Rant #2,451: Flying

As we are ready to enter the fall season, a new report suggests that North America has lost nearly 3 billion birds since 1970, which included a significant drop off in certain bird species that were once considered to be plentiful.

Overall, the findings from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and American Bird Conservancy found that bird populations in the U.S. and Canada have declined 29 percent during the past 50 years, which the report states is a sign of a widespread ecological crisis.

Of the birds lost, most belonged to 12 bird families, including sparrows; warblers; finches and swallows.

The study said that the reasons for the drop include habitat loss; the inability to find food, partly due to the decline of the insect population; deaths due to other animals, including free-roaming cats; collisions with glass; and the use of toxic pesticides.

There was no mention of pigeons in the study, which, even though I am not an ornithologist, I have a feeling that this population has increased over the years.

Why do I believe this?

Just check out my car.

My poor, white 2014 Kia Optima has been the victim of numerous pigeon drops, and seemingly, no matter where I park my car, the pigeons find it.

Admittedly, I park under trees at both home and work, and that increases the possibility that the car is going to get creamed, but even when driving the car, I have gotten splattered.

Just the other day, while driving home from work, and on the parkway, without a tree even near me, I got hit from above.

If the bird was dropping a bomb, I would have been toast, but even with the bomb it dropped, it was bad enough, getting all over my window.

I kind of wish pigeons were on that list, but alas, they aren't, and they always seem to find my car, so you can see how upsetting this can be.

My cars have never been immune to this type of air drops. Not only have all my cars been hit by these drops, but I had one car that really got hit, but by what, I can only assume what it was.

A number of years ago, I was on a popular road by me on a Saturday afternoon with my family in the car. We were driving east on this road, and all of a sudden, a large amount of gump from the sky literally encased the car as we were waiting by a traffic light.

I put on my windshield wipers, and saw that the car in front of me also got bombed, but only in the back. I could not see the car behind me because the gump covered the back windshield.

When we got out of the car after reaching our destination, we saw that there was some type of foul smelling gump literally all over the car, and later, I seem to remember that I did bring the car to the car wash--I hate car washes, and have rarely ventured into one after a few incidents where my car was damaged by them--but the damage had been done.

Whatever came from the sky, it literally burned off the paint on the car. The paint began to flake, and you literally could peal the paint off with your fingers.

I used to say that I had the only car with paint that blew in the wind.

I think what the gump was was industrial waste from a plane--yes, human waste that somehow got dropped off on my car, but I have no proof of that, never checked up on that, and yes, it is conjecture.

But whatever it was, while it may not have been pigeon-generated, it literally burnt the paint right off the car, and burned me up in the process.

So when any car of mine gets dumped on, I feel that I, myself, am being dumped on, and I don't like it.

I try to rationalize it by stating to myself that it is a "mitzvah" when it happens, a sign of good luck, but it really isn't.

So, you now know why I am upset that pigeons are not on that list of birds dying out.

I never had a situation with a finch or a swallow, but pigeons ... they are the bane of my existence.

That might be hard to swallow for some, but for me, it simply isn't.

I guess the bird isn't the word when you are talking about pigeons.

So with that, I say have a good weekend, and I will speak to you again on Monday.