Attacked By A Bird

You see the title up there? That's what happened to me a short while after I met that hellhound I showed you yesterday. Thank goodness the hellhound wasn't real. If it was, I would be dead right now for telling you about seeing it. Since it was only a statue it only has some of it's power. It only gave me a bit of bad luck and a gloomy feeling.

But let me describe what happened here at the water's edge. I decided to go back and take some pictures around the shore of Lake Erie after my little hike. water pictures are always good. While I was taking my pictures I noticed that there were bird houses lining the shore.

There were these little birds flying back and forth from the bird houses. They looked like Eastern Kingbirds, but I'm not at all sure if that's right. They're a little smaller than the other kingbirds I've seen, but I've often seen them together. Maybe some of you know.

Anyway, I noticed one of them flying frequently back and forth from the lake to its house. I waited for it to come back, and I got lucky that it landed right on top of the birdhouse. But as soon as I began taking pictures it hopped down to the entryway.

I still kept taking pictures because I hoped to get some good shots of it perched on the front. I really wasn't very close to it, maybe about thirty or forty feet away, so I couldn't see it as well as the camera could. This made it difficult to center the shot on the bird. I still got a few decent shots though.

Then as I was taking my pictures, even though I was still very far away, I saw the bird turn its head and stare at me as if I was bothering it! I really was not anywhere near this bird! I had a passing thought that this was slightly peculiar, but it soon left as the bird went into the birdhouse.

I saw a place a ways down the shoreline that looked interesting. It looked like a viewing platform or a dock of some kind. So I decided to make my way down there to see if there was anything good. I had to walk past these birdhouses to get to that place. When I got near this bird's house is when all the trouble started!

I still didn't walk very close, even though I thought about doing so. Now I'm glad I didn't try! I watched as the bird once again flew out over the water. I kept walking towards my destination as it began to fly back.

That's when it came right over to me and hovered in the air between me and its house! Then it suddenly flew right at me! That crazy little bird actually dive bombed me! Not wanting to miss out on an opportunity, I pointed my camera at it as it began to make its next run at my head.

All I could do was point the camera in its general direction. I hoped one of my pictures would get the bird in the shot. The only problem was that I had forgotten to bring the zoom back in from when I was getting the bird's pictures from far away. I don't normally make that mistake.

The blurry picture above is the best one I got of this birds multiple attacks on me. I believe that black shadow on the left just might be the bird. Even after the bird made multiple strafe runs at me it never actually touched me. I don't know if it meant to do more than scare me, but I got away from there quickly. I was glad that was over.


Nature Center Magazine - Looking at fireflies.