=^..^=
Imagine the following.
It is a lovely sunny day, you are sitting outside on a bench and soaking up the sun.
There is just enough breeze to bring the sweet scent of your mother-in-law's daphnes planted by the corner of the house.
You are perfectly happy, wishing only the
tuis and the
parrots would stop making so much noise, pick one song and stick with it.
...and then suddenly you hear a
SWOOOSWOOOOOOOOSH so loud and weird, kinda like someone hurling a couple of medicine balls REALLY FAST, and it flies just past your head. Your mind races and you think:
What the fuck was that?!
...and then immediately:
Lucky it didn't hit me, whoo boy.
This happens within a couple of seconds and you are fast enough to look to your right just to see two wood pigeons dive bombing into the nearby forest.
Yes, you heard me correctly, pigeons.
Now, the Kererū,
also known as the NZ wood pigeon, is not your natural not-so-bright*-yet-strangely-elegant variant, no sir-ee bob! It is built like a brick. Compare the following pictures (click to enlarge):
Your standard "city rat" pigeon. Now, that's what I call grace!
The Kererū, NZ wood pigeon: kinda like a normal pigeon.
ON STEROIDS. Notice the square shoulders, unusual head-to-body ratio, legs that seem to be underdeveloped compared to the rest of the body, unusually deep voice and smelly farts. *sigh*
A pigeon and a tui. SCHEMING OUR DEMISE (don't say I didn't warn you).
Practicing how to signal a RIGHT TURN, are we, hmmmm?
A ripe parrot tree. Cheeky little bugger kept throwing bark at me so I moved away before I was able to get a good picture (I was worried it would poop on me).Bottom line, I just might go and buy myself a nice bike helmet to wear outside, who knows how much damage a close encounter with a wood pigeon might cause. And let's not forget the tuis! Albeit a wee bit smaller, they are equally adamant to fly as close to your head as possible (must be some kind of a bird joke/dare that only they fully understand).
Here's
a copy paste on the subject of Kererū from Wikipedia:
...their wings make a very distinctive "whooshing" sound as they fly. The bird's flight is also very distinctive. Birds will often ascend slowly before making impressively steep parabolic dives; it is thought that this behaviour is often associated with nesting, or nest failure. ...As you can see, they are severely underestimating the potential crashing hazard by downplaying the whooshiness and describing the dive bombing as merely "impressive steep parabolic dive". Nice one, Wikipedia, the brain damage and potential death of all those tourists not wearing safety helmets will be on YOUR conscience, I wash my hands over this matter!!!
And the last sentence made me lol - behaviour associated with nesting, or nest failure?! You bet your floofy ass it's a fail, it's an EPIC FAIL, dive bombing into a nest like an brick with a glandular problem, ha! I bet it leads into some serious courting and mating failures, too!
*according to Jeannot's theory, the more a bird bobs its head while walking, the dumber it is; I think this just shows his thinly disguised disdain for pūkekos and his desire to make them look stupid.All pics taken by moi, 2009
I have no idea who took the picture, but I made the appropriate caption.
