The bird might have been a pelican or a cormorant. I know one from the other, sure, but this bird was so coated that it was hard to tell. It was the outline of a bird. The way a taffy apple is the outline of an apple. Even its eyes were covered.

This was my sighting of the day. Not from fields and woods near my home. It was sighted on CNN. A bird covered in tarry oil that’s spreading across the Gulf.

This isn’t another pointless complaint about the destruction of Gulf wildlife. There’s plenty of complaining going around. We won’t add to it. This is an honest inquiry into why I felt something in my gut that went beyond the condition of one bird.

It had to do with symbolism. Not the kind of thing we want to pursue particularly, but sometimes it’s unavoidable; it invades the back of your mind.

It’s because the bird buried in brown stuff had wings. Birds are all about wings. All about flying. That’s why I got interested in them. As a kid I wanted to fly out of every schoolroom I sat in. When I see a bird fly I appreciate the power of a whim. The bird wants to go somewhere, and it goes there.

Sometimes I aim my binoculars at a bird and before I focus, it takes off. I don’t get mad. I say, why not? Go with your whim, man. Birds aren’t made to sit still. They follow their whims. Because they can. Because they have wings.

So when I saw that bird glopped up, unable to fly, I guess it symbolized the fact that glop happens. The discomfort in my gut went beyond feelings for one victimized bird. It was a generalized feeling that came from understanding that the ability to follow whims can sometimes be taken away. And there’s not much you can do about it.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 4th, 2010 at 10:07 pm and is filed under "Daily Sightings" A Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.