This is bird note.

Whoever said that the fastest way to get somewhere is, as the crow flies,

must not have seen crows flying to their night roost on an autumn afternoon.

These shiny black aerial acrobats free fall, tumble and tangle, then swoop back up.

Definitely not the fastest way from one place to the next, as that old saying surely meant.

And eating like a bird? Well, in a single summer day, the barn swallow, like the ones we're hearing, consumes about 850 insects.

An American Robin chick gulps down up to 40 meals, and the Canada goose consumes four pounds of grass.

Do the math. Do you know anybody who eats like these birds?

And while being free as a bird sounds like fun, most birds have seasonal tasks that keep their

beaks to the grindstone. Migration, courtship, nesting, feeding, and protecting hungry

chicks, and feeding them again, then back through the cycle.

If you envy that bird's freedom, consider the miles to fly and the mouths to feed,

all in a year's work for a bird.

For Bird Note, I'm Michael Stein.