Birds and the Bees (and Fish, too)

A few months ago I had a chance to see Alfred Hitchcock's classic The Birds on the big screen at a theater in Santa Monica.  Watching it in that setting definitely amped up the creepiness of the story during which the birds turn on humans and start killing people.  It is a little scary if you think about it... birds are usually just background noise or a nice thing to look at sometimes or annoying when they crap on your car.  Can you imagine if they all of a sudden teamed up and started attacking us?

That's a snapshot from my favorite scene in the movie - the main character, Melanie Daniels, sits outside a school full of children to take a smoking break from the chaos.  Hitchcock cuts away from her a few seconds at a time, and whenever the camera returns to Melanie the number of birds on the jungle gym behind her grows and grows to the point where its covered in them.  They didn't call this guy the Master of Suspense for nothing.

[SPOILER ALERT... Don't read the following green text if you don't want the ending of the movie ruined!]

Another aspect of the movie that I loved - that I'm sure many more hated - was the fact that they never explain the reasoning for the birds' sudden change in temperment.  The final scene is a longshot of the heroes escaping amidst a sea of birds, all just watching them slowly drive away.

[OKAY, NO MORE SPOILERS HERE ON OUT!]

Regardless of how you feel about that mysterious ending, there is a real-life reason all of this came to mind and it is just as mysterious...  This past New Year's Eve in the small town of Beebe, Arkansas, over 3,000 red-winged blackbirds inexplicably fell to their death - some residents even cited the film as they recalled the birds raining from the sky.  Scientists speculate that a loud boom, maybe from fireworks, scared the birds to death but they're not 100% sure.  Maybe we should change the phrase to "scared-y birds", eh?  ...Too soon?

As if that wasn't weird enough, how about THIS: yesterday 360 miles away from Beebe near Labarre, Louisiana, 500 more blackbirds fell to their death.  What?!  Oh, and let's not forget about the poor fish that checked out early in Arkansas, Maryland, Brazil and New Zealand.  Beyond weird.

I'm no scientist so I really have no idea what could have happened that would cause birds and fish to mysteriously die in mass amounts - all within a few days (which is the really creepy part to me) - but it does remind me of a story I heard a while back...

Honeybees are dying off and scientists don't know why yet.  This 2012 stuff is starting to sound pretty legit.

For four years in a row now the bee population has been steadily decreasing, and I remember years ago when I first heard that bees were kicking the bucket I ignorantly said, "Who cares?  I could live without honey and beestings."  Well, apparently that's not the only thing we'd be living without.  Bees pollinate flowers and trees which in turn produce crops that humans eat.  And those same crops feed animals that humans eventually eat.

Who knew our ecosystem was such a fragile house of cards?  Remove the bees and you lose the pollinated plants which takes away a food source for our food sources.  Damn.  And as if that wasn't enough, the methods farmers have to use to compensate for the lack of pollination are pricey which means we'll be paying more at the register.  That's an insult to injury if I've ever heard one.

So I take back all the mean things I ever said about you, birds, fish and bees.  Stick around for a while so we can stop being spooked out and then eat like we used to (and pay the prices we used to).

But squirrels can go.  No one would miss them.  Or would we?  I better take that back - with my luck, the squirrels will all drop dead and all of a sudden the price of beer will go up.