Up Moses Creek: The Hatband
It was only a hatband. Burt Kornegay photo
I was on the ridge this morning admiring the autumn-red leaves of a gum tree, lit up by the rising sun, when a titmouse landed and, fixing his black eye on me, shouted a word in Bird I know — “Snake!” He shouted it so loud you could have heard him down in the yard. And every time he shouted it, he turned first one way on the branch, then the other. And with every turn, he fixed the eye on that side of his head on me.
You’d think he’d never seen me before, although he’s sure to be one of the titmice, nuthatches and chickadees that flock together in our yard. See one of these birds on a feeder, you know the others won’t be far behind. But when Becky is late to fill the feeders, they forage up the ridge.
Two other titmice now joined the first, all shouting “Snake!” And they worked their crests up and down the way titmice do when excited. Several nuthatches followed, honking “Snake!” on their tin horns. Then here came the chickadees. I could hear their tiny beaks buzzing “Snake!” before they even landed. The red gum tree rang with bird alarm.
Over the years we’ve heard “Snake” a lot in the yard, and it draws us too. Likely as not, under the feathered hissy fit, we’ll find a black rat snake.
The birds cry “Snake” for good cause. A black rat snake will climb the tallest trees to reach their nests. Once, after a long search for it, I was startled to find one of these snakes draped directly above my head on top of the opened tool room door. It was sizing up the way to reach a nest of wren chicks overhead. And once we watched three fledging bluebirds launch from their nest box and land in the yard. As if the ground was giving birth, three black rat snakes immediately appeared. They’d been watching the bird box too for that moment, and each snake headed for its own squeaking morsel flapping in the grass.
This morning on the ridge, the clamor in the red gum tree soon attracted a hooded warbler. But not wanting to mingle his gorgeous black and gold feathers with the plain-colored yardbird rabble, he hung back in the laurel to scold, “Snake!” Next, a red-bellied woodpecker swooped in, followed by a female cardinal.
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So many birds were now razzing me that I began to feel like a black rat snake. Then the thought came, might there really be a black rat snake kinked up beside me? And I looked around my feet.
The hooded warbler faded back into the laurel after that. The woodpecker and cardinal flew off. Then the yard birds left, including the one that started it all. They might have heard Becky filling the feeders below. I stood alone and in silence again in front of the red gum tree.
“These birds practically eat out of my hand in the yard,” I told Becky when I walked in the door. “But this morning on the ridge? You’d think I was the meanest, hungriest-looking black rat snake they’d ever seen!” Becky looked at me, “It must be your hatband.”
I had on an old straw hat so stretched with wear that I’d replaced its original band with one of Becky’s black elastic hair bands an inch or so wide. It tightened up the hat’s fit, and I thought it made a snappy contrast with the straw. When Becky pointed, I knew at once she was right. The birds had taken my hatband for a black rat snake coiled around my head!
Or, at least the first one did — the titmouse shouting “Snake!” Bird brains and human brains are of a feather in that it only takes one to raise a ruckus loud and long before others flock in all agitated, mindlessly parroting the first, convinced he’s just got to be right.
But don’t take my word for it, take it from the former top White House communications director Stephanie Grisham, who says of her former boss, Donald Trump: “He used to tell me, ‘It doesn’t matter what you say, Stephanie — say it enough and people will believe you.’”
Even when it is nothing but a hatband! And we’re still hearing from his red gums:
“Rigged!” “Stolen!” “Cheat!” “Fake!”
“Cats!” “Dogs!” “Sharks!” “Snake!”
