Infamous Red-Winged Blackbird

Stealth features of the Red-Winged Blackbird Dive Bomber

You know it's summer in the coulee region when, at any time, any place, seemingly out of 

nowhere from the sky, something of a reddish stripe might swoop down and dive bomb your head. Biking, hiking, (bbq'ing?) along any given stretch of road, trail, or park...it doesn't matter.  Up until yesterday, my own fondest memory of a dive bomb by the infamous Red Baron of birds was several

years ago I was biking in the hinterlands of farm fields out on cty. FA on the other side of Irish Hill.  Chugging along at 17 mph silently, innocently – I thought –  I heard a tick tick tick on the top of my helmet.  I could not see the culprit immediately – I had other things on my radar, like the road ahead – but could see flashes of a flapping shadow on the road swoop down, attack my shadow, hover, attack then hover again.  Now, when getting dive-bombed by something mysterious and unseen,

Random pic of an unsuspecting dive bombee

it takes a moment to assess whether you are under some uniform attack, or whether it's just a freak incident?  Red wings are tenacious though. They keep hitting until you are out of their sphere of protection....only to then drift immediately into another's sphere of protection, and so on along the long line of roadside light posts.

Yesterday I got a call on my cellphone from Julia who claimed to be 'under attack.'  Her are Carly, similarly innocent, they thought anyway, were riding their bike along the outer trail of the Aspen Valley Pond, but had to "dump our bikes because our heads were getting pecked at by red wingers.  We ran but they kept hitting us, so we are home now and wondering if you could get our bikes."  Sure, what a job!  I arrived at the pond to a very odd sight.  There was a planned bbq down in the shelter and one of the cooks had walked up to the bikes, apparently trying to help, with a large baking pan over his head; another fella, a bit skittish behind him, was waving one of those large dog-catcher size nets around his head, but the Red Baron was too cunning, too wise to attack to such defenses.  Instead, he turned his attention to some other unassuming creature who thought he could roam the suburban skies in peace.