Bird

The Bird of Happiness.He left much too early, leaving a glorious scorecard replete with continual deeds of human kindness. No amount of persuasion will buy a smile from a child, but his presence alone was able to make it happen. A momentous source for achieving good.Jamie Parker, returning from a mission of mercy after visiting a young leukemia patient, had an accident on a highway. His injuries were severe and he failed to survive. Now this afternoon his funeral is being held in Woodbine and the crowds will be there to help share the pain of a tragic loss that is deeply felt by family and friends.

How do you hoist your bird?That is the question on the mind of America. Or it will be soon. Once the holiday bird -- turkey, goose, chicken, capon, pigeon or whatever -- is ready to emerge from the oven, cooks face the problem of artfully moving the main course from the roasting pan to the serving platter.Spearing it with a fork won't do. Few forks are strong enough to handle a big bird. And even if the fork is willing, the bird often isn't. A forked bird usually falls apart en route to the platter.

BOSTON -- Finally, after almost 2 1/2 hours, it was time for Larry Bird to say thank you and goodbye. "I've been very fortunate," he began, but the crowd wasn't ready for the last act of this remarkable retirement party."

LOS ANGELES -- The oldest and largest architectural sculpture yet discovered from the Mayan civilization has been found by a University of California at Los Angeles archaeologist in the Guatemalan site called Nakbe.The massive head of the bird-god Itzam-Ye was sculpted on the side of one of the first pyramids built in Nakbe and later mysteriously hidden from view by a stone-and-earth terrace. The head is 34 feet wide by 16 feet high and carved from stone and covered with painted stucco.It dates from around 300 B.C., "about 200 years earlier than most of the other known examples of similar sculptures," UCLA archaeologist Richard Hansen said.

Baltimore will likely get its bird back.The bird -- Icterus galbula, the one so blandly dubbed the northern oriole in 1973 -- seems destined to reacquire its original name.Nothing is final, mind you. But by the time Peter Angelos' birds take the field in April, the American Ornithologists Union's Committee on Classification and Nomenclature may have ruled on the matter.The committee of eight scientists, akin to the Supreme Court of bird naming, plans to have its annual meeting in Orlando, Fla., in March.

BROOKLINE, Mass. -- Larry Bird was missing when the Boston Celtics headed for Buffalo, N.Y., and last night's preseason game with the Washington Bullets. Bird's aching lower back kept him in Boston for physical therapy, and he will also miss tonight's exhibition against the Cleveland Cavaliers in Toronto.Bird's back sprain/strain is taking longer to heal than originally anticipated, and the Boston Celtics medical staff felt that although he could play over the weekend, his time will be better spent with physical therapy consultant Dan Dyrek, who has worked with him in the past.

MY FRIEND Jim Hartzell will be buried this afternoon, a spring 44 years after the first time I encountered this highly original character. I am now trusting my memory. It was May 1959. I was 9 years old, in the third grade, and it was a breezy Sunday at Memorial Stadium. My father, Joe Kelly, had taken me alone, without my brother and sisters. It was a big day, father and son together. The Orioles (Gus Triandos, Jerry Walker) were playing the Yankees (Yogi Berra, Whitey Ford and manager Casey Stengel)

Robert H. Hahn, a former Baltimorean, retired educator and noted bird-watcher who was responsible for counting the birds at the White House during the National Audubon Society's annual Christmas census, died of cancer Sunday at home in Reston, Va. He was 70.Mr. Hahn's passion for bird-watching began during his childhood in Irvington in Southwest Baltimore.In later years, the quiet, bearded, bespectacled man with a scholarly manner often could be found at Dorchester County's Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge or at Lake Roland in Baltimore County or in the back country of northwestern Maine, patiently setting up his telescope and waiting for a particular species of bird to appear.

You could say that the lifestyle of Phil and Barbara Davis is strictly for the birds. When they aren't operating their business, the WildBird Center in Columbia, they're usually scanning the skies for unusual winged creatures."

THIS 13-YEAR-OLD has a way with birds, particularly parrots.In a family that specializes in birds and owns a Glen Burnie bird shop, young Jack Rolland has been handling them ''since I was very little. They were always there and I had to grow to when I wasn't afraid,'' he says.Since age 8, he has handled any kind of bird and makes the tough ones seem easy. And he sounds a little like the sly fox as he discusses his secret of getting a mean bird out of its cage for grooming. ''I try to trick 'em. I talk to them and get them climbing up the cage, then I reach in with a towel over my hands.