When i see a bird running with that pop n lock, fast twitch muscle action, i see dinosaurs. Just barely veered right to avoid the mass extinction event 66 million years ago, but parted ways with us humans WAY awn back- 300+ million years ago when (oh snap!) Synapsids faked left and went right to mammalia, and Sauropsids kept straight to reptile and avian camps. That’s a combined 600 million years of evolution (300 million years ago for each branch since our common ancestors). What freaks me out, when I dial it in with my bird brethren, is how MUCH we have in common- how easy it is to relate, to share the feels, to empathize with those parents shoving bits down the eager beaks of their young nestlings, or to imagine the weight of the wind pushing against those long diva fingernail feathers. I have many friendships that bridge a language gap. Sincerity and kindness are not worded experiences- they are sensed. And when it is sensed across the immense gulf, that 600 million year gap, and there is undeniable CONNECTION, this is a distinct poetry. It is not easily earned, this connection. You have to be willing to go into their comfort zones and this means exiting yours. Perhaps this explains why ornithologists are an awkward lot- society is already uncomfortable to them (I challenge you to find a more awkward subset of humanity than birders!) so they are happy to shed social norms in order to act upon that shared “lizard brain”. For me, these bird pieces are still mirrors, still self portraits, sensing the tandem dance we are performing because we somehow ended up on earth in the present tense, breathing the same O2 that they swim in and we take for granted.
