Groundhog Day Is Just A Diversionary Tactic

I finished my dissertation over 10 years ago. When I was in the middle of doing it, it seemed like it would take me a lifetime to finish it. Now it seems like I finished it a lifetime ago.

I was reminded of my dissertation days when I read this article about dead starlings raining down in New Jersey. It seems that the FDA spread around some stuff poison the birds on a Friday afternoon and then took off for the weekend without telling anyone that there might be a bunch of dead birds around pretty soon. The birds they targeted with their eradication program were starlings.



I did my dissertation on the short stories of T. Coraghessan Boyle and one of his short stories has to do with a flock of starlings taking over a town. I first learned the history of starlings in this country by reading that story: starlings were introduced to the United States by a man obsessed with populating America with all of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays. From 100 pair released in Central Park in the 1890s, the population of starlings now rivals that of people in the United States, a total of about 300 million birds.

I was disappointed in reading the account of the dead birds that the writer recounted the story of the Central Park bird release. That was my tidbit, my cocktail party "did you know." It's much easier to work that into a conversation than the satiric implications of a author's fictious doppleganger. Talking about simply leads to a lot of funny looks. Trust me on that.

So last week, as I was digging out of the latest snow storm, I was thinking about starlings when I suddenly became aware of a flock of birds doing highly active bird things all around me. Here's a picture of the flock in a bush. I apologize for the quality, but it was as close as I could get without making them fly away.



This is a flock of robins, birds that are associated with the coming of spring. On a cold day when I was outsde shoveling and cursing under my breath as the rain turned to freezing rain, I found myself surrounded by robins. I could only conclude that they were mocking me in some way.

Just like that damned Punxatwaney Phil, who today saw his shadow and predicted six more weeks of winter.

I'm telling you, the animals are up to something.