As a cyclist in the midwest prarieland, my love for nature is limitless. This being said, some of mother nature's creatures cause great strife for those biking on farm roads. One wouldn't think that something so small, like a red-winged blackbird, could cause a large human to go a bit crazy. It's not like I'm talking about mosquitoes here. No, these so called "harmless" birds choose to dive bomb cyclists and can sometimes attach themselves to helmets causing cyclists to look like demented beings with arms flapping, swerving all over the road and using expletives that are not suitable for this blog.
A couple of days ago, biking mid day in the scorching summer sun, I breezed by two baby red winged blackbirds sitting in the middle of a country road...helpless. Of course I stopped, knowing that they could be hit by a car (going much faster than any bike). But what to do? The parents were swarming me, just being good parents of course. They were definitely too young to fly, they still had pin feathers. So there, under the endless blue sky, I took off my cycling gloves and scooped the babies up (not touching them with my hands, using gloves instead) to move them to the side of the road in the shade. The parents of course had no idea that I was just trying to be helpful. Instead, they thought it was pertinent to chase me away. After a few minutes of ducking and dancing around them, I got the babies off to the side. Will they survive? Sad to say, probably not. But even though these creatures cause me so much grief on the bike, I just couldn't seal their fate by leaving them in the road.
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