Ornithophobia - the fear of birds

I don't have Ornithophobia, but it's pretty damn close.

I hate birds, I always have, and I've never had a very plesant experience with them.

When I was 6 years old, I was walking in Stanley Park from the hotdog vendor to my dad 10 feet away, holding my hotdog in my hand. A seagull came from behind me and took the hotdog right out of my hand! It cut my thumb really badly too, and until a few years ago I still had the scar. The scar on my thumb may have faded, but the scars on my psyche remain.

When I was 10 years old I was walking along the beach in Tsawwassen and a little mouse came out in front of me. It was SO cute, I crouched down and started getting closer and closer, and it wasn't moving at all. Just as I was about 2 feet away, a hawk came swooping down and picked it up, I was so close I could hear the mouse squeal! That hawk scared the hell outta me!!!

When I was 15 years old I was walking from my cousins house to a restaurant in Ladner, and it was a beautiful spring day, and at the time I had long curly blond hair. I was walkng along and 2 huge ravens came sweeping down and one of them literally took a chunk of my hair out. I freaked and screamed and the two crows backed off, but I was missing a piece of hair! I figured that would be the end of the bird craziness, but on the same day, during the same walk, two more ravens went for me as I was walking across a parking lot. One of these two cut my damn head with it's claw or beak. At this point I'm literally bleeding from the head and I decide these two were not going to get away so easy. Rather maliciously I waited for them to come for my head again, and swung around and hit one of them with my backpack, filled with books. It flew to the ground and I thought I had killed it, but after a few seconds it woke up, shook it's head, and flew off. Ahhh!

I bring all these experiences up because of last night.

I was walking from the bus stop to my house last night at about 1:00 am, coming from downtown. I got in front of my house and was on the phone with Jollean, and Whoosssshh! An OWL went for my head, it was damn close, and came swooping in front of me and came in again. I tried to hit it, but missed and SO just ran for my front door. It tried again, but didn't come under the breezeway and I was safe enough, for long enough, to get in the house.

All in, I really do not like birds, they really freak me out!

Birds and clowns.....bad.