Holy Crap, I Stepped On a Bird

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Yesterday I was walking across the parking lot on my way to work.

I hadn’t had any coffee yet, so I wasn’t entirely awake.

So, there I was walking along, half asleep, thinking about the day ahead, not really paying attention to the actual mechanics of walking, (lift foot, move it forward, put it down, shift balance, lift other foot, etc.), definitely not paying attention to local wildlife since it is, after all, a parking lot.

Anyway, I was just getting to one of the “put foot down” parts (my heel was down and I was just beginning to shift my weight) when I saw a flash of beige come out from under the car I was passing, and before I could either stop or finish putting my foot down, there was a small thump on the bottom of my shoe and the flash of beige, now identified as a sparrow, sort of fluttered away amidst a small cloud of feathers and reeled off under another car.

I don’t know if any one else has been hit in the foot by a bird, but when and if it ever happens to you, you will know what it is. I felt the small thump and immediately thought “Yea, that’s a bird hitting my shoe,” I am not entirely sure why this should be. I’ve never stepped on a live, in flight, bird before. It is a very distinctive feeling.

After I had recovered from my surprise (which took a few seconds) I looked for the bird to see if it was ok. If it was injured perhaps I would need to step on it again. I hadn’t heard any crunching, but I do not know how much pressure it takes to crush a small bird. Apparently, all was well as I was unable to locate the bird.

Now this has got me wondering. Every now and then you see birds smack into windows. I had always assumed that this was accidental, due to the birds being disoriented and unable to see the glass. But now with this incident, I am thinking that perhaps it may have been intentional.

I mean if the bird was going to attack me, there are a lot of place that are more vulnerable than the sole of my shoe. So I am putting it down* to suicidal tendencies in the sparrow.

I think we need a national program of avian anti-depresants.

*pun noted, slightly intended.

2

I’ll bet it was going for your heel and missed.

3

I wouldn’t think that I could easily be confused with Achilles.

Perhaps birds are bad at distiguishing people from different centuries. :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Once I was walking to class with someone who was hit in the forehead by a stray bird. It was weird.

I also once saw a bird get run over by a car. It was standing there and its wings sort of spread out as the car went over it. I thought they always knew to fly away!

5

Oh my gosh! I snorted while reading this. My friends and family joke about me running over birds. I have run over more birds than I want to even think about. Not just run them over, but they will literally fly directly under my car. One of my friends calls me the “Suicide God of Birds” – but I have never stepped on one. Now I am scared – bird guts on my tire are one thing (the cats appreciate the dnack!) but on my shoes? No thanks!

6

I’ve run over my share of small mammals, but I have never run over a bird on the ground.

I did once hit a bird in flight. It exploded in a huge cloud of feathers that took weeks to get out of all the little nooks (crannines too, I suppose) in the engine comparment.

7

This is reminding me of that episode of “Seinfeld” where George runs over a squirrel by accident. (And, I think, at one point, a pigeon.) We’re supposed to have a deal–they fly away when we drive near, we look the other way on the statue thing.

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Video link

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Yes, just like in that clip, excpet with my car in place of the ball and a road in place of the field. Oh, and my car was being driven, not thrown. And there weren’t baseball teams or thousands of spectators (so far as I know). :smiley:
But the feathers, yes, just like that.

10

I once stepped on a toad…in the dark…barefoot.

I would have preferred lots of feathers to what actually happened.

11

Wow, I figured it would get one coming off the bat.

Regardless, who better to post that link than…

12

I don’t think the little guy survived that.

13

I ran over a damn chipmunk in Yosemite one time, and my travel “buddy” gave me shi*t about if for the whole ride home. Hey, I didn’t want to flip the freekin’ car, okay?!

I stepped on a lizard when darted in front of me I was about 9 years old. I had been watching it for several days, amazed at the life of the little critter. I was traumatized.

14

Mr. Rosewater 3R
Summon Doper
3/3

Fortunately, the giant homo sapiens have large blind spots in which a bird can easily hide. Unfortunately, these blind spots are beneath the bottoms of their feet.

15

Are you saying Mr. Rosewater is a Hill Giant? :wink:

god I’m so dorky…

16

I seriously thought I was the “Suicide God of Birds”. There are more of us? Birds seem to conciously fly at my car. Not just sparrows and chickadees… noooooooo…owls and buzzards, and occasionally a hawk have swooped over my windshield. Have you ever had a large bird fly at your windshield? Do you know what happens? You duck, try not to wreck the car, and shit your pants! Then you pull over and try to breathe for about 20 minutes while the adrenaline jitters wear off.

I haven’t stepped on one yet that wasn’t already dead.

The last bird incident I had didn’t involve the car. I opened the back door to take the dogs out, and there was a sparrow on the screened-in porch. Tasha, my dachshund has an extremely strong hunting instinct, so I scooped her up, got her leash on her and went out the back door and held it open hoping the bird would fly out. I looked up just in time to see it fly directly into the apartment through the door that I had left open in my haste to stop Tasha from eating said bird. :smack:

Ginger (Collie/Retriever mix) didn’t pay it much attention because she had to pee really bad. I let the dogs finish their business, and stuff Tasha back in her kennel while I try to find the poor bird. It had flown into the bathroom. Thank goodness, I thought…a small enclosed space…I won’t have to chase it all over the living room or worry about it pooping on my bed. I closed the bathroom door, and put a towel down in front of the door because there is a pretty significant space between the bottom of the door and the floor…plenty of room for a bird to squeeze through. I then proceeded to try and catch the poor bird for the next 20 minutes.

Finally, I had had enough. It flew down on the floor, and I scooped up the towel to try and get it over the bird so I could extricate it from my dwelling. Well when I picked up the towel, the bird sensed an opening and scooted under the door. I opened the door, and Ginger was standing there with the bird in her mouth, looking at me very innocently. She very grudgingly spit it out when I told her to drop it. The bird was got up and flew back out on the porch. I ran out, and not wanting a repeat of the last half hour, closed the door behind me. It was another 10 minutes or so before I could get the poor thing shooed out the door. It flew away, seemingly unharmed. :slight_smile: There you have it, my kookie bird story.

17

You’re dorky? I’m the one making obscure references to 4th Edition flavour text…

18

Nice, very nice. :smack: :smack: :smack:

19

The bird was probably just trying to pull this move off and failed.

20

Hockey Monkey – there are several of us. I had a friend in high school who actually kept track of the birds he ran over, his goal was to get a new car when he hit the 100th one. He got the new car 18 months after he started keeping track!

Just out of curiousity, what kind of car do you drive? At first, I thought it might have something to do with the motor (perhaps the frequency threw off the birds’ senses? I donno) because my friend drove a Sunbird, and my first 2 cars were also Sunbirds. But it happened with my Kia, my husband’s Dodge (only when I drove it) and now my Cavalier, lol.

I have hit every type bird imaginable. They don’t just stay sitting in the road, like I said, sometimes they dive-bomb right into my tires! It’s really freaky to passengers, but has happened often enough to me that I don’t usually even notice anymore.

I do have to point out though, that the only mammals I have ever hit with my car are opossums. I will speed up to hit those nasty things, lol, but will slow down/stop for pretty much everything else.