Birds are, for me — as I’ve shared in past columns — an all encompassing facet of life. I spend hordes of hours out-and-about birding. At all times I’m aware of birds, consciously watching or benignly sharing in what they’re doing around me.

Sights and sounds of my world hold a bird’s awareness from the trivialities of their flight, their waking babble over and along the river, movements in the early morning sky or the simple existences that perpetuates their daily routines.

To me, there’s a mythical veracity in their being. Sometimes what I see or hear is beyond description: breathtaking, exciting, beautiful.

But sometimes, there’s the other side that makes me stop and take receipt of the reality that it’s a harsh world out there for all creatures. These six tales are a darker facet of a bird’s life.

I share with you, not to cause consternation, but just to share what birds go through as they, like all other creatures, persist in their existence.

The juvy martin

The Cooper’s came in low, moving powerfully fast past the cedars, then swung up into the midst of a swam of swallows and martins above the silver poplar. They saw him with talons outstretched just as he hit a juvy martin.

It wasn’t a clean kill. No, not a clean kill at all. The martin was hurt; twirling left to right in a downward spiral.

The masses came at the Cooper’s then, screaming their predator alarm calls … but just a little too late.

The martin hit the grass. It didn’t bounce. The Cooper’s was gone. Jackie dropped the tennis ball, ran out into the yard, stopped just above the martin, bent down and was bitten on her nose as she sniffed it. She jumped back.

I walked up to the bird, bent down and scooped it up into my hands. The left wing was broken, blood was smeared on feathers. There was no more flying for this fledgling. There would be no flight south with the others who’d spent their summer over the pilings and marshes of 3 Crabs.

The owlet

She’d nested in the old barn for years; or at least one of her kind had nested there for years.

The barn was old, built in the late 1800s with high loft windows, a pulley system for raising hay, and – just inside the loft windows – a ledge just big enough for a nest and the rearing of owlets.

This year, however, time and entropy played havoc with the ledge and with an edge giving way to rot. Still she used it, and as spring ran into early summer, there were four owlets tucked up there, the first hatching over a week from the last.

The outcome of this habitation wasn’t moving toward the positive. And there was no way to climb to that ledge and repair it. We waited. And watched. And then it happened. The fall was long, maybe 30 feet. It was the littlest one, probably pushed off by its siblings.

When it reached the rehab center it still was functioning, but there seemed something not quite right.

The second one came down three days later. It survived with a lot of care.

The other two? They fledged. The ledge? Well, hopefully it’ll be repaired or replaced with a barn owl nest box this winter.

The cat and the     fledgling robin

The cat was up and over the top of the fence just that quick. Talons flicking out snagging the spotted thrush with a swipe of her paw.

Then suddenly, she seemed to grasp her predicament. A fledgling robin in talons on one paw, the other woven into the cotton fish-netting surrounding the feeding platform and two adult robins coming in to the screams of their fledgling.

She hung there, then slipped back so that she was dangling over open air four feet above the ground. She still had the robin, but it was struggling to free itself as the adults now began to physically pummel the cat. Back legs flailing air it tried to find purchase. There wasn’t any.

Retractable claws work both ways and as one adult came flying in again, striking it with sharp yellow beak square in the face, the cat let go and was gone.

The fledgling seemed to fall backwards in its struggle, then it to fell to the ground on opposite side of the fence as the cat. It hunched there while both adults continued going after the cat.

After a bit of rest – or was it bewilderment – the young robin flew up into the trees, gathered a perch between its feet and began to give its “feed me, feed me” call as if nothing traumatic had happened.

The eagle

The eagle pushed off the limb, wings out to their full width and took downward air to gain momentum. It wasn’t going to be a laborious task: his prey was right there in front of him only 400 meters away.

There were several hundred gulls nesting on the island. And every nest had a pair of adults ready to take on all predators. And each gull pair had others who’d come up in defense of the nesting site from this eagle’s forays. But to the eagle the island was a snack bar.

And when he went hunting for prey to pass to the female standing on the edge of their nest trying to raise their two eaglets, he always came back with the necessary provisions: gull chicks.

He moved in powerful wing beats, all-the-while watching the gulls come up (again) in futile defense of their nests.

The murre chick

When murre chicks leave their nesting ledge, they plunge off into open ocean waters where they follow one of their parents out into the realm of the unknown.

They grow fast. Gaining weight so that soon they’re fat feather balls, all mottled white and black they contrast nicely on ocean waters.

But a fat and flightless murre on the water is dinner-in-waiting.

Some distance behind the adult and chick, the fin cut the surface just enough to impart that there was something moving fast toward the pair. As the shark closed in, it seemed to drop below the surface.

When it came up, mouth open wide with teeth flaring, the murre chick flushed wildly for a brief moment and then was gone below the surface in a swirl of sea foam.

The killdeer

Killdeer will nest anywhere that there’s a playing field of small pebbles, dirty dirt debris or anything else with an expanse that can offer a camouflaged nesting site.

And then they make a scrap and usually lay four mottled eggs that hatch at the same time some 24 days after the last egg was laid.

When these hatchlings come out of their eggs – after working for sometimes an hour to break free of their shell casings – they’re ready to run! And all of them running at the same time.

This time though, when the four chicks moved from their nest following a parent, one fell over the edge of the cobblestone curb down onto the pavement where traffic, although going slow, still represented a crushing foe to the bundle of white and black fluff.

Running along, cars passing and barely missing it, the chick tried in vain to scale the concrete barrier. Another car barely missed it.

Then a pickup with dual-rear tires and diesel exhaust roiling seemed ready to end the killdeer’s brief existence when a young girl came to the edge of the road, reached down and plucked the chick up.

She held it for a few moments then sat it over in the cobblestone where both adults were doing their broken-wing display.

She smiled as the chick ran toward a parent. She smiled big!

There are more tales, but this is enough for now.

Reach Denny AFMJ Van Horn at dennyvanhorn@gmail.com.