Coooo

Jan 29, 2010 by Naomi.

Differences between birds  - feather color, size - are quite obvious at first sight. I can identify those which fly across the sky while I enjoy coffee on a California patio. An airplane droned through the otherwise morning silence and I separated that mechanical noise from others that somehow sounded mechanical but with a different sequence - bird calls. The starlings gave a sharp sort of whistle but only when they perched. Gulls gave out an emotional mew but only while they were in flight. While perched one would think they were mute.

Not so with the common ravens. They caw caw when in flight and fluff up to push out raspy caws when standing upon a pole or tree top. Knowing that, it is possible for people with limited sight to identify those birds. Rock doves - pigeons - emit the cooing we associate when a pair put heads together to share a secret. Ornithologists insist that most bird calls indicate a declaring of territory. Maybe so but is it so impossible to expect those vertebrates to be sharing their thoughts? How was your day, dear? Did you get the crumbs off the window sill left by that little human? I detected some cinnamon today. Didn’t you like that? Why are you sad? Don’t despair, junior will one day find his destiny.

Are those thoughts so far-fetched? Birds may be continuously evolving dinosaurs but they are only on a path suddenly switched in the genome from our own - a vertebrate with feathers. Most distinctive.

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