Fluke of Nature

The last weekend of april sent us to visit with a friend in Vancouver, BC. Unfortunately, a strange phenomenon occured in the wildlife which I have never before experienced. I was attacked by a bird...yes, you read that right. Maybe the bird thought my hair would go good in it's nest. Maybe for some rare inter-species over protectiveness that is yet to be discovered, she was defending my son! I don't know. We were on a rather long walk, and just barely seeing our destination when Dar decided he didn't want to go any further. I had been trying to coax him along for a few minutes when we finally gave up. There was this beautiful bird we had been admiring, and Dar hadn't moved from that spot, when we tried to move on. The bird apparently was witnessing this battle of wills. I went back, picked Dar up, and kept going through his protests. I had made it a handful of steps when the bird dives straight for my head and attacks me, either with it's claws or beak, I don't know. As soon as I ducked it continued flying. It left a good bruise. The next day I was the resident spider web catcher on our hicks of another forest path.

I am pleased to report however that this was an incident which was isolated to that region only. We have spent the last several days hiking through beautiful rainforest paths on the Olympic Peninsula and not a single bruise that was animal inflicted. Also, the only cobweb that was discovered was found by my mother-in-law.