Bye, bye birdie.

We had our second gorgeous spring day here in Michigan.  It was sunny and warm and you could hear the birds chirping.

Unfortunately, there's one less bird chirping tonight because I hit a bird this afternoon.  I'm sure this isn't a just-here occurrence.  No matter where you live, if you drive you've hit an animal of some kind, right?  I've hit squirrels, birds (the ones that bounce off the car and the ones that you have to convince a courageous male to pull out of the grill when you get home), skunks, opossums, rabbits, badger and most notably, and more specifically, a duck.

It was, by far, the most disgusting and absurd kill I've had.  I was driving down the road and the duck flew and hit my antenna.  No, that's not the disgusting part.  The part that was really gross was that its head detached from his body and the tendons in his neck cause the head to literally wrap around the antenna.  It was one of those, "holy crap, what just happened?!" moments.  I looked at the duck head dangling from my antenna wondering if I should drive home and let Jim take care of it later (no, far too gross to let sit there) or if I should get it off myself.

I looked around the van for something to get it off that I could throw away and not have to touch it with.  I settled on a pop can.  So here I am, pulled off the side of the road, and cringingly unwrapping this thing (it was wound about 4 times) from my antenna.

That was about 9 years ago.  I drive by that area at least once a week and often wonder about the body, laying somewhere in that ditch, headless.  What would someone think if they found a headless duck?  I know what I though.  *shiver!*