The birds

Like furies the killdeers rise from the tall ditch grasses to harass the rider as he passes by. Swooping and calling, the male taunts him, berates him, occasionally he plays hurt, holding one leg up and skipping along the highway, always away from the tall grasses. The complaints last for a quarter of a mile before one lets up, satisfied that the predator has been cleared of the nest. Then red-wing black birds take up the project. Sitting on hydro wires, every other span, as he pedals by they too take up with the chorus. They wheel and flare above him, annoyed and annoying. The rider can't help but be annoyed too. Though it does him no good to curse them, though he knows better, though he sees them as beautiful in their vexation, he cannot stifle this irritation that rises in him as he rides.

"One day," he says aloud as he is harangued yet again. "One day you and I will sit down across the table from one another, and I will explain that I have no appetite for you, your partner or your eggs. I will explain how these dive-bombing runs aggravate me." He will go on to say, in some way, to these birds, that, for him, this sort of activity is making it more likely that he will return with a rifle and play the immature boy looking for any reason to pull a trigger. He will attempt to explain that, for him, these self-protective antics have an ironic effect. Of course these two male birds, perching side by side on the table across from him, at a comfortable outdoor cafe on a warm summer's day with a moderate breeze from the South will, each of them, cock a head to one side, or the other, and chirp and sing. It will be a kind of a shrug, to be sure. A shrug to accompany their inevitable, steadfast indifference, and reassurance that they will not change what they do for anything or anyone.

"You are not wanted," they will say. "You do not understand what we do. We do not thrive on your admiration, or your annoyance. We simply ask that you go your own way. That you leave us to ours."

And he may smile then, if he knows what's good for him, and, knowing that his sense of irony can have no truck or trade with their inexorable task, he will tip his hat, if he wears one, and rise to continue on his way, riding. 

Ride:  32 ks (East for 16 and West for 16). Wind SE 30 ks. Avg - 30.59 k/h.