E is for Egg Drop

This is the Electrifying, Exciting and Exotic Extravaganza beyond belief A-to-Z April 2015 Challenge!!!!  And I am an A to Z Participant.  And it is Day 5, Letter E!

Again this year I am writing a poem a day to celebrate National Poetry Month.  It's my FOURTH YEAR in a ROW of writing a poem a day for the A to Z Challenge. This year my poems will be paired with photos of signs I've taken the past few years.  Signs have always fascinated me.  Sometimes it's the mistakes on them, sometimes the different ways the language can be taken, and sometimes it's the surroundings that go with it.

Click on image to go to the list of other participants.

A sign on the side of the road last spring caught my eye and I snapped this shot with my phone as we sat at a red light.  It seemed a questionable activity to be having anywhere at anytime for any reason and with any kind of egg.  It put me in mind of the "WKRP in Cincinnati" TV show long ago, when they decided to do a turkey drop from helicopters above the city.  I've posted the YouTube video clip below, after the poem -
a poem of 4 haiku.
A friend sent the link to me for the drop this year... the sign was from last year's drop.  A fun thing for the kids, but a strange sign...

Really?  I didn't know they laid eggs.

Helicopter Egg Drop

endangered species,

the Nestless Helicopter,
is restless in spring;

no nest to lay eggs -
Helicopters overhead
drop their eggs earthward.

spiraling eggs hatch -

most before hitting the ground -
shells fly as props whirr;

the air is abuzz
with fledgling chickopter flocks
learning how to land!

©Donna JT Smith, 2015

Fun Facts:
The Nestless Helicopter returns to Maine each spring in late April.  It should be returning from its winter home in Boston quite soon. It does not make a nest like the smaller Ultra-Lights.  Instead each Nestless drops about a dozen eggs each spring as they hover directly above Route 1, preferring it to the more traveled Interstate 95, what with the tolls and all and not having an Over-EasyPass.

Those eggs that do not hatch on their spiral downward, will land with the traditional "kersplat!" and become food for crows and other scavengers.  Some avid egg collectors, often referred to as "Copter Adopters" will comb the area for any whole eggs that did not get scrambled upon landing, often painting them and Bedazzling them beyond recognition.  These are then redropped from high places, such as bridges and ferris wheels, to give the Copterless Nestless Helicopter another chance for hatching and their ultimate survival.

Remember it is a criminal offense to capture and domesticate any of the Chickopters.  Both the young and adult Nestless Helicopters are protected under the American Propeller Protection Act of 1992, when they became listed as an endangered Propellant.  Please leave Chickopters where they land.  Their mothers will return for them unless we interfere, and our human smell overpowers the avgas fumes by which the mothers will recognize their young. 

Phew!  I didn't think I'd remember all that from fifth grade science class.  Thank you, Mrs. Hatch!  You were a great teacher!

Funner Fact:
Mrs. Hatch really was my fifth grade teacher, and she was a great teacher, partly because she didn't teach me anything like that.

I hope you are ready for "F".  It happens tomorrow.