Several years ago I worked in a factory making plastic parts used in furniture. I had the day-shift, which was 9am-9pm. The work was very boring, and the twelve large machines positioned throughout the building made a lot of racket as they spewed out their widgets.

A paved hiking trail went through the thick marshy area behind the factory. Small trees, bushes, and blackberry vines made excellent shelter for rabbits, birds, garter snakes, and other small creatures. It also provided a nice quiet place for me to take most of my lunch breaks. I had a few favorite spots in the bramble to sit and watch and listen for birds, hoping to add another species to my lifelist.

My interest in birds began when I was a small boy armed with a ten-cent slingshot. These slingshots were poorly made, and had very little range or killing power, so in order for me to have a chance at bagging my prey I was required to get within a few feet from the birds. I'm glad now my kills were few, but the stalking experience came in handy when I matured from slingshot to binoculars and fieldguides to the birds.

The lifelist I mentioned earlier is simply a list of birds identified by individual birders. My list is one-hundred-seventy-five names long, but one siting in particular had a dramatic affect on me, and much more substantial than the check mark I put by its name in my fieldguide.

Virginia rails are fairly common, but due to their shyness they are usually heard rather than seen. They are weak fliers, so they prefer to walk or run through their habitat of low-lying plants. Virginia rails actually have a flexible vertebrae which helps them wend their way through brush and marsh.

I had just spent about a half hour break a little ways into the trail's greenery, and had begun walking back to the factory. As I stepped out onto the trail a family of Virginia rails; cock, hen, and at least ten of their chicks who resembled black cottonballs with tiny legs were crossing the trail towards me. They were as surprised to see me suddenly appear as I was to encounter them in this way.

The hen immediately "klick klick klicked" her danger call and hurried her brood into the brush. As mother and children made their hasty, yet orderly get-away dad stood his ground in the middle of the trail. He opened his longish, thin, red beak and began screaming at me. His eyes were alive with an unyielding fierceness. He gave no signs of running or flying away. It was as though he had made up his mind that if a member of his family was to die at the hands of this giant it would be him.I immediately stepped back in order to give  assurance that I meant no harm, and that it was safe for him to rejoin his family, which he did.

As I entered the factory door I was still feeling a strong sense of awe at what I had witnessed: a ten-inch bird screaming at a creature a hundred-fifty times its weight: "Come on! Come after me! Just leave my family alone!"

I looked around at my co-workers, and wondered how many of them would react as the rail had if their families were similarly threatened. I wondered how I would react, too.

I can say for certain, though, that in my mind at that moment the stature of myself and the rest of humanity had shrunk somewhat, while the Virginia rail's had grown, considerably.