Bird on a Wire

Yesterday, I was sitting in my back yard. I was relaxing on the future site of my deck. A veritable plethora of lines run through the air above my back yard. It would seem that the city got tired of burying phone and electrical lines half way through my block. The north half has buried utilities and the south side does not. It’s as though the ally is a set of tracks that I am living on the wrong side of.

Normally I consider these lines a detractor and would like to see them buried. Last night, however, I watched the birds perch on these lines. I have never really watched birds do that. I always thought they just grabbed on and sat there. Not so, for these birds anyway. These birds spent considerable energy trying to balance. Every breeze and every new bird landing on the wire would cause a motion that the sitting birds would have to compensate for; mostly it seemed by moving their tails up and down. I just thought the birds were resting up there on the wires. It would seem I was wrong. If this property of wires is ubiquitous then sitting on a wire requires a certain amount of energy and attention to balance and birds must not be resting up there. Perhaps it’s just a safe place removed from predators where they can get a view of the world and decide what to do next.