I had the opportunity to watch a bird make a mistake.
I was walking the Univ. of Wash. Intramural Bldg and there's
a long grassy area where starlings were picking up grubs/worms
and flying off to the nest.
There were two that seemed to be working together and the first
flew off south and the second a few seconds later took of south too,
with a mouthful of worms.

Starlings tend to be sort of straight to the point flyers and this one
was initially following the first, just going straight south. As near as
I could tell, from that mouthfull of worms one of them wriggled into
his/her eyes or maybe just too many worms to see, the bird tried
to correct but too late and flew into a parking sign!.

Fortunately the sign was bent so the bird careened off, not a direct head
on whack,
did sort of a belly flop in the air, and managed to keep flying.

I don't know how to tell if a bird is embarrassed, but maybe they do.

Douglas Daily, Patricia Federighi, Bargello
Northgate, Seattle, WA
mailto: dfdaily at juno.com