A Geneva Scourge Worthy of Alfred Hitchcock

Sheesh! Now I know what Tippi Hedren’s Melanie Daniels movie character must’ve felt like!

You see, I was minding my own business while pedaling down Peplow Road on a quiet Friday afternoon when all of the sudden it happened. Whhhaaappp! It felt like someone threw a 3- or 4-pound rock and bounced it right off the back of my bike helmet.

And let me tell you, when you’re moving at 20 mph down a deserted country road, that kind of thing tends to get your attention. After recovering from the initial shock and the resulting 4-foot swerve into the middle of the road, I looked right, left and behind me, but there was nobody in sight.

Then I heard it! That unmistakable long, shrill whistle.

You see, just as Andy Taylor described the series of mannerisms Barney “The Beast” Fife would likely exhibit before he started shooting at some impudent farmers who dared to run an illegal Mayberry vegetable stand, redwinged blackbirds tend to announce their nefarious intentions, too.

Anyone who’s ever walked along the river or strolled by a Geneva subdivision pond already knows the distinctive trill of the species, but when annoyed, they give off high, piercing whistle. No other bird I’ve encountered makes that particular sound. And if you’re silly enough to ignore that caution, they add a “tsking” sound much like the noise an annoyed squirrel might make.

And once they start interspersing those two admonitions, if you haven’t been wise enough to back off, then you’d better duck! Because the next thing you’ll hear is a low, guttural growl—which you wouldn’t think could come from such a small bird—and then it happens! Whap! Either you get pecked or summarily scratched by the birds “talons” (such as they are.)

But this Friday, our scurrilous red-winged fowl employed the element of surprise by failing to announce his intentions. Of course, this made me believe he was engaging in the behavior for his own amusement. “Hey George! Here comes another idiot on a road bike. Sssshhhh! Watch me scare the crap out him.”

Only after that initial assault did the diabolical fowl finally issue the typical redwing warning. Having recovered from that preemptive strike and after emitting a lengthy string of four-letter words, I turned to the right once again only to see the spiteful songbird aiming directly for my face.

I’m not sure if it was my sharp “back off!” or the fact that he suddenly realized I wasn’t another blackbird intent on stealing his mate, but much to my relief, he ceased hostilities.

Now, generally speaking, redwinged blackbirds are benign creatures. But every June, they sit evenly spaced on those western Kane County electrical wires smirking and lying in wait for some unsuspecting cyclist to have the temerity to enter their territory.

Thankfully, while most of the birds will go through the motions of warning interlopers, only a few of them have the nerve to commit to the actual dive bombing. Though the contemptible creature didn’t even manage to leave a mark on my helmet, it certainly bruised my “shouldn’t I be a little bit higher up on the food chain” ego.

Runners! Please don’t make the mistake of thinking yourselves immune to this kind of redwinged wrath. While relaying the sad saga of my airborne mugging to a St. Charles Dick Pond running store salesperson, he admitted he’d been hit three times by the heinous beasts while jogging along the Fox River. I’m thinking some sort of helmet might be a good idea there, too!

But since a bike-mounted antiaircraft gun might be a bit much, I suppose I’ll just have to get used to these airborne assaults until the redwing mating season mercifully ends. I’m sure my flaming red Haxial bike helmet doesn’t help matters, but I’m not so sure a different color would solicit a different response.

In the end, I suppose you have to give a 2.2 ounce winged kamikaze credit for having the you-know-whats to take on a 185-pound cyclist. I’m not so sure I’d be willing to attack an elephant under similar circumstances.

After that experience I’m convinced that, while riding a bicycle (or horse) on his Scotts Valley, CA, ranch, an intrepid redwinged blackbird provided all the inspiration necessary for film director Alfred Hitchcock to come up with his 1963 classic, The Birds.

Come to think of it! I still vividly remember that infamous gas-station scene. Maybe I’ll just stay inside for awhile.