When we left the Viking Ship Museum we decided to get some lunch.  There was a hot dog stand outside; that would do.  We ordered our hot dogs and sat down at the picnic benches to eat.  Sparrows flitted around, chasing scraps of food from the tourists.  There used to be lots of sparrows in my native England, but we hardly ever see them now.

One sparrow was different.  It took a while for me to notice.  Do you see it?

I trembled, mortally afraid for my wife and children.  Do you see it?

It glistened around the bird’s beak.

This sparrow was covered in BLOOD!  How had this happened?  Sparrows, after all, are the smallest of birds.  Twittering and flittering, they belong in sunny gardens, yet this one seemed to have come fresh from an abattoir, drenched in guts and gore.  It’s sharp, pointed beak had drilled its way into some unsuspecting tourist stood in the car park of the Viking Ship Museum, and drunk their lifeblood until they lay dead.  I glanced from side to side, looking for the still-twitching corpse, all the time keeping one eye on the sparrow as it stood still and kept one eye on me.

It hopped forward.  I jumped back in my seat, putting a protective hand on my children.  They were oblivious to what was going on.  I stared into the murky depths of the sparrow’s black eyes but could not fathom the horror that lived inside.  I could only imagine at the grisly intent this terrifying little bird had in store for me and…

…oh, hang on…

…I think it might be ketchup from one of the hot dog rolls…

After our lunch we headed off to the Fram and Kon-Tiki museums.  They are a short walk from the Viking Ship Museum.  The coach tours herd their paying passengers from one museum to the next, but I quite enjoyed the walk.

The houses here were beautiful and pristinely kept.  Most were painted white, with black pantile roofs.  The vast majority of them looked as if they had been freshly painted in the last two weeks.

I could live here, I think.  Were it not for all the tourists tramping by.  And those murderous sparrows…

Date of Visit:  18 July 2014

Points in this post (copy and paste the co-ordinates into Google Earth):

• Ketchup-Gorged Sparrow:  N 59° 54.268 E 010° 41.135