The Ostrich - Part 2

I will spare you all the details of the next 5 minutes as seven out-of-shape day laborers tried desperately to head off a 35mph-running bird by crossing two small hills and beating him to the road leading toward the lions. There was much wheezing, coughing and swearing in a variety of languages, I can tell you. And I didn’t know, until that run, that two of my crew spoke French and German as well as Mexican Spanish. They also seemed to have an intimate knowledge of English swearing, as they constructed some creative phraseology even I had not thought to string together. Who knew…  Anyway, we got there just ahead of Ostrich and deployed in a horseshoe across the road, with our makeshift spears arrayed like a battle line at the head of the road. I could see that my boys were confident that we had this all under control. I was pretty sure we had no clue what we were doing, but we were gonna do it anyway. And then we discovered that the Ostrich had a plan too. And his was working… He had cut through the tall grasses beside the road and was headed up past us. The grasses were about 6’ tall and so we had not seen him in the grass until he was pretty close by. I yelled, frantically gesticulated and eventually pointed. Message received and so we moved to intercept…

At this point I will interject a few of the pointers given to us by the ostrich handler before we set out on this debacle:

1)       Ostrich are foul tempered critters, so keep some distance even when they are in the pen.

2)       They are very fast so don’t let them out.

3)       Do not get too close an Ostrich. Their kick can kill ya.

By my calculations I am already 0 for 2 on this list and number 3 isn’t looking so hot now either. We need to get close enough to herd this critter back down the road.

All seven of us push forward into the tall grasses, in an attempt to isolate the bird. Unfortuantely, at 6’ 2”, I am the tallest of us and even I can’t see the ostrich, except occasionally when his head peeks up like a periscope, to get his bearings… And suddenly I get the giggles… In my head I am picturing me, the generic redneck white-boy, and his six latino sidekicks, stalking through the tall grasses with makeshift spears tracking the elusive “Avestruz”… All I can think to say is: “Be vewy, vewy quiet… I’m hunting ostwiches…. Huhuhuh…” I could not stop giggling and I couldn’t even explain it to the guys to share the joke. As it was, with me giggling, they thought I had snapped.

Eventually, we got this wayward big-bird herded out into open ground and prodded him back down the road, away from the Lion cages. Finally a break, we were all headed back toward the ostrich pen and home. And then the bird stops. A few hundred yards from the pen and his awaiting buddy ostrich, our wanderlust-enthused foul decided he wasn’t done yet and stopped dead in his tracks. Not to be outsmarted <again>, we ringed this guy so he could not go anywhere and we began discussing how to get him back inside his compound. I had a few years of Spanish in HS and College, but without regular usage, it is severely limited. I am sidelined in the discussion by this, but if my understanding of terms, body movement and tone of voice is correct, someone suggested bopping the bird over the head and tossing him back over the fencing into his cage. This was rejected, unless they could somehow talk ME into getting close enough and hitting the bird, while not killing him. I think they decided they couldn’t explain that or get me to agree. At least one mentioned bopping ME on the head and tossing me into the cage… leaving the bird free and explaining to the staff that I let the bird out and they had no idea what to do. Obviously, I need to work on my team building skills.

Many minutes later, we finally decided to send one guy back to the “ranch” to get the bird handler, while we poor but happy few stay in standoff with Ostrich. As our runner sprinted off for reinforcements, we sort of reached an equilibrium with the bird… he didn’t move and we didn’t move. The “ranch” was not far away, just over the next little hill, so we could actually hear the arrival of our designated messenger by the extremely loud laughter his arrival generated…

This booming laughter was coming from the handler and it didn’t stop was he walked out to join us. When he arrived, I’m sure the scene was hilarious. Six idiots standing around an immobile ostrich with corral poles pointed like spears at it. Obviously, he got a kick out of it all and his laughter never stopped. He did compliment us on our tenacity and for not letting the bird free roam the compound. And then he showed us the proper way to deal with an ostrich. He said that the ostrich behavior of sticking its head in the sand was figurative, but has some basis in fact. As he said this, he took off his over shirt, flung it over the head of the ostrich, covering its eyes. He told us that if the ostrich can’t see they become docile. He moved up, grabbed the left wing and did a promenade-like stroll escorting the ostrich back into its pen. I guess ya learn something every day and this was it for me that day… I did learn a few other things about them damned big birdies… The make good leather for boots and they are pretty tasty as burgers too. Now I always have a set of boots in my closet as a reminder of one of these things that could only happen in and around L.A.. Burgers and boots for everyone.