Home garages are intended to house and protect the family car. Protect it, or them for the more fortunate, from the elements – sun, rain, and snow. Protect it (or them) from falling branches and other flying objects. Protect it (or them) from thieves eager to plunder coins and other left-behind treasures. Or catalytic converters – the latest target – prized for the component rare metals that make them effective and give them outsized value on the underground market. We lost one. Oh, and protect family members from having to be exposed to the weather on the way to and from the car. But, back to the car, protect it (or them) from bird poop.
Our garage serves as a repository for all sorts of garden tools, bicycles, the grandkids’ toys, and junk. So, our cars (in the name of full disclosure, we have two, albeit with a one-car garage) live in the driveway, fully exposed. The elements, thieves, and bird poop never motivated us enough to clear the garage to be able to park a car inside.
On many occasions, we found bird poop on the windshield, roof, and/or hood. Sometimes really big blobs of heavy white poop which we were able, with some online research, to identify as the end product of owl or perhaps turkey vulture digestion. Nothing a little soap, water, and elbow grease couldn’t erase, but the windshield washer and wiper generally weren’t up to the task. These were big blobs!
But this isn’t really about garages or windshield blobs.
A neighbor walking her dog last night called out to me as I was depositing the week’s trash, recycling, and compost for pickup in the morning. She pointed to a baby bird sitting in the middle of the street. We compared notes on how the bird might have found itself in this lonely and precarious situation and what, if anything, we might do. Her dog, Reggie, had an outsized interest in the bird but was dragged away by his owner away before he could exercise his curiosity, leaving me to see to the bird. After our various bins were in their proper place to greet the three different trucks to be sent for them in morrow’s daylight, I grabbed a towel from the aforementioned garage, scooped up the bird, and gently put him (or maybe her) down on soft ground under a bush before heading inside for some more online research to sort out what to do next. I learned it was a fledgling, not a nestling. It was fully feathered, moved around a bit, and fluttered its wings as I released it to the ground from its towel portage. Google told me that all this suggested he/she/it was most probably in the early stages of learning to fly. I learned, too, that any intervention of the sort I had been considering – water, food, sheltering – was not likely to lead to a happy outcome. Best to hope its bird mommy or daddy came back to return it to the nest. Relieved of any responsibility or course of reasonable action, I made my way back to the house. On the way, I noticed a lot of big white blobs of bird poop on the street where my neighbor and I first saw the little critter. Better white blobs on the street than on my car I thought, but I was left to wonder what had gone on around that lone little bird to account for the Jackson-Pollock-on-the-pavement-like scene.
The baby bird was still where I had left it when I last went outside to check before turning in the for night. Not so early the next morning as I left for the gym. No bird. Had it found the strength to fly away? Had s/he been picked up by a caring parent and returned to the nest? No bird, but more white scat of great interest to a few flies on their breakfast in waiting. The baby bird had probably given its life for a larger animal’s nourishment and subsequent digestion and excretion. Ah, the cycle of life. And death.
Back from the gym, I parked on the street close to where I had first left – and subsequently not found – the baby bird. I noticed a nest overhead and was left to wonder what tales it might tell.
Our trash, recycling, and compost had been picked up. Our tax dollars at work. The garage was still full of junk. The pavement was still abstract-art white with last night’s bird poop.
We saw a fledgling on the walkway on Mass Ave, its sibling had been crushed by a biker (we think). So not wanting the same to happen to the surviving fledgling I picked up a leaf and gently nudged it to the grass - Its parent came angrily screeching our way but did not attack - we felt relieved that it was not alone :)
Nice piece. Wished the bird poop on my car washed off as easily as yours seems to do.