Bird Writings

  While on the pier, I began trying to read the bird writings.  Yep, that is just how things have been lately.  I am bored to the point that I find bird footprints to be some strange hieroglyphics that need to be deciphered.  Quite surely, those birds are trying to send me some sort of message with their traipsing about in the near perfect patterns.  If only I could read the bird writings, I might come to understand their feelings much better.  Perhaps the birds are trying to reach out and communicate with me!  Yeah...that is a long stretch, isn't it.

  Most of the footprints on the mudflats, today, were those of the killdeer.  They have been quite busy searching for food as of late.  Their scurrying steps leave a zigzagging pattern in the mud until the next high tide.  The egrets and herons have much larger feet so their prints sink further into the mud and become water-filled rapidly.  There is not much to be read by their steps.

  All of this makes me wonder if we, as humans, are truly the only ones on this planet that have a method of recording our thoughts.  Back in the day, Pop always used to reprimand my handwriting attempts by saying that I needed to "neaten the chicken-scratch".  This would make me try harder since I definitely did not want to be compared to a chicken scratching about the ground.  Most of their footprints were sullied with poop and I figured that was about as nasty as it got.  Pop's words rang in my head as I tried to make each letter perfect and keep the same graceful slant to my words that I had seen with his and Mom's handwriting.  Penmanship was a huge thing back in their day and they were trying to pass along the skill to their kids.  While I never mastered the beauty that their writing with had, at least mine was legible.  That is about it...legible.

  The birds' writings may or may not have some unseen meanings but at least they are interesting.  To a person with cabin fever, anything out of the ordinary is a welcome change.