During our road trip to the Scottsdale, Arizona last week, we’d stopped in Holbrook, AZ to overnight, and while there had taken a couple walks down the main street (or what we thought to be the main street) of the town. On our second jaunt, during the day (our first was at night), when we could actually see stuff, I’d spotted it.
The dead bird.
How fitting, huh, that I, who writes about the weird and the dead, should spot the poor creature?
But I found this kinda sad…that the poor winged beast had somehow caught itself in a way that had it (apparently) hanging by its neck.
Now, how the heck had that happened?
It was creepy and sad to observe that end to a life that had known free breezes and unfettered airspace. A creature that freely did what most humans long (and literally dream) to do.
But, there it was…dangling from the edge of an abandoned gas station’s overhang. It’s little head craned all the way back at an unnatural angle, beak slightly opened. Something holding it up there.
This scene just kinda held me, transfixed. We all just stood there and stared at it. We were on a fun road trip and seeing this there—at least to me—affected me in (yes…) a weird way that was actually kinda hard to describe, even now.
Death.
On a crappy and dilapidated building.
And how the hell had that happened?!
I mean, think about it…here’s this pigeon…flying (or walking) around…on this overhang…what could possibly have happened to “grab” a bird and have it hang from its neck like that?
Did it reach down to get at a bug in a narrow opening up there, then some sharp jag of metal did its deed?
Was some nefarious trap set?
Did it fly into it and somehow jam its head in there?
I don’t know, but to me it was simultaneously repulsive and riveting. Thought-provoking, obviously.
Tragic.
I’ve since e-mailed the Holbrook Chamber of Commerce, hoping it will remove the bird from the roof, if it hasn’t already dropped.
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- Road Trip: Scottsdale, Arizona (fpdorchak.wordpress.com)
How sad… I may too find something similar soon. A bird, for several days now has been repeatedly flinging itself at one of our windows. There’s no next nearby, he can’t even see the reflection of himself from the perch on the nearest tree from which he starts his sorties. He repeatedly does it.. after hitting it he does it over and over. I closed the shade (thinking he saw it as an open cave) and he simply moved to another window. I closed that shade and he still continued hitting a window of that same room. Then we noticed on the other side of the house, after the painting power washed the whole house that morning) flies congregated all over the vent under the soffit. A place we can’t even get to in our attic. Flies as in Amityvile Horror. As I posted on line… If a jackal shows up, we’re toast! A jackalope… I can handle. There’s no way a creature bigger than a tiny crack could get up into the soffit vent. So flies congregate over a dead… worm? Freaky. But the poor bird. I may have to buy an owl decal to scare it off… but it is so determined, might just go to the other side of the house. Weird! Bird stuff is just so…. Hitchcockian!
Okay, not that is freaky! I don’t have any advice for something like that, short of what you’re doing. Or maybe putting up a pinwheel in the center?
But, the FLIES. Um, I’d look into an exorcism–or Black Flag. Are they getting INSIDE, or just clustering about the outside? Can you duct tape the vent if they’re outside?
Sorry to sound so trite, but do keep me posted on how these turns out! Geeze!