TV news said, watch out, high winds are coming. “A dry hurricane,” one guy called it. We were told to batten down the lawn furniture, stay home, hide under the bed.

Gusts of 60 mph or more would pelt the Chicago area. We braced. (The random thought hit: if you’re a bird, you’re screwed. But we had our own problems).

What happened? We had a windy day. We’ve had such days before; we’ll have them again.

If media hadn’t warned that the sky was falling, we wouldn’t have paid much attention. Hell, it’s late October. You expect brisk weather.

Alarmists make people worried about everything. Wind today. Bedbugs yesterday, salmonella the day before.

I went looking for birds. Wanted to see if they’d be blown off trees, or if they could fly okay. They weigh nothing, while we’re hefty and anchored to the ground.

I saw some American Robins that were doing fine. These should be renamed “Yanks,” as mentioned previously. I saw flocks of Cedar Waxwings eating berries. Waxwings don’t look interesting from a distance, but when you get close, they are.

I saw American Crows in the sky and Dark-eyed Juncos on the ground. I saw a Cardinal, red against the gray trees.

I saw Red-tailed Hawks, Mourning Doves, White-throated Sparrows. And a big, streaked-up Fox Sparrow that I thought was a Wood Thrush at first.

These are not exotic sightings. If you wanted rare birds, sorry.

That’s not the point. The point is that birds don’t hear news bulletins, so on this killer-wind day, they went about their business. They managed fine. I watched.

The wind didn’t make it impossible for them to land on a branch. It didn’t blow them out of town. They didn’t expect a problem, and didn’t have one.

If you don’t hear that a catastrophe’s coming, it won’t. People who don’t read about bedbugs, don’t itch in bed. People who never hear about salmonella sandwiches won’t feel sick. Alarmist news is the sickness.

Birds don’t have that problem. They’re as indifferent to the elements as the elements are to them. They do what they want, every day, whether it’s nice or storming.

We’re not the two-fisted ones. They are.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 at 9:25 am 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.