Bird-brains

Yesterday I walked to a local shopping centre via a little park.  As I was walking through the park, my attention was drawn to a masked lapwing (often erroneously known as a 'plover' in Australia).

This adult bird was busily shrieking at me but, interestingly enough, it wasn't trying to dive-bomb me.  It was then that I noticed a little speck of a thing moving about aimlessly some distance from the adult. A bit over an hour later when I was walking home, my progress was once again greeted by shrieks, only this time from two adult birds who were trying to convince the dangerous walker (i.e. me) that they were possibly injured (much bending down) and therefore much more desirable than the speck of a chick some distance behind them that meanwhile didn't seem to know to which parent it should run.  As I continued walking, the parent to which I drew closer shrieked even more hysterically so I wasn't sure if it was trying to get my attention drawn to it and away from the chick or if it was telling the chick to run to the other parent.

Now, I know that as far as the birds are concerned, I'm a big, potentially dangerous moving thing; but, if the adults hadn't started shrieking at me, I wouldn't have even known that they or their chick were there. I suppose they can't help it though; after all, they are literally bird-brained.