Bird words

Christine Tailer
By Christine Tailer
HCP columnist
I have always loved birds. When I was a city child, pigeons were really the only birds I knew. I loved to watch them gather on the park paths, but mostly I remember how special it was to visit them at the rooftop home of the pigeon man.
The pigeon man lived on the top floor of a tenement building up by Second Avenue. Our father would lead my little brother and me up through the roof of our five-story brownstone, and then hold tight to our hands as we made our way over the rooftops to the pigeon man’s world. He appeared to me to be old and weathered, and as far as I could tell, he spent all of his time among his many birds. He had built various sized coops out of old wooden crates, fashioning a sort of rooftop coop city. His birds were beautiful. Some were brown. Others were pure white, or slate gray. Those with iridescent green seemed to shimmer as they moved. I remember the flurry of their many wings when the pigeon man opened the coop doors and let the birds fly up into the evening sky.
They would first group into a single flock, and fly in a giant circle high over the rooftop. Then, once all the birds were circling, the pigeon man would climb up onto the highest part of the roof and stand tall, holding a broken broomstick high over his head. He would slowly begin to wave the stick in a long figure eight pattern, and we would watch in awe as the birds broke out of their circle and began to fly in the same figure, dipping and rising high above our heads.
Eventually, the pigeon man would climb down from his perch, and stand back beside the crates. The birds would swoop down, land on the rooftop around us, and then, one by one, they would each return to their designated crate. I can still clearly see the pigeon man's rough hands as he scattered bread crumbs and peas across the coop floors, and gently latch the doors. We would stay to watch the pigeons eat their dinner and then fly up to their roosts and to settle in for the night, contentedly cooing.
I have now come to know so many different kinds of birds, not only our parrots, chickens and white homing pigeons, but also the wild birds. I particularly love to hear the crows as they settle in for the evening up on the hillside. They caw to each other, and sometimes I join in. There have been occasions where we have conversed for a minute or more, though I often wonder just what it is we are conversing about.
Birds are special, and so it is really no wonder that we have so many bird expressions in our human language. I remember the way my mother would shake her head and tell my father that his latest planned adventure, such as building a four-seated bicycle out of old parts (so he could safely steer his family through the city streets) was “for the birds.”
With just a bit of research, I was able to learn that the expression originated in the preindustrial world when horses pulled wagons and carriages through the towns and cities, and left their droppings in the street. Pedestrians had to carefully watch where they stepped. Only birds found any benefit to the droppings, eagerly gathering around and picking through the deposited mounds in search of undigested seeds. Hence the expression. What was a nuisance to everyone else, was "for the birds."
Then I remember how my Nana would spoil me with a coveted treat, and I would wonder how she had possibly known what I had wished for. She would smile and say “A little bird told me.” Well, it seems that this saying is first found in the Old Testament, Ecclesiastes 10:20, advising the reader not to speak badly of another, because “a bird in the sky may carry your words, and a bird on the wing may report what you say.”
We all know that “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” This phrase dates back to medieval times, when falconers knew to only let their falcons off to hunt ever so carefully. A trained falcon was certainly worth far more than any number of potential prey.
Then, what about “killing two birds with one stone?” This idiom dates back to the early 1600s when hunters used slingshot. It was virtually impossible to kill two birds with one stone, though many tried with hopes of gaining the distinction of being a great hunter. Over time the phrase came to mean accomplishing two things with a single action, still a matter of distinction. Thus, I could say that I mucked out the horse enclosure, and in the process was able to feed my always hungry compost pile with the dirty straw and droppings. My single stone of mucking, resulted both a clean enclosure and a well-fed compost pile, a distinguished result indeed.
There are many other bird sayings; free as a bird, fly the coop, the early bird catches the worm, birds of a feather, rare bird, as the crow flies, chicken out, night owl, as a duck to water, sitting duck, cold turkey, wild goose chase, and the list goes on and on. It is hard to imagine any other creature that has the honor of being the subject of so any idioms.
Thinking back, I can imagine my mother smiling as she sat astride the four-seated bicycle behind my father. She quite likely wished that she was doing something else, and certainly believed that the four-seated bike was for the birds, but she loved my father. I understand, and I really am so very thankful to have been raised in such a loving, bird brained family.
Christine Tailer is an attorney and former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in Ohio south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.
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