There's a great scene in the classic musical "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" that my brother-in-law John spotted. The female lead is coming up over a hill with her beau, singing merrily along, while birds whiz past the couple at high velocity. You have to watch closely to see it, but one of the birds blazes past them and WHAM! Smacks dead into the scenery backdrop behind them, painted to look like the open sky, and drops stunned to the ground.
There's nothing like a good bird stunning to make a ghastly chick-flick musical bearable. I think John wore out the "Rewind" button on his remote going back over that sucker again and again and again.
I think about that every day when I look out our living room windows. The four little baby swallows in the nest under our porch are constantly crying in pitiful, screechy little voices that remind me of the women in that movie, desperately singing their little hearts out hoping for their deepest desire -- a husband. If you step outside the door the parents come flying in from out of nowhere to buzz your head and try to drive you back inside, which conjures up the same feeling I get watching "Seven Brides" -- the urge to flee at a high rate of speed, and possibly find some sort of stick with which to gouge out my own eardrums to stop the torture.
I need to go buy me one of those fake backdrops, maybe I'll get lucky and the swallows will stun themselves silly flying into it and I can finally enjoy my back porch again.
NOTE: No actual birds were harmed in the writing of this post. Or in the filming of the movie, they were fake birds. I should be so lucky, but our swallows are all too real. Sigh.
Monday, June 05, 2006
7 Birds for 7 Bertramites
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2 comments:
I will whole heartedly agree with you about that movie, but I'm going to bet that once those babies get fledged out & leave the nest, then migrate that you will miss the sound of their parents' songs.
At least that's how I've come to feel about the purple martin colony that I have developed over the last 5 or so years. I start waiting in early Feb for the sound of the first scouts to return & sit on the perch chattering & singing & chirping that the doors need to be reopened soon.
All spring long I wake up to the busy sounds of the martins establishing their residences & setting up housekeeping while building their nests. They make the happiest noises.
And you can always tell when some eggs have hatched or when a baby first comes out onto the porches or starts trying to fly. It's like a big celebration.
The adults swarm & swirl whenever we are near the house but they are willing to let me bring it down & check on the status of what's happening in each compartment as long as I tolerate their ruckus.
Won't be much longer now before they leave the house for the woods & lakes to strengthen the wings of the latest generation for the flight to Brazil for the winter.
Then I'll have to clean up behind them, put the doors back in place & wait for Valentine's Day to come again so I can begin a new vigil.
Did you ever see them staging under the Lake Ponchatrain bridge...colonies from all over North America get together to fly as one humongous flock.
You know, I've watched that movie at least a dozen times, and I have yet to see that dumb bird slam into the back drop. Doesn't take away from the fact that this is the top dancing movie of all time! I have 'West Side Story,' and 'Seven Brides' tops them all, dead bird and all... gimmee those sobbin' women!
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