CAR-USING KISKADEE

A car crashes into a dragonfly, leaving the shattered insect on the road. A stocky, yellow-bellied, dark-rusty-backed flycatcher, a Great Kiskadee, shoots from the roadside thicket, snatches up the meal, returns to a shadowy perch and eats.

Through the binoculars I admire the bird's colors and fine features. It's a very common bird, a "weed bird" distributed in disturbed sites from southern Texas to Argentina. Hearing another car coming, the kiskadee's body language shows that the bird is paying attention. He holds his head so that his right eye faces the road. The car passes, no insect is left on the road, and the kiskadee "loosens up," changes position, looks around -- until the next car, and then the same routine is repeated, with his right eye fixed hard on the road.

After three cars pass he very vigorously, almost brusquely, wipes his bill and looks around. Anyone not ashamed of interpreting bird behavior anthropomorphically would say that this bird is frustrated because not every car leaves behind a shattered dragonfly.