The Messenger Bird.

During the course of my stroll last night, a female blackbird did something unusual. She came off the verge to my left a little way ahead of me, and then proceeded to ‘lead the way.’ Sometimes she would fly a few feet, and then stop and wait. Sometimes she would hop instead, and then stop and wait. And she stayed unerringly to my left. This went on for quite some distance until she eventually flew up to the branch of a tree on my right and watched me walk past.

I had half a notion that it was something to do with distracting me from a nest, but that seems unlikely. Nesting activities, like flying around with beaks full of food for the chicks, stopped a couple of weeks ago. And what’s most interesting is that another female blackbird (or maybe the same one) did the same thing this evening in a different lane.

So then I wondered whether she was telling me something, or whether some other source was telling me something through the action of the bird. I do believe it to be a common belief in so-called primitive cultures that animals are often messengers for the dissemination of information or advice.

If that is the case, it seems I could do with a Native American reader of animal signs. Anybody know one?

Added later:

I just saw the barn owl fly across the field opposite my house - first time in ages. There's something almost mystical about seeing that big, white, almost luminous bird beating its buoyant flight across a dusk-laden landscape.