A warm blanket of sunshine covered the floor next to the stairway window. I padded over in my stocking feet to look out into the backyard. The sun-warmed floor felt good under my feet because the brick house where I live is always cool in the mornings, even on hot summer days. I was disgusted when I discovered my view of the lushly green backyard was marred by a huge, ugly smear of bird poo on the window glass.

Complaining to my daughter Tammie, I whined, “You should see the huge splotch of poop a bird dumped on the window glass. I can understand bird droppings found under their roosts, but this…this…” I sputtered, “This had to be intentionally done! It couldn’t have been easy to get it to fall so perfectly in the center of the glass and have it dribble in such a way as to make it look like the wing of a white moth.”

Laughing, Tammie questioned, “Are you telling me the bird dirtied your window glass on purpose?”

“Well, maybe it was an accident.” I grudgingly admitted. “I don’t think I have an angry bird in the backyard who’s carrying out a vendetta against me. After all, I keep my birdfeeders stocked with suet and black sunflower seeds all winter.”

My daughter pointed out, “I’ve read that sometimes birds see the reflection of the sky and nearby trees in window glass and attempt to fly through the window to what they think is another open space.”

I suggested with a wry grin, “Maybe the bird recognized at the last minute that the glass was solid, so it swooped up to miss hitting the glass. But the fright made it mess its feathers and the momentum of suddenly changing direction made the bird’s dump splash on the window.”

Tammie answered with a chuckle, “You like to anthropomorphize animals. They don’t have the human ability to reason, plan things, like or dislike things the same way humans do.”

Frowning, I denied the charge, “I do not! You’re the one who always read anthropomorphic books about animals having conversations, wearing clothes and living in small burrows with itsy-bitsy hearths. But I do honestly think animals have more going for them than just robotic instincts to eat, procreate and migrate. I think some animals care about each other. Otherwise, why would some mate for life? Also, birds can be trained. That means birds like certain things enough to do what isn’t instinctual. When a trainer offers a treat to a bird as a reward, the bird remembers to do what is necessary to get the treat.”

Looking up from her phone, my reference-desk-trained librarian daughter explained what she’d read from the internet, “Birds are built for flying. They have hollow bones and little or no bladder or bowel storage. In order to lighten their load, they often “vent’ midflight…that means defecate. When a bird vents mid-flight, the falling poo falls with some momentum. In other words, if a window is in its path, it goes, SPLAT!”

After studying her phone for another few minutes, Tammie asked, “Do you want to learn a new word?” Try ‘face pareidolia.’”

I asked, “What’s that? It sounds terminal.”

Tammie rolled her eyes before responding, “It’s the ability to see faces in everyday objects. It says here that when people look at houses that have two upstairs windows and one down below, they automatically interpret that as resembling a face with two eyes and a mouth. It’s very common and shows how our brains are wired.”

Holding up a hand I laughed, “Okay, I believe you, birds don’t purposely do things like splat in someone’s eye or in this case, a house’s eye. I’m going outside now with a wet sponge and a squeegee to wash the glass!