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.