Things with Wings: Migration Elation Los Angeles

February 17, 2010

I wonder what migratory birds think of Los Angeles. Perhaps they felt as I did in the Muslim villages of North Africa, where I spent days without seeing another woman.

 

Today I witnessed the fleeting migration of miniature birds the color of egg yolks and mandarin oranges. Some alteration in the angle of the sun, some kind of moonrise shift in light and the astronomical clock of flight signals it is time to circumnavigate the globe. At least partly…at least to Los Angeles. Mercy.

Oh, as the sun sets, I want to know the story of their day.  The electrical wires, the millions of miles of them, swinging and sagging, and the thousands of tiny claws. The illegal leaf blower. The faces of hungry housecats, pressed up nose to beak against the windowglass.

Los Angeles is not replete with multi-species life – one fleshy species has pretty much obliterated any species of animal that isn’t at the end of a leash or skinned and cut up inside plastic wrap at the supermarket.

There are a few exceptions.

Coyotes, rats, raccoons and pigeons have managed to evade our rapidly-executed waves of eradication.

It only took about fifty years to cover approximately eight thousand square miles of the planet in asphalt, and create a perfect habitat for not much besides billboards, used condoms, and cheeseburger wrappers.

Take my word on the used condoms. It’s the stickiness that keeps them around. But nevermind, that’s why clouds exist – to lure us into looking upwards as we walk.

I almost wish there had been a scheme to obliterate all plant and animal diversity in Los Angeles County – some sort of conscious plot, grinningly nefarious, utterly effective.

Acknowledging the existence of human evil is much less maddening to me than the fact that catastrophic death can be caused by human beings simply being ourselves.

Give the condor a memorial, please.

Can we charge admission?

Raise the price of gas.

Perfect. We’ll start advertising.

Despite the apocalyptic habitat we have advertised ourselves into believing is the best in the world (sunshine! palm trees! ocean!), a few creatures remain alive here in Los Angeles. For now.

We have squirrels and spiders and slugs and possums.  And a great many hummingbirds (whose thrumming wings are one of the few sounds that can be heard above the traffic).

Fleas. Such resiliency.

Maybe we simply need to address our definition of “alive.” I’m not sure whether the category should be more restricted, or broadened. Is a migratory flock of cheeseburger wrappers alive? Perhaps. Perhaps the ghosts of slaughtered cows mooooooooo their way through our streets and alleys. Like in the days of the old west cattle drives.

I hazard a guess: there are more advertisements in Los Angeles than oxygen.

But today, there were the tiny tangerine birds.

The rustle was of something with muscle and bone and beak. How delightful! The feather and mite and spindle legs, and that lovely sliver of bird tongue.

All of it conducted in the lurid hue of tangerine.  What could be more perfect?

I imagine the life of a Los Angeles birdwatcher might rapidly become mundane. (Suggestion: we should start training our pigeons to serve as messenger birds.  A hamburger wrapper falls to the asphalt, and as the consumer struggles to pick it up, a pigeon arrives on the scene, a tiny aluminum canister attached to its leg.  A city filled with poetry delivery services. Who needs pizza. Better yet, a poetry pizza, with poems instead of pepperonis.)

Last week, a flyer was placed on my windshield, offering 25% discounts on the purchase of a mezuzah. Imagine, a tiny canister filled with a prayer from the Torah, meant to be attached to the doorposts of Jewish homes and businesses. Only one of my three studio doors bears a mezuzah – the discount offer was fortuitous.

Imagine a city in which all the pigeons carry a mezuzah on their legs. A little prayer.

It’s Wednesday, the dry cleaning is ready, the parking lot is full of birds, walking to the shop the pigeons scatter, and the words of benediction pass silently by on dirty claws.

Every time I see an animal in Los Angeles that is not a pet or a meal, I am completely taken aback. What is this…this…this? Is it a poem? Is it a prayer?

We need more things with wings.

This weekend, three rescue dogs came to visit the house. They were inside with the cats, in a peculiar standoff where both species seemed to love each other – perhaps too much. The critical mass of calm seemed overturned when a squirrel appeared at the window, scattering the pigeons. Dogs and cats running and barking, wings flapping, a hail of sunflower hulls, and a few millimeters of glass between fang, claw and utter carnage.

We seem to have no equivalent substance in the human world.

Who are these orange birds? They have dropped into my cat world for today. My seeds please them. I hope they stay…but manage to escape in time.