I was driving to the post office today, and saw a dove get hit by a car….and fly away from it.
The dove flew low across the road, into the path of the car ahead of me, clapping stumpy little wings to gain height. I expected, as such encounters usually end, to see the bird shoot out from the other side, a foot away from certain death, with birdy aplomb. This happens all the time to me, with various species…various species that are, admittedly, usually more graceful than the lumbering dove, but still.
Instead, there was an explosion of white feathers over the front of the car, and as I drew breath to make the “ACK!” noise that would accompany watching an innocent, albeit stupid, dove get Darwinized, (and presumably an equally innocent driver be traumatized) the bird wheeled drunkenly into view, shedding white down from its tail* and continued to fly, gaining height, clearing the road, the verge, and finally landing in a tree, nothing evidentally broken. The car had evidentally brushed its tail, doing about thirty-five mph.
This happened about a mile as the dove flies from my house, and this would just be a normal tale of birdish stupidity, except that I was standing at the back window about ten minutes ago, and there’s a dove out there. This would not be an event. I have lots of doves in the back. But unlike this newcomer, the vast majority of my doves have tails.
No. Surely not. It boggles credibility. I mean, there must be thousands of doves in the square mile area of backyard and suburb embracing my house.
That, or there really IS a vortex…
*and probably other white stuff, because I know *I* lose control of my bowels when I fly into a car
