Yesterday, I made one of my regular visits to Woodbine raceway, but my visit was anything but regular. I had saved a few slices of old bread to feed to the birds which are always in great abundance on the grounds. There's everything from sparrows to seagulls to Canada geese.
As I exited my car, I immediately spotted a seagull close by. I threw a piece of bread toward him, he let out a squawk and flew away from me for a second, then quickly turned back when he realized what it was I had thrown, snapped it up and took flight. He did so because another seagull had been watching the events unfold from about 25 yards away and was chasing him in no time flat. The pursuer squawked all the while he was in hot pursuit.
I guess the commotion roused a few other gulls from even farther away and as they approached, I threw them another piece of bread. The "lucky" bird who was quick enough to get it was mobbed by the other birds trying to get a piece of the action. I threw another morsel and the scene repeated itself. All the while these birds were making a racket.
As I continued throwing bread, the volume of birds and the volume of their squawking kept rising. Soon they were walking, squawking and flying all around me. I quickened my bread-throwing in an effort to finish it and get the hell out of there. I felt certain that at any moment, Alfred Hitchcock would appear and call off the birds. My last thought as I ran to escape was that at any second I would surely get bombarded by some big, wet, green excrement.
Somehow, I managed to avoid such a disaster. As I neared the entrance, I reflected how different this experience was from the other times I had brought bread there. Rarely had any birds even noticed me and if they did, it was usually a single sparrow who reaped the benefit of my generosity, sometimes under the watchful eye of a black squirrel. It was always a very peaceful scene. From now on, I think I'll just dump all my bread and run. I'm really not looking for any kind of "payment" for it.
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