parakeet cage.)
Forgive the anthropomorphic analogy, but it appears as if birds are playing chicken with oncoming cars. The frequency of these remarkable demonstrations is about three times per week, as I commute to and from work. My route follows suburban boulevards and a single-lane state highway—framed by either trees and fields, or strip malls and other similar low-slung eyesores.
To illustrate these phenomena, I offer the following artistic renderings and accompanying explanations:
Fig. 1 shows the oft-witnessed flight path as seen head-on. A bird swoops in from the passenger side of the vehicle, dipping closer to the ground, and then passes within inches of the headlights as it darts past. Occasionally, the bird comes in and turns quickly around (sometimes in a flip that makes it look like a whirling dervish) and alters course 180 degrees. (The about-face can be likened to the way a squirrel might dash across the road but suddenly “flips” to its point of origin.)
Fig. 2 shows the typical noted flight path when seen from above. As the figure indicates, the trajectory often follows the convergence line of two vehicles—only a fraction of a second before they cross.
I am a scrupulously careful driver, but on two occasions, I have hit birds on such daredevil flights; the most recent time, I was on a residential street and not travelling more than 25 to 30 m.p.h. (These heartbreaking events engendered physical responses so profound that I was required to seek medical help—one time at the behest of the officer who was called to the scene.) I have seen birds hit by other cars at least half a dozen times. The avifauna in question are exclusively small and nimble: sparrows, chickadees, grackles, etc. Gulls, pigeons, doves, crows, robins, blue jays, and cardinals seem to eschew such reckless exploits.
I have made every effort to safeguard the lives of our winged co-inhabitants of the Earth, even sequestering my rescue cat Trixie indoors at all times and installing tastefully decorative shutters over my windows, to ensure no tiny avian friend flies into the glass and is killed. But I now fear birds’ deadliest scourge is the ubiquitous automobile.
Heaven forbid the reason is more lamentable: that we have made the planet so inhospitable that birds are now resorting to self-destruction.
I implore you to look into my claim—and will cling to my last hope that you will.
Sincerely,
Francis Nardone
Bud Jennings completed NYU’s graduate creative writing program, and his work has appeared in Complete Sentence, Hobart, New Letters, Word Riot, Gertrude, Superstition Review, and other publications. He was a Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Grant finalist and received two residencies from the Blue Mountain Center. He lives in Salem, Massachusetts, where he and his husband are the obedient minions of two rescue cats.
