Small Adventure 58

I walk through Tenmonkan all the time to get to the English school at the other side, near City Hall. Usually, I end up passing by the loading docks of the Yamakataya department store. There's a little side street running out from the north side of Tenmonkan to dead end next to the City Hall car parking towers 6 blocks up, and the street has Yamakataya on one side, and the Honganji temple and elementary school grounds on the other for a one-block long stretch in the middle.

One day, I was walking up this street from Tenmonkan on my way to the school, when something flashed out from the near inside wall of the loading dock and bumped me lightly in the stomach. My first thought was that one of the workers had thrown a wadded up ball of paper out the dock and hit me by accident. But, I turned my head to find out where the blur had gone. I just managed to catch a peek of it as it flew up the front of the Honganji grounds wall, over and into the bushes on the other side. I suspect it was a chickadee that had gotten trapped in the docks when the workers arrived, and had been desperately waiting for a chance to escape, just as I was reaching the edge of the dock doors.

Haven't been smacked by a bird before, although I have been dive-bombed by a pigeon.