Personal Animal Stories

[Ger]

A few years ago, maybe four, my wife and I used to get up at the crack of dawn in order to bat a ball back and forth on the tennis court in a nearby park. Every single morning, at intervals while we were doing this, we'd hear the cheerful call of a bird nearby. I often looked around to try and see where the bird song was coming from to no avail.

One morning though, when the bird sang, I looked over to see a little, yellow bird sitting in one of the links in the fence that surrounds the court. I summoned my wife to come over from her position on the other side of the net so that I could point it out to her. As she was coming over, the bird flew off but then landed again in a link in the fence at the back of the court. The bird waited there until I could point it out while my wife was standing next to me.

Well, I could just say that we later identified the bird that we were looking at as a male Pine Warbler and leave it at that, but then, I would be leaving out the most amazing part of this story; and I certainly don't want to do that. You see, a few days after we had spotted this little Pine Warbler, it showed up again as we were walking by the park on our way to a local grocery store. It appeared with his mate and several of his young, landing with them on the ground not far from where we were walking. I think that our Pine Warbler friend was introducing us to his family. It sure seemed like that anyway.

 

[Emma JC]

That is a great story, Ger, and if your supposition is correct they would join dolphins and whales as the only other known (WILD) animals that not only interact voluntarily with humans but will also show off their young.

Emma JC

Edit - inserted wild

 

[TofuRobot]

Birds are actually very smart! At least I know parrots are. Parrots have the intelligence on the level of dogs - maybe even smarter - like in the level of a toddler age human. Lovely story, thanks for sharing!

 

[Deleted member 3018]

I loved that story Ger!

I have some birding stories too, if you are interested.

Last Beltane, as I was walking in the woods, and just kinda breathing, enjoying the beauty around me, this fringilla coelebs flew on a branch close to me and started a singing performance. He was gorgeous. I don't know how long I listened and watched.

Then, some years ago, I used to de-stress by walking into a nearby park, and use the swings there. Don't worry, I'm not some creep that goes there when there are children around... the park was basically abandoned, I was the only "child" there. lol
But that night there was a young turdus pilaris, sitting on the swing. At first, I hesitated, because I didn't want to frighten him... But then I was like "Ef it, this is MY swing" lol, so I sat down besides him. And he just stared at me. I said "I think you know that I'm a vegetarian, don't you?" and he just kept staring. It was a weird and cute lil' birdie.

And one night, when it was very dark in the woods. Stars gave their light to the trees and rocks around me. Everything was colored black, and dark blue... This huge white owl glide past me, quiet like a ghost.

Then... this was a looooong ago. I was walking in the woods, when I suddently had this intuition to check the bushes near me, so I did... and what I saw, oh damn I wish I could paint that view.
There, in the bright sunlight, amongst some wasps, was a erithacus rubecula. For a while we stared at each other, then I just carefully let go of the branches, and walked away.