May 13 2009
The Little Guy
Today when I was driving from the library I looked up and saw a sight I often wonder about when I see it. What I saw was three little birds seemingly attacking a larger bird, in this case, it looked like a crow. Why is this interesting to me? I never understand why the bigger bird doesn’t just go off on the littler birds. When I see something like this, it’s usually a bird that’s about three times the size of the smaller bird. The smaller birds take time diving at the bird and pecking at it. The larger bird appears to be frazzled and takes evasive measures as much as it can. It’s kind of like a kung fu movie where the foes take turns coming at the good guy.
I’ve seen this happen in other interactions as well. This time of the year geese hiss and threaten people getting near their nests. Do the geese really think they are scaring people? Sure, the hissing is scary but maybe the geese forgot they don’t have teeth or spurs on their legs. A gooses does that to me and it’s on. I hate geese to start with because I used to live on a lake and constantly had problems with them coming up on my lawn and pooping everywhere. I think I read somewhere that a goose can produce 5 pounds of poop a day. Believe it. My son still has fond memories of chasing geese off the lawn.
Another person where the “little guy” syndrome often happens is in bars, particularly college bars. Here you have to be very careful of the little guy. A friend of a friend of mine was a little guy and he was crazy. When overserved he got a glint in his eye. At this time you wouldlook around the room for a beefy dude or jock because you knew there would probably be an issue forthcoming. That usually was my cue to leave, but I did watch sometimes and it was entertaining, because mostly the bigger dudes backed down, probably because they could tell the little guy was crazy and might possibly be dangerous to them.
So I guess that’s why the bigger bird tries to fly off. I know it’s not very earth shattering, but I find it interesting and it’s one of the things I notice when out and about. Now dogs, that’s another story.
