Through my feed collection, I read an interesting article by Antonio Garcia titled An asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, but not all of them: why are all birds dinosaurs? The headline was promising, and the article proved worth reading. For our instant purposes, we will focus on just one passage from the article:
Today, every time a pigeon pecks at crumbs in the park or a sparrow sings at the window, we are witnessing the last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory.
Antonio Garcia
Regular readers will know that I have published many articles about birds, and many of those bird articles are about pigeons. I thought about all of the birds I have documented in these humble pages as I read that I should think of them as “the last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory.” That led to another thought: What if I re-write some of my greatest avian hits with this new terminology? Let us give it a try.
Victor V. Gurbo Rescues a Pigeon
Back in January 2021, I assisted my good friend and New Leaf Journal colleague Victor V. Gurbo as he apprehended an entwined pigeon (for its own good) in Brooklyn’s Cadman Plaza. I naturally turned the story into an article. Lest anyone doubt the story, it came with my photographs. Now let us re-write one part of the article…
Over the course of about 10 minutes, Victor, working with his hands and a a few clips of the [nail] clipper, managed to relieve the [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] of all of the thread on its foot. He noted with some excitement that the [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] “wiggled its toes” after the last of the thread came off.
I thought Victor was heroic before. Now I think I need to nominate him for all of the Nobel Prizes.
Puddle Birds
One of my earliest pigeon articles covered a pigeon in a puddle. This article came with three photographs, all of which documented a pigeon in a puddle. But what if we tried re-writing it just a little…
For the brief time I observed the [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory], it walked back and forth in a puddle. It stopped on one occasion, pictured above, to take a drink.
Before this was a charming story of a pigeon enjoying a drink of clean New York City street water. Now it sounds like a courageous last stand.
Speaking of thirsty birds, I also photographed a goose drinking from a puddle in Brooklyn Bridge Park (see part one and part two). Now to be sure, geese are more obviously dinosaur-like than pigeons. I distinctly remember one of my high school teachers opining upon seeing a large number of geese in Staten Island on our field day trip in June 2006 that geese freaked him out because they walked like dinosaurs. But there is nothing scary about a goose enjoying a drink of water.
After the [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] swallowed the water, it appeared to express its satisfaction with the offering.
Never before have the dinosaurs sounded so relatable.
Doves and Pigeons on Rocks
I went to the Noguchi Museum with a friend back in 2024. I saw a dove on a rock in the outdoor sculpture garden, which I photographed and turned into a suitably-named article. The rock was a sculpture, but let us keep things simple before we make them unnecessarily dramatic…
I commented to my friend who I was visiting the Museum with that there was a [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] on the rock.
I wish I said that now.
Speaking of birds on rocks, I once photographed a pigeon sitting atop a statute of Christopher Columbus (just a few minutes from where Victor would rescue a pigeon several months later). That became our first full Columbus Day article. For this exercise, I will replace the phrase “Columbidae family” with our new phrase…
On closer inspection, Columbus appears to have a visitor from the [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory].
We really do need to reassess Columbus’ legacy: He is even braver than we had imagined.
Wet Duck
In April 2023, I photographed a wet duck drying off in Brooklyn Bridge Park. That became an investigative report. But we can make the story sound much more dramatic than I did back in my article…
I happened upon a wet [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] trying to dry itself by standing in the Sun on Pier 5 of Brooklyn Bridge Park.
Maybe I should have given the last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory a towel.
Raptors
I posted three articles featuring photographs of falcons. Continuing with our Brooklyn Bridge Park trend, let us re-write a line from Falcon Sighting at Brooklyn Bridge Park…
I would have thought that Brooklyn Bridge Park was the perfect place for all of our [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] friends until I saw a large number of our smaller [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] friends frantically flying away from Pier 2 of the Park with a much larger [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] following from behind. That [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory], my friends, was a bird of prey. It was big. I believe it was a [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory].
All birds may be part of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory, but they differ just like the great monsters of prehistory. Some are small, others are big. Some eat seeds, others eat the last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory. But what if I told you that some non-carnivorous birds are as fierce as the raptors of yore? I dare say that I did tell you in Pigeon Nest-Building in Forest Hills:
You can see that the [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] is holding a stick in its beak. As I aimed the camera at the [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory], it suddenly fastened its beak to the twig and yanked it out of the ground (violently, I might add). By the time I took the photograph, the [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] was already off to the races.
Without nest building, the last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory would be a thing of the past.
Literary Birds
I published a number of pieces on bird articles from an 1897 children’s magazine. One of my favorites tackled the red bird of paradise. The following revised quote is not my own, but instead that of an unnamed traveler quoted in the 1897 article.
As we were drawing near a small grove of teak-trees, our eyes were dazzled with a sight more beautiful than any I had yet beheld. It was that of a [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] moving through the bright light of the morning sun.
To be sure, the original quote (excerpted only in part above) was better than the revised version, but I like to think the “last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory” version works well in its own way.
Bird Dialogues
I wrote a Justin and Justina dialogue in August 2024 wherein Justin, one half of my fictional dialogue duo, tries to convince Justina that the people and birds may interpret the phrase “free as a bird” differently. The joke eventually backfires on Justin when his interlocular Justina determines that he may be one of the shadowy elites standing between her and free birds. Let us fix one of Justina’s quotes.
“Are you going to help me get the [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] or are you one of the elites standing in my way?
This phrase is remarkable: We have made Justina sound like a great adventurer.
The free as in bird dialogue was not the first avian-centric Justin and Justina discussion. I conclude my project with The Sparrow in Lowe’s dialogue, which is inspired by my real-life photograph of a sparrow in the plant section of the Lowe’s in Gowanus, Brooklyn. I captured a sparrow on a pothos (you may have to squint). Let us re-write what Justin says when he sees the sparrow that Justina pointed out to him…
“Hmm, appears to be a [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory]. Hey, did you know the story of how [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] arrived in New York City?
Spectacular. Lowe’s now sounds like a very dramatic store and I was able to link to my article on how [last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory] arrived in New York City.
Conclusion
I have written many bird articles from the ones I noted to re-printing 1890s bird magazine pieces and even covering birds in fiction. We could keep going, but I trust that readers now understand the power of describing birds as the last stage of a lineage that dates back to the great monsters of prehistory. While I will stick to referring to them by their more common names, I will carry this sense of weight and gravity into my future bird posts (I have a decent backlog of bird photos, so there should be no bird article material shortage).
