All those cameras and sensors, and this person still couldn't park straight outside of the school. She hardly left any space on the footpath where kids have to walk, so I guess if one happened to scrape their bag down the side, it would be her own fault. Sometimes I wonder how far people's driving skills have fallen, if those sensors were taken away. Or how much attention they are actually paying when doing things, if the sensors failed. I suspect that many people over the last decade or two have become so reliant on a beep to tell them where the front or back of their car is, that if that beep didn't come, they wouldn't realise until they hit something.
I am a bit sad tonight.
For the last few weeks and for the second year in a row, a pigeon has been nesting in an apple tree that sits outside of our lounge window, and we have enjoyed watching the story unfold. However, today a crow spied the nesting female and called its friends and started trying to get to it through the branches. I went outside a couple times to shoo it away, but when I got back from getting Smallsteps from school, the inevitable had happened and the nest was empty, with a few pigeon feathers on the ground.
Smallsteps was very upset.
I assumed that the pigeon would have tried to defend the eggs and the three or four crows (a technical "murder" of crows) being much larger would have killed her. When Smallsteps and I were eating a bit later, the father pigeon landed on the tree and we watched it as it stared forlornly at the empty nest that had raised their previous clutch. After a minute or two, it flew away and landed atop a light pole, and then was joined a moment later by the smaller mother pigeon. So she wasn't killed after all. And while happy she survived, Smallsteps realised that they won't be back again next year.
Yes, they are just pigeons and it is a "circle of life" situation, but still, it saddens me also. The garden should be filled with life during the spring, not death. Maybe it is a bad omen for us, not that I believe in those - though I must have smashed a lot of mirrors, walked under many ladders, and had several black cats cross my path.
I think that in many developed countries it is a privilege to not be surrounded with death all of the time and in many ways it makes us soft. Yet at the same time, in many other countries life seems to be incredibly cheap, and the lives of animals valueless, which means that crime and animal cruelty seem to be daily living. I don't understand people who are intentionally cruel to animals for pleasure or profit.
But yes, much like the many crashes that would happen if all the driving aids were taken off cars, the lack of exposure to the realities of life makes us soft and more sensitive when reality bites. Life is filled with death, it is unavoidable, but this doesn't mean we have to be so comfortable with death that we no longer value life. I don't think we should be so desensitized to reality that we no longer feel it, no longer appreciate it, no longer notice the beauty in the world. But, I also don't think we should be so surrounded by comfort and supports that we are no longer capable of dealing with the situations life throws at us.
The pigeon couple have lived to see another day and perhaps, they will live long enough to have another go and bringing life into the world, even if it might not be at our place. Though, pigeons can remember faces and can tell the difference between hostile and friendly people for years, so maybe they will come back and I can try to find a way to protect them a bit more from the murdering crows.
The crows are of course just being crows, and I am just being me.
Taraz
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