Ornithophobia

It was as if he was an Olympic athlete striving to just cross that finish line. Keeping his eye on the prize, he persevered using everything in his strength to reach his destination. Unfortunately, this youthful creature did not practice hard enough for the goal set before him. Just feet from that victorious arrival, weakness prevailed. The finish line that was once the tree quickly became my head!

That was am excerpt from a narrative essay I wrote in one of my writing classes, I was going to just copy and paste the whole thing (yes, it's that good of a story it qualified as a college paper), but it's a bit too formal for this little blog of mine. Not sure if that's a good thing or not, but we will pretend it is. Anyways, this "youthful creature" was a baby bird, more specifically it appeared to be a baby owl. I don't know if that is true or even possible because it was in the day, I always thought it looked like it and in order to make the story that much more exciting we will stick to the fact that this was indeed a baby owl.

I was about 7 years old and I had just come out of the lake. My hair may have looked something like this, but add in the wet look.

This was taken on our honeymoon, in the bird's defense this particular "hairstyle" does give the appearance of a rat's bird's nest. I am very thankful I never experienced this again because clearly, as seen in this picture, I didn't learn my lesson on the importance of maintaining beautiful hair in the presence of birds.

Anyways, I got out of the lake, wrapped myself up in my towel and sat next to my mom and her friend. Everyone sitting by the lake saw this helpful little bird fly from one side of the lake to the other. As he was approaching land he seemed to be flying a little on the low side, low enough that we all had to duck our heads. Turns out I didn't duck my head low enough and there was some bird confusion between a nest and crazy wet hair. Everyone lifted their head and laughed at how close the bird was, lo and behold I am screaming trying to swat the bird off my head. As the tears were coming and I was beyond freaked, I wouldn't have expected anyone to do anything other than what they were doing to help the situation....point and laugh. Can you say scarred for life? Talk about a tragic childhood, right? As time goes on, and my memory fades becomes stronger, this story seems to get more dramatic. In fact, it may have been a vulture that landed on my head that day, only God knows.

So I share this very personal, life changing event with you to bring you to the second part of this post. I give you permission to laugh at the story above (if you haven't already, thank you for being so kind). I can laugh about it now, but that doesn't change my Ornithophobia- just discovered this word and feeling pretty cool right now.

Two years ago, when I was a live-in nanny, I took the kids to go feed the ducks. It was a beautiful, sunny day and I had some bread that was getting old, so I packed the kids up in the car (Mr. B came along too- thank you Lord!) and we headed over to the lake. Where I come from ducks found at the pond look like this:

Well, welcome to Florida, through migration they morph into these big guys:

They must change in bird types too because these are actually geese not ducks so it's a complete morph package. These birds are nothing like the sweet little ducks I fed in my childhood. These birds attack. These birds are huge. Apparently these birds are starving. Besides the fact that the kids (and possibly me) were crying because we kept getting bit due to the fact that we were standing on a bunch of fire ant hills (another thing we don't have up north), we were getting attacked by these geese. We were running around the parking lot (safety first) and I dropped the bag of bread, grabbed the kids and bolted to the car. Remember, birds scare me. Why did I think this would be a good idea?? It played out way different in my head. Sorry kids, Ms J is having an anxiety attack because she's scared of birds, get in the car, we are going home. Because.

These geese became a special attraction for my visitors. My friend was visiting for my birthday and knowing she is not too fond of birds herself, I knew exactly where to take her. After all, it was my birthday so she had very little say on what we did that day. To us, this video is priceless and will always make us laugh. To you, it will most likely not be the same experience, but feel free to give it a shot just in case. I would hate for you to miss out. Disclosure: I think a baby could video tape better than I did, although please note I was running away. If you get motion sickness, I apologize, you may want to take some Dramamine or just close your eyes and make up your own illustration based on the sound effects. You may want to try and tune out my laugh as well. As mentioned, I now like to bring people here (the experience is different when you know what to expect), I am still petrified of the birds, but their reaction trumps my fear. Kind of.

When my mom and sister visited in October, I was so excited to bring them and see how my sister would react. We only had a few pieces of bread, but they would still be able to experience the attack of the geese.This was quickly destroyed when Mr. B gave each geese a whole piece of bread. Someone needs lessons on how to feed the birds, not to point fingers, but it's not me. He completely killed this experience. The bread was gone. I'm still trying to get over this disappointment.

Mr. B learned his lesson and didn't touch the bread this time around with our new visitors. This past weekend my grammie was the innocent victim.

This is how our friends greet us when they catch a glimpse of the bread bag.

Again, excuse my obnoxious hyena laugh, I didn't learn from the first video.

Note to self: Restrain laugh for as long as possible.

My grammie loves birds so she was the perfect candidate for the comedic attack of the geese experience. She was totally oblivious to what we set her up for. We were prepared for some laughs...

She didn't let us down.

Today is actually her 65th birthday! Happy Birthday Grammie!! So glad you were able to visit this past weekend; you were such a good sport when feeding those vicious creatures! She doesn't read this (she's not the most internet savvy), it's the thought that counts, right? :)

I am aware that these are most likely "you had to be there" stories, similar to when you are telling someone about a crazy dream you had and it only makes sense to you and no one else cares. So I am sorry I wasted moments of your life, but I appreciate your time.

Happy Friday!!!!!!!

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