Weird events you've witnessed

[Alix]

I've seen lots of weird stuff in my time. Just this week though, I had a ringside seat at a weird moment.

My oldest daughter had dental surgery on Tuesday to remove all her wisdom teeth, so we have been sort of couch potatoes the last few days. On Wednesday, we were hanging out watching a movie when a flock of waxwings descended on the tree in our front yard. That's pretty normal from January til March around here. Usually, they swoop in, eat for a few seconds and take off, come back, eat, leave...you get the idea. So this time, they descended and stayed. The occasional bird would fly off and another would come in, but overall, the tree stayed covered in waxwings. That's not the weird part.

The weird part is that when they would fly off, they kept hitting my front window! Normally we expect one or two strikes, these birds are so loaded from the fermented berries they can't fly straight most of the time. Doesn't sound too weird yet does it. Well how about if I tell you that 40 birds hit my window over the space of about an hour and a half? I tried going outside to shoo them away, banging on the window to frighten them off, closing the blinds, the cat was in the window...nothing worked. The damn birds just kept slamming themselves into our window full force. At one point there were 4 birds sitting on the front walk trying to recover their wits enough to fly off. Only one fatality though.

The only thing I can figure is that the light at that time of day must have caused a reflection of the tree in our window and the birds were trying to check out a new tree. Otherwise, I was living in a live version of Angry Birds!

What weird stuff have you seen lately?

 

[GB]

How about another bird related one for ya Alix. This was back in high school. My friend Scott just got his drivers license that day. We went out for a ride. It was a beautiful spring day so we had all the windows down. Wenwere stopped at a stop lightnand all of a sudden aboutna hundred birds went flying through the passengers window and out the drivers window. One went and all the rest followed. One of them even got his foot stuck in one of the air vents and we had to extract him.

 

[Alix]

That DEFINITELY counts! They were probably waxwings too! Those birds are whacked!

Did I ever tell you about the bird that flew down our chimney one Christmas eve?

 

[Zhizara]

I've seen lots of weird stuff in my time. Just this week though, I had a ringside seat at a weird moment.

My oldest daughter had dental surgery on Tuesday to remove all her wisdom teeth, so we have been sort of couch potatoes the last few days. On Wednesday, we were hanging out watching a movie when a flock of waxwings descended on the tree in our front yard. That's pretty normal from January til March around here. Usually, they swoop in, eat for a few seconds and take off, come back, eat, leave...you get the idea. So this time, they descended and stayed. The occasional bird would fly off and another would come in, but overall, the tree stayed covered in waxwings. That's not the weird part.

The weird part is that when they would fly off, they kept hitting my front window! Normally we expect one or two strikes, these birds are so loaded from the fermented berries they can't fly straight most of the time. Doesn't sound too weird yet does it. Well how about if I tell you that 40 birds hit my window over the space of about an hour and a half? I tried going outside to shoo them away, banging on the window to frighten them off, closing the blinds, the cat was in the window...nothing worked. The damn birds just kept slamming themselves into our window full force. At one point there were 4 birds sitting on the front walk trying to recover their wits enough to fly off. Only one fatality though.

The only thing I can figure is that the light at that time of day must have caused a reflection of the tree in our window and the birds were trying to check out a new tree. Otherwise, I was living in a live version of Angry Birds!

What weird stuff have you seen lately?

The movie The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock. Clever thinking about the reflection. It makes sense.

 

[GB]

I can guess what you named him.

 

[jabbur]

When I was a child growing up in NE Ohio, one summer day we were getting ready to go out in the backyard after lunch. Mom was standing at the kitchen sink doing up lunch dishes when she yelled out to us to stay inside in a rather sharp tone. We rushed to the big picture windows that looked out on the backyard. Lo and behold, there was a monkey in our apple tree! It climbed all over the tree and ran around our yard. We sat transfixed while Mom called the police. Apparently someone's pet had escaped. By the time someone got to our house, the monkey had moved on and all we could do was to give them the direction it took off in.

 

[roadfix]

Too graphic to post.

 

[taxlady]

I have a bird related one too.

We were driving along the dirt road from our home towards the village. We saw an eagle swoop down over the road. It showed up around every bend and it was carrying something. Eventually it swooped in front of our truck; dropped the object it was carrying; and flew away. We stopped the truck to see what it was. It was a dead hawk! They are smaller and more nimble than eagles, so they are seldom caught by them.

We wondered if it was some kind of weird omen, but could never figure out what it might have meant.

 

[kadesma]

Quack,quack yep, I love ducks and have since I was a child My grandma was a firm believer that ducks,chickens squabs were not pets but food and so one day when I was at school she throttled my ducks and I came home to the smell of wine in the kitchen making a yummy meal only it wasn't chicken like grandma said it was my ducks. I got sent to bed with out dinner and have never eaten Duck to this day. Well with all the rain here the pasture across the street looks like a lake and Mr. & Mrs. Duck have taken up life there they are so beautiful I feel like a kid. Oh happy day
kades

 

[tinlizzie]

When our kids were little we took them to Disney after my husband's job transfer to Florida. We were gone for a couple of days. Upon coming back into the house, we found strange black prints on the walls and windows. A frog had fallen down the chimney and bounced around the room until he expired. Was he a frog prince? After all, we had been singing "Some day your prince(prints?) will come" on the way back home.

