****
The next morning, Kate's COM alarm woke her before dawn. The surrounding bedrooms were quiet; she had apparently accomplished her objective of waking before the birds did. She took another pill to reduce the effects of hangover and got dressed. With her COM lighting the way she tiptoed downstairs to an already lit kitchen and was surprised to discover Captain Jack, cooking potato slices and pancakes on the big Bar grill. It smelled wonderful.
"Morning Kate," he said, beaming at her. "I figured that being a bird person you'd be looking for an early start. Me, I always got to get up early anyway. Old habit from the military."
"And also because of your feathered tenants?"
"Right. In another twenty minutes they'll be all carrying on like you wouldn't believe. Best not to fight it, I've found. Not too good for my human business though."
"What about John?"
"The man sleeps like a damn log. Dynamite couldn't get him up before mid-morning."
"Morning folks," said John, stepping in behind Kate with a cheerful smile on his face. Too drunk to walk home; John had slept in a room down the hall from Kate. "Ready to look at more birds?"
Kate almost didn't recognize him. He had obviously somehow showered and shaved since last night, and found clean clothing to wear.
Jack's jaw dropped open. "Well I'll be damned," he muttered, smiling and shaking his hairy head. "Guess I better flap us up some more jacks."
Fifteen minutes later they were all fed and sitting side-by side in the dark on lawn chairs on a balcony that faced the forest. Kate sat between the two men expectantly, listening to a symphony of night sounds. The sky was unusually clear and full of stars. Even with the thick atmosphere stars could be seen better here than from most places on Earth. The damp atmosphere of Aves was still, clean, and smelled of life that teamed all around them, croaking, screeching, slithering insects, frogs, lizards, and rodents, all hunted by nocturnal birds.
“Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will,” sang a bird of obvious type from somewhere deep in the woods. In the clear area above the Roc Bar Kate saw shadows against the stars, and heard rapid chattering sounds and wing flapping, possibly swifts in search of flying insects. Through her infrared COM receptor they were slim-winged shadows too swift to be identified. There were plenty of flying insects, many of them gigantic. Some moths had wingspans greater than a meter.
"Whooooooo-uoo-uoo-uoo," cried an owl from nearby. Kate looked through her COM infra-red receptor and saw an owl with feather tufts that looked like ears, a hellish, bear-sized apparition that flew swiftly down from a tree perch to grab a sheep-sized rodent of some-sort from ground level and disappear with it back into the trees.
"Screech-owl captures mouse," whispered Captain Jack into Kate’s COM unit.
"Damn," muttered Kate, awe struck. And that was only a small screech owl! She tried to imagine what it would be like to be hunted by one of the larger owls, or even a screech owl, for that matter. A tiny screech owl in the Princeton Aviary had sometimes attacked her when she entered its territory. Such aggressive behavior from oversized Aves owls would prove deadly to humans. John and Jack didn't seem to be overly concerned, though she had noticed that they were both wearing side arms and had shotguns at their feet. Bird watching on Aves wasn't always the safe, relaxing activity that it used to be on Earth.
“I didn’t realize that there are giant mammals also! What about that mouse; are there many mammals?” she asked.
“Only small rodents of various types,” said John. “Of course, when I say small, that’s relative. None around here are larger than thirty or forty kilos and they aren't very smart or aggressive. Unless they break into a food storage bin they’re hardly noticed.”
"But they are basically Earth style mice and so-forth, only bigger?"
"Right."
“Does anything else eat them? What about snakes?” She envisioned black rat snakes twenty-five meters long.
“There are Earth-like frogs, lizards, and snakes, but they too are relatively small species, at least around here, and they eat mostly insects. But there are still vast unexplored regions of Aves where I suppose there could be almost anything. The birds and bugs made it too dangerous to explore much beyond the area that we’ve colonized. Besides, our main focus is local farming and logging.”
The sky was graying slowly from black, and so was everything else. Trees that had been indistinct dark areas against the starry sky gained form. Bushes appeared out of the gloom. Nothing had color yet, everything was still dark gray. Human eyesight didn’t register color at such low light levels.
Abruptly the trio heard rustling in the building behind them, and the sound of dozens of clawed feet scraping hard-wood floors and bodies bumping into walls, amid chirping and cackling.
Through the partly boarded-up window to their left a chickadee head poked out, followed by the entire bird. The cuddly looking bird sang a cheery "hello," to the humans. It was Cheepers. He looked about apprehensively, then uttered a loud squawk.
It was a cue for dozens of other chickadees to emerge from the inn. “Chickadee-dee-dee-dee, fee-hee, fee-hee, fe-hee-hee, they sang, with variations. Sparrows and other finches emerged from other windows, squawking and chirping their own songs, and began to spread out from the building and into trees and onto the forest floor, singing as they went. A pair of white-breasted nuthatches walked head-first down the trunk of a nearby tree, picking insects out of deep folds in the rough bark with their sharp, pointed beaks.
