Birds have a bad reputation in my home. It really is nothing personal. I could even say in good conscience that my family enjoys bird-watching as much as the next one. However, like most people, we feel the need to interpret the world around us based upon symbols and signs—it's a way to find meaning where there seems to be none. In my family's own tradition, birds have been a part of that hermeneutic of the natural, carrying omens of caution or death, depending upon their actions.
               Of course, my family is not alone in their wariness of these winged messengers. Birds have been regarded as harbingers of good or ill from even the earliest of civilizations.
               Take The Iliad, for instance. Birds fill this epic poem as if it were a literary menagerie. Armies are described as running swiftly as meadow larks, and the gods Apollo and Athena take on the likeness of vultures sitting in the trees, watching the men prepare themselves for battle. There are at least three instances in this story where birds act as portents. The most famous of these signs is one in which an eagle flies over the fated Trojan army with a “blood-coloured” snake in its mouth. The snake bites the eagle on the neck and chest, causing the bird to drop the serpent into the centre of the Trojan army.
               For the fearless Hektor, commander of the Trojans, the incident of the eagle and the snake is merely that—an incident. However, for fellow soldier, Poulydamas (given the epithet “the blameless”), the meaning of this portent is clear: Zeus does not favour the Trojans to win this battle. Despite telling Hektor prior that he held Zeus' favour, Poulydamas rescinds his word at the ominous sign. Hektor reprimands his fellow soldier, noting that it is only the word of Zeus himself he will believe, not superstition. He says to Poulydamas, “If in all seriousness this is your true argument, then it is the very gods who ruined the brain within you...You tell me to put my trust in birds, who spread wide their wings. I care nothing for these.” Hektor should have paid better attention to the sign and the advice of his friend, for he goes off to battle only to be killed by Achilles (not to mention the fact that his army loses the war).
               Let us move on from the Greco-Roman tradition to that of the Judeo-Christian—well, to be more specific, Roman Catholic—and to be even more specific, the superstitions of Roman Catholicism on the British Isles. Many of the legends surrounding birds in Christianity have little to do with actual stories from the Bible, but come from extra-biblical folk tales. One story states that when Jesus died, it was sparrows who found the nails for his crucifixion, and who then proclaimed his death before it had occurred. For this reason, Jesus supposedly said that sparrows would be an unwelcome guest in any home.
               This legend spread through the British Isles, up through Ireland (where my family originated), and eventually made its way to my childhood home in Pennsylvania. Our story however, made no mention of Jesus, and the specific wariness towards the sparrow morphed into a cautiousness of nearly any wild bird. Thus, when my mother narrowly missed hitting a bird with her car when I was seven years old, she noted that we ought to be careful for—according to her father—such a sign was a warning of impending danger. Knowing that my grandfather had been a sage to my mother, I heeded her advice with great earnestness.