You’re walking to work in the concrete canyons of Chicago and up ahead three or four people are looking at something on the ground. It’s a body.

Around this time of year, migrating birds hit tall buildings. Some birds are killed. Chicago has a lot of tall buildings.

You approach and say, “What’s going on?” Someone says, “A dead pigeon.”

But these ninnies are looking at a Northern Flicker. A male, with a red patch on its gray-blue head. It has a long beak, tan chest with black spots. You can see yellow under its wings.

“A pigeon, eh?”

Someone says, “Wonder what killed it.” Someone else says, “Maybe some bad birdseed.”

It’s always cool to see a Flicker. Although you prefer them alive, in the wild. Eating ants on the ground or climbing the sides of trees.

The bird’s long tongue is out of its beak. A cartoonish cliche, the corpse with its tongue out. No pigeon has a tongue that long. That’s a woodpecker tongue, an ant-eater tongue.

No pigeon has red on its head, yellow under its wings, or a beak that long. But the people who stopped and stared weren’t stupid. They saw a large, multi-colored bird in the city, and drew on common wisdom: pigeon.

Once again, the thought hits that you see what you know. This has been covered elsewhere here (Banjos, Birds and Janis, in Viewpoints), but it’s interesting.

Somebody sees a car. Somebody else sees a Lexus. Awareness lives in the specific, not the general. But that’s getting way too philosophical.

Meanwhile, there’s a dead Flicker on the ground and people think it’s a pigeon. At least they didn’t say it was a bird. On the other hand, that statement would be true. While calling it a pigeon was a false statement.

Getting philosophical again. Sorry.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 17th, 2010 at 4:27 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.