Mourning the loss of a misdirected bird

By Staff
Leada Gore, Editor
The first time we heard the thump on the front window, we didn't pay too much attention. When it kept happening, however, we started trying to figure out the noise's source.
It turns out the noise came from a bird hitting the window above our door. The window is large and arches above the front door. This bird – who either thought his reflection was another bird or was trying to break into our house – kept hitting the window day after day.
We soon became accustomed to the noise and didn't worry too much about the bird. He seemed to think it was sort of a game.
It was obvious he wasn't the brightest bird in the nest, but it didn't seem to harm anything.
This wasn't the first time I'd encountered such an adventurous bird. When I was a child, we had a bird that repeatedly flew into our living room window. Fearing for the bird and the window, too, we read up on the problem. We finally solved it by taping a black cutout of a large bird onto the window. This was apparently enough to chase the other bird away.
And maybe we should have done the same thing at our house now. On Monday morning, we heard the familiar thump of the bird hitting the window. Greg was heading out to work and opened the front door. Laying at his feet was the body of a small, brown bird.
"We have a problem here," he said. "Seems the bird was suicidal."
I was crushed. The bird was perfectly intact, not a bruise or ruffled feather on him, but he was mighty still.
"Maybe he's just stunned," I replied.
"Nope. He's dead as a doornail. Not only is he dead, it scared the mess out of him, too," Greg said, pointing to the splattering all along the front porch.
Greg took the bird and put him in a small box and put the box in the garbage can.
"What if he's just knocked out and you've put him in the garbage can and when he wakes up he'll be trapped," I asked.
"How about this," Greg said. "When you leave, you open the garbage can and if he flies out, you'll know you're right."
When I left for work that day, I opened the garbage can lid and peered inside. The little, brown bird was inside the box where Greg had left him. His little claws were up in the air.
All that was missing were little x's on his eyes.
I put the lid down on the garbage can. It was apparent that my hopes of a knocked-out bird were false.
Instead, I held by own-little bird-in-garbage-can funeral. I said a little prayer and closed the garbage can lid. It may not have been a fancy funeral but it seemed fitting for a bird who died by window.
Another bird bites the dust.