Birdwatchers, Fistfighters, and a Social Observation

I am going to write something based on an odd feeling, or sentiment, that came over me yesterday. It will probably seem nutty but I'm going to put it in this silly blog anyway.

Yesterday I donned my nerdy, floppy hat and went out birdwatching. I'm a birdwatcher which I guess is nutty enough on its own. Anyway, I thought I saw a lark bunting through my binoculars off in the distance. I have never seen a lark bunting. They are a bird common in the West, places like Colorado and Wyoming. I am in Massachusetts. So I almost assuredly did not see one, but it is not absolutely impossible. Birds can get off course for a number of reasons, particularly due to foul weather, and end up spending a season in some unknown area; unknown to them.

Not too long after my unconfirmed lark bunting sighting, I came upon an older man with a pair of binoculars in his hands. He was glancing upwards here and there into the trees. I knew he was birdwatching. I stopped and asked him if he happened to see what looked like a lark bunting. He gave me an inquisitive look and told he had not. In his soft-spoken voice, he amicably questioned me as to whether I was sure I'd seen a lark bunting. I replied that I had not gotten a really good look at the bird and so I was not sure. He mentioned that he had seen a saw-whet owl the previous weekend. I enthusiastically replied that I had seen only one saw-whet owl in my life. We were having the typical birdwatchers conversation; mundane to anyone but a birdwatcher. Anyway, we said goodbye and went our separate ways.

When I got home thirty minutes or so later, I went to the internet to see if anyone in the area, or for that matter, anyone in the state had seen a lark bunting. I found nothing. I clicked on a search of videos. For some reason what appeared on the page, among other things, was what looked to be a thumbnail video still of two guys dancing. There were thousands of  "views" so I thought it might be some little comedy skit or something. The video was something like forty seconds in length. I clicked on it. It was not a comedy skit. The video featured two guys but they were not dancing, they were fighting, a fight caught on a cellphone camera. It began with a few seconds of the two simpletons shouting at each other. They then scuffled around for a few seconds before one of the idiots swung and knocked the other moron to the ground, limp and unconscious. After a few obscenities shouted by the dimwit still standing, the video mercifully ended.

The video was kind of scary for a number of different reasons. But what I found startling at that moment was that a half hour earlier I had been in a brief, friendly conversation with a quiet, older man, and the contrast to what was in the video I found startling. Two behaviors at opposite ends of the spectrum. It was almost like the cordial, bird-watching gentleman was not of the same species as the two dolts fist fighting. Of course they are of the same species which, in a way, made me feel sorry for the birdwatcher.