 

[Saphellae]

We had a bat in the house once, and in the middle of the night, the cat somehow trapped it under a laundry basket???? lol

 

[buckytom]

alix, was ken in the living room doing his imitation of mick jagger again?

it might have been seen as a mating display...

 

[Alix]

OMG. Buckytom why must you do that to me? The thought of Ken doing a Mick imitation is quite a sight. Whoo. I still have tears in my eyes.

And nope, Ken wasn't home yet, he missed the whole thing. It was danged freaky.

GB, the bird in the chimney was pretty funny. We had a fire lit (gotta warm up the chimney for Santa you know) and had the little doors open to let all the heat into the living room. I was rounding the girls up for bed when Madeleine said, "Mom, there's a bird in the fireplace." I rolled my eyes and figured she was just trying to avoid bedtime, after all, the fire was blazing away in there! I tried to shoo her off to bed, but she was adamant that there was a bird in the fireplace. So I went and looked. Lo and behold, a sparrow was down just to the left of the fire grate. How it managed not to fall into the flames is beyond me. I took the shovel tool and gently maneuvered it out of the danger zone. (I suspect it had been overcome with smoke inhalation and had fallen down the chimney)

Now this is where the fun began. The bird began to recover and realized it was in a house. It started to freak out and fly around. Did I mention we have cats? And a dog? So...the girls were dispatched to grab the cats and lock them up - FAST, and Ken grabbed the dog and tossed her outside. The bird meanwhile had disappeared. We found it under Madeleine's bed, it got shooed out of there by a cat (that was the bedroom we were heading for to lock them up...oops!) and flew out into the living room. Danged if we could find it then! We looked everywhere! Finally one of the girls realized it might be in the Christmas tree. LOL! Yep, cutest little ornament you ever did see. I opened the front door and Ken shooed it out. Merry Christmas little bird.

Weird things birdies.

 

[taxlady]

Alix, you reminded me of another bird story. I heard the cat making strange noises upstairs. Shreddy had a bird in his mouth and Sucha was watching him from the window sill. I promptly ran around the house looking for a way that the bird could have gotten in. No chimney, all the screens were whole and shut. We never did figure out how the bird got in the house. It happened a second time.

Of course, Shreddy was young and maybe he didn't know he wasn't supposed to bring anything back from wherever cats go when they go through the cat portal.

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

Too graphic to post.

It's ok fix I remember it like yesterday
Ps you never phoned

 

[CWS4322]

One year, my BGF took me to Miami for my birthday (rented me a cool convertible to drive, took me on the junket to the Bahamas--it was the best 5-day birthday I have ever had). Anyway, we'd eaten at a Cuban restaurant. When we went outside to catch a cab back to the hotel (I wasn't up to driving in Miami at night), there was a helicopter hovering over a building and "people" were sliding down ropes onto the roof of the building. The 'copter and the people were all in black--the 'copter had no lights on. The next morning, we learned that the building was the local culinary school. No idea what was going on--we thought it would be on the news/in the paper. It wasn't. And then we got on the cruise ship where we promptly found the champagne bar...

 

[Sprout]

Does 2 adult women (both married, 1 with children) catfighting in their work restroom count? I guess I didn't actually witness it, just the nasty black eye on the "loser" right after. I showed up to work after a particularly frustrating day with my toddler, relieved and ready to deal with adults, and find 2 of my coworkers in a serious meeting with my boss over the fist fight they'd just had.
The saddest part: the one who doesn't have kids, who admittedly threw the first punch, told me a few months back that she and her husband were trying to have a baby and now has a little paunch on her tiny frame, so I think she's pregnant. Now I know all to well that pregnancy hormones are strong, but I guess they make some women downright crazy! Thank goodness the other one had the restraint to just hit her in the eye once to take the fight out of her, put her in a restraining hold, and wait for help. Although since she obviously knows how to restrain someone, I wonder if the punch was really necessary, even if it wasn't the first thrown.

 

[Alix]

Although since she obviously knows how to restrain someone, I wonder if the punch was really necessary, even if it wasn't the first thrown.

As someone with non abusive restraint training I can tell you definitively that it likely WAS necessary. You can have all the training in the world, but the reality is, sometimes you need to shock someone a bit before you can restrain them effectively.

That definitely counts on MY weird-o-meter.

 

[buckytom]

so true, alix. i remember from my lifeguarding days that when rescuing a person who is panicing, sometimes you have to go under (they usually are so freaked out about drowning they try to you as a ladder, but they won't follow you down) then cause a little pain to bring them back to reality by grabbing a handful of hair before you can swim them to safety.

 

[Sprout]

Good point!