Avian Eulogy

I had a rather startling experience yesterday while on my regular lunchtime walk around the office complex where I work. I was on the return leg heading north as I watched a jet plane approaching YVR, which is normal. Our offices are (somewhat unsettlingly) below the flight path to the airport. As I watched the jet glide past I heard another plane approaching.

From the pitch I judged it to be a propeller-driven plane. Normally I’m not much of a plane aficionado; I’m more of a car nut. By this statement I mean I don’t regularly go out of my way to crane my neck to view a plane, but, inexplicably, I did in this case. And as I swung my head back into its normal arc I also noticed a flock of birds ahead of me, and also potentially in the path of the plane, although I really didn’t focus too much on it at that instant.

But perspective is a funny thing (although not for the bird in question I’m afraid). I had perhaps 2 or 3 seconds to ponder the altitude of that particular flock of birds in relation to the approaching aircraft before I witnessed the intersection of mechanical flight with natural flight, the result being a surprisingly audible “Pop” (or two or three; I really can’t recall how many) following by a small white mid-air explosion. Obviously it wasn’t the plane that took the brunt of the collision.

Somewhat in shock of what I’d just witnessed I watched a small white bundle gently drift earthward, quickly darkening to bright red as it descended. As I say, I don’t know how many birds were ploughed through, but I’d say either two or more birds fell from the sky in various quadrants, or else parts of the same bird were strewn in various directions.

I’m leaning towards the “strewn in various directions” theory because as I walked further and approached the building I work in, I noticed a woman turn and look down at the pavement as she walked a block or so ahead of me. I was quite confident in my prediction of what I would find as she had made such an obvious motion to turn and observe. Unless I had not witnessed the initial aerial collision I don’t think I’d have immediately been able to identify what I discovered on the asphalt.

The colour was intensely red, poppy red, and three small piles were arranged almost artfully amongst the fallen autumn leaves. Again, perspective is everything, and if this had been a different arena, say as restaurant critique, I’d have been expecting to be introduced to a plated appetizer of caviar. Another mental image that immediately came to mind was a scene from “The Blair Witch Project” that has always stayed with me; the scene where the protagonists, lost in the forest traveling in seemingly endless circles (a la “Groundhog Day”) discover a “present” outside their tent of some unidentifiable animal (or human) remains. 

Again, if I hadn’t witnessed it I probably wouldn’t have believed the force with which propeller blades could fling material with which they had collided.

My prayer is that the bird died on impact and never knew what hit it. Rest in peace little bird.