Kate noticed that all the birds seemed to be taking turns singing to some degree. Each seemed to sing for a few moments as the others ate and listened. They suddenly all paused for several seconds while a mystery bird sang from high in the trees. “Per-cha-cha-cha-cha, per-cha-cha-cha-cha; chep-chep-ree-chep, chep-chep-ree-chep; Pee-che-che-che-pee-che, Pee-che-che-che-pee-che,” it sang, never repeating the same pair of phrases twice. Other birds joined in, though they were clearly outclassed. “Possible Brown Thresher,” Kate reverently whispered into her COM. However, she had listened to Earth-type threshers, and their songs were nowhere near the complexity of what she was hearing here. Here multiple notes were sung at a time, instead of a single stream of notes, resulting in harmonic layers of sound that reminded Kate of several musical instruments playing at once.
Meanwhile the night-shift was going into a final frenzy. Birds flying too fast to be seen clearly in the dim light skimmed through the air, snatching up insects as they flew.
Gradually objects gained color, though due to the trees the suns still couldn't be seen, and everything was still well shaded by the forest. The forest gradually quieted down, though many birds still sang sporadically.
Suddenly a loud commotion could be heard, rapidly approaching them. Soon dozens of birds were squawking in alarm as they flew full tilt towards the Roc Bar from all directions. A dozen great grackles were pursuing them, yaw-yaw-yawing loudly. Small birds landed by the dozen and gathered on the decks of the Inn, jostling in panic to pop one-by-one through window openings and into the Roc.
The three humans found themselves standing on the center deck surrounded by terrified squawking finches, sparrows, and chickadees, and about to be dive-bombed by the blackbirds. John snatched up his shot-gun, while Jack grabbed a long pole that he swept the air with as he shouted and cursed. The big blackbirds pulled up and seemed to hover for a moment squawking, as if deciding what to do.
John helped them decide, or rather two quick, deafening shotgun blasts into the air did. The big birds diverted to surrounding trees and to the Roc rooftop, where they angrily squawked and strutted about while the rest of the songbirds escaped into the building.
After the songbirds were all safely inside the blackbirds abruptly flew away, except for a single grackle in a nearby tree that squawked angrily at the humans before leaving. Kate recorded every squawk with her COM unit.
"Those damn things get bolder every day," said Captain Jack. "I can do the math. One of these days they won't turn-tai
l when they run up against humans."
"At that point we'll be bird food," said John. "We better arm ourselves better."
"They were clearly trying to attack the other birds," said Kate. "Have they always done this?"
"Heck no," Jack replied. "That's one of the side issues I hoped you could shed some light on. There used to be fewer birds here when I moved in about three years ago, but a much greater variety. The jays were the worst, but we gradually wiped them out, us and the grackles. I’ve seen grackles gang up on jays and tear them apart. About two years ago, other species began to thin out, and I noticed grackles chasing them away. About that time, all the birds seemed to stop attacking humans altogether, except for a few big raptors, and we humans killed or drove them away. The grackles always just sort of watched us, same as they do now, so it got so that gradually we didn’t worry about them much ourselves. There's a big bunch of grackles nesting in my woods now, always raising hell with the other birds.
“So I started letting the smaller birds stay inside the Roc for their protection. The grackles don’t like that, for sure. The place has literally gone to the birds since then. Actually, I thought they'd stink up the place, but it hasn't turned out to be so bad. For one thing, they defecate outside, far away from the building, except for the baby birds, and the adults change their bedding frequently. I've got some recordings of that."
"Incredible,” said Kate. “What about nasty insects? Earth birds are full of parasites; lice, fleas, ticks; you name it. There are mite species that specialize in eating specific bird parts such as feathers."
The Captain shook his head. "Not a problem. When they aren't eating or sleeping, they're preening themselves and each other. Dead ones we've stuffed or fixed to eat don't usually have a bug on them. The nastiest of parasites that you mentioned mostly don’t seem to exist here on Aves, thank goodness. No fleas, lice, mites or ticks. No mosquitoes or blood-sucking flies either. Other bugs try to fill those niches, but aren’t near as good at it. Off the top of your head Kate, do you have any ideas on the grackle behavior we just saw?"
Kate considered the situation. "Their behavior doesn't totally match up with that of Earth birds, but there seem to be similarities. My guess is that grackle population is increasing because of the open farmlands of food that we humans are establishing. But they still need trees to rest and nest in. Your grove of trees here is prime roosting grounds for them, surrounded as it is by open farmland. Driving off other birds is probably a territorial thing. They regard the others as competition for food and roosting spots and so-forth. You and your hotel might be disturbing that balance, you know."
“That’s about what I figured,” said the Captain. “But I like the little guys, and never could feel close to grackles. I don’t trust the damned, shifty-eyed bastards. That little brown bird that used to live here always said he was very afraid of the grackles. I can do the math. I suspect the grackles got little Brownie at last. Damn shame. I really liked that little bird.”
“At least the grackles keep the jays away,” said John. “Most folks figure that as long as they do that, they don’t care what they do to other birds. In fact, they seem to keep all the other birds in line. Along with owls that patrol at night I suspect they also help control rodents, lizards, frogs and so-forth. They’re opportunists, and capable of anything, but official policy says that grackles are our friends.”
“Well, I don’t like the damn things, regardless,” declared Captain Jack, “and I don’t regard them to be friends of mine.”
"I wonder just how the hell they regard us," said John, as he finished reloading his shotgun. He held it ready to shoot as he scanned the area for blackbirds. "Until I know the answer to that one I'm going to carry this old scattergun with me."
Blue Dawn Jay of Aves Page 6