Strange things happen in the woods…

Something very bizarre happened to me today.

I was walking through the woods when I suddenly saw a low flying bird coming towards me. It was only about 15 feet off the ground and I could tell immediately that it was a quail (for those of you who don’t know, they have a goofy way of flying that makes them easy to identify).

I thought that was really weird, because quail live in grassy areas, you never find them in the woods. I figured that maybe it was something else, so I kept watching it to get a closer look, because it’s flight path was going to take it right over top of me.

I was leaning against a tree while I watched it, and it kept coming, furiously beating its little wings as fast as it could until… THUNK!

The bird ran headfirst right into the tree I was leaning against, not more then 10 feet above me!

It never made a sound, not a single squeak, it just slammed into the tree and then fell to the ground right by my feet. It was dead. Oh, and it turns out it was a quail (I got a really close look at it after it killed itself).

I couldn’t see anything wrong with it, it appeared in good health, it wasn’t malnourished, it didn’t look sick or diseased (it was actually nice eating size), and it didn’t appear to be blind (it’s eyes looked normal).

I have no idea what the quail was doing in the woods or why it apparently decided to commit suicide in front of me. Weird.

On another less bizarre note, I know how everyone loves pictures so I took the time to upload some pictures of our trip to the Des Moines zoo and our visit to Chicago and the Museum of Science and Industry.

The Museum of Science and Industry was awesome, that place is way too big to see in a day though!

The best part about the museum was when they fed the Rancor!

~ by Dixon on January 23, 2008.