You can catch a bird by putting salt on its tail

My family seemed to speak in a constant flow of colloquialisms, which I took for fact. Among them -- if you can put salt on a bird's tail, you can catch it. I would spend hours sneaking up in birds in the backyard with a salt shaker. I was never able to get close enough so I ended up setting my mother's parakeet out to fly around the house. Whenever it landed I was right there salting its tail. Poor thing ended up panting with exhaustion trying to stay away from me and my mother was totally puzzled why there was salt all over the house. It finally did dawn on me that if your close enough to salt the tail, your close enough to grab the bird... duh!

Tokeca

When I was young, a family friend told me that if you put salt on a bird's tail, it couldn't fly and you could catch it! I spent hours and hours one summer with the salt-shaker (remember the tall Tupperware ones?) trying to get close enough to a bird. I have since realized, that if you can get close enough to actually PUT salt on a bird's tail, you can catch it anyway! Which I'm sure was her message, but I didn't get it then!

Meredith

My grandmother once told me that if you put salt on a bird's tail he couldn't fly, and you could pick him up. I used to run around the yard with a saltshaker chasing robins.

Tom

When I was about five or six years old, my mom told me that if I put salt on a bird's tail, it wouldn't be able to fly away and I could catch it. Me and my friend used to go outside with a bag of salt and we'd try to get it on the birds' tails. I was 10 years old when I found out that wasn't true.

TB Samurai

My dad used to tell me that I could so easily catch the little birds hopping in the yard if I would just put salt on their tails. Years later, with almost grown children of my own...I wonder how many laughs he got watching out the window while I chased endless birds with a salt shaker...only for them to fly away when I got close!!

Malinda

My Great Grandma used to tell me if I could put salt on a birds tail it would be my pet. I can remember doing a lot of bird chasing when I was young. I also wasted a lot of salt.

Lisa

Our mom told us that if we sprinkled salt on a bird's tail, it would be our pet forever. I can't tell you the countless hours we spent with the salt shaker sneaking up on birds just to have them fly away. I guess we were around 10 years old before we realized that tale was just Mom's way of keeping us occupied.

Judi

My grandfather told me if you put salt on a birds tail it couldn't fly anymore and i could catch it, so i would go in the backyard and chase the birds around with a salt-shaker

leslie

I believed, thanks to my uncle, that if you put salt on a birds tail you could catch it.

I spent two years (ages 6-8) attempting this..while everyone laughed.

Andy

My mother and father told me you could catch a bird by putting salt on its tail.....never got close enough to test it out

Anon

My grandpa once told me that if I put salt on birds wings, then they could no longer fly. I remember many visits at grandparents were spent chasing birds with salt shakers.

Kayla

My grandfather told me that if you sprinkle salt on a rabbit's tail that it will freeze up so you can catch it. Of course the trick was getting close enough to a rabbit to get salt on its tail. I remember running through the yard chasing after rabbits with the salt-shaker in hand. He told me that the same thing worked on birds' tails.

Alison

Thanks to a cartoon, I truely believed that if you poured salt on a bird's tail, it would fall off.

And that's REAL the reason why the bird was unable to fly afterwards

Glowworm

My dad told me to go outside with a salt shaker and I could catch a bird. He said to sneak up on the bird, shake as much salt as I could on its tail, and then it couldn't fly so I could grab it. I spent a lot of hours clutching that salt shaker , trying to sneak up on birds!

Laura

When I was little 5-6 my dad told me if I wanted to catch a bird all I need to do was put salt on its tail end and I would be able to catch it because then it could not fly.I kept trying this for a couple of years.lol

vic oilsteems

I used to belive that one can catch birds if you put salt on their tail.
I tried for a verry long time to cath a bird like this :-)

Razvan

When I was little I took several salt shakers and went looking for birds because I'd overheard the saying that if you could sprinkle salt on a bird's tail you could catch it. At dinner I was mortified when my mother commented about not being able to find her best pewter salt shaker. I'd left all the shakers outside under the porch! I think I snuck them back in the next day.

Donna C.

One time my grandma told me that when she was little, a man in a restaraunt told her that if you put salt on a birds tail, it couldn't fly away. Well being around 6 at the time, I grabbed the table salt and was outside chasing birds for about a half an hour.

Anon

My Dad told me when I was a kid and I used to believe it. If you could sprinkle salt on a bird's tail you could catch it. I tried many times but never caught one.

Anon

When I was about 4-5 years old my Grandpa convinced me and my brother who was 5-6 that if we sprinkled salt on a birds tail it could not fly away. I don't know how many salt shakers we emptied trying to get it on the birds tails. But it kept us entertained I guess!

Mairia