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Birding in Canada
The Lighter Side of Birding |
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Birding in Canada
The Lighter Side of Birding |
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YOU MIGHT BE A BIRDER IF......Someone yells "Duck!", and you look up and shout "Where?"
Vacations are planned to maximize the number of life birds.
You criticize television programs and commercials that depict a Bald Eagle but play a Red-tailed Hawk call.
Your kids are named Buteo and Accipiter.
People stop and stare when you pish at the shrubbery at the local mall.
Lunch breaks find you driving to check out your favorite hot spot.
Your spouse says, "Its either me or the birds," and you have to think about it.
On sunny days you hop in the car, crank up your tape of bird calls, and drive like crazy to the nearest mountain where the thermals are great for soaring hawks.
You pay a neighbor kid $20 to roll on a carcass and lay still while you search the sky for vultures.
You try to talk your kid into going to college in Belize so that you have an excuse to go and bird there.
Its a northeaster, the rain is horizontal, a small craft advisory has been issued, but it's birdathon and you need to up the day's list.
Clouds take on the shape of birds, and you can distinguish male from female, and adult from immature plumage.
A machine squeaks at work and you describe it to maintenance as sounding like a black-and-white warbler.
The first time you meet your future in-laws, you demonstrate the courtship dance of the woodcock, replete with sound effects.
You spend fifteen minutes preparing dinner for your family, and thirty minutes mixing and placing seed for your birds.
You wake up your spouse at 5:30am and exclaim, "Is that a phoebe I'm hearing outside the window?"
Preparing for trips to visit out-of-state relatives involves contacting local birders, securing local bird lists, and buying the appropriate Lane's Guide.
You identify calls of birds in the soundtracks of television shows and movies.
You're willing to fight with anyone who criticizes your optics.
You participate in hours-long discussions about the pros and cons of using a certain field guide.
You lose friends, and perhaps even your spouse, from fighting over the pronunciation of "pileated."
Answering "yes" to any of these questions qualifies you as a birder.
Judy Pike >' ) It gets foggy out there sometimes, Bisbee, AZ ( ( \ but God is still in charge. ejpike@theriver.com mrf''|\ http://homepages.infoseek.com/~omajudy/omajudy.html or http://members.wbs.net/homepages/o/m/a/omajudy.html
YOU MIGHT BE A BIRDER IF......
1.) Bird droppings on your car windshield do not make you unhappy because you have to clean them off, but because you recognize them as the work of a Mangrove Cuckoo and you STILL can't add the bird to your life list.
2.) Your children have not had new shoes in two years but you own a Swarovski.
3.) You have actually BEEN to the Brownsville Dump.
4.) You often call your four children by each other's names but you never mis- identify Lesser or Greater Yellowlegs.
5.) News that a species has split (and you have already seen both forms!) is cause for a three day drunk.
6.) You are driving through a really rough neighborhood at night you can't roll the drivers side window all the way up because your window mount is ALWAYS in position - just in case!
7.) When pulled over by a local gendarme (Hat, Badge, Gun, No Smile) for speeding you ask him to step to one side while he is writing out your ticket because you think that that might be a Bicknell's Thrush in the tree across the road.
8.) You are sure that in Heaven there are six months of May and six months of September.
9.) When you refer to your husband as an SOB, you mean Spouse of Birder.
10.) You are reading this list and preparing your own.
Dick Beeler
RBeeler333@aol.com
Cape Coral, FL - 20 miles from Ding Darling, 50 miles from Corkscrew Swamp:-)
YOU MIGHT ALSO BE A BIRDER IF......- Every time you practice your bird calls thinking that you are alone, someone pops up from nowhere
- When talking about the primary extension, you ain't talking about the telephone line
- You carry your binoculars to watch the birds and your field guide to help convince suspicious police that you really are just bird-watching.
- You are the only one in the room who doesn't think "Prairie Chicken" and "Sapsucker" are funny
- The nastiest words in your vocabulary come out exclusively while birding
- When you have a nightmare, you see "Private - No Trespassing" signs circling around your head
- When it comes to birds you sometimes, i.e. regularly, walk the very thin line between courage and plain ol' stupidity
- You enjoy living, love your family & friends, have life insurance and worry about your health - but routinely attempt suicide every time you get behind the wheel of a car since you never look at the road
- Every female jogger you pass in the park gives you that murderous look saying, "Oh yeah, sure, it's the *BIRDS* you're looking at with those binoculars !".
- You merrily risk death for lifers
- The roads around your favorite birding spot are completely covered with skid marks
- You fail to convince the retarded judge that "The &*$%#! scared away my possible Ivory-billed Woodpecker !!!" is not an acceptable excuse for first-degree manslaughter
- There are more miles on your factory-new car of 1 week ago than feathers on a flock of pigeons
- No, you don't think those birds in the field guide all look the same
- You fly to the tropics & back every year, usually in the winter
- You are one of those rare types who knows more about optics than a lenscrafter, more about driving than a trucker and more Latin than the Pope
- Every last gift or card you receive has a bird on it
- You give the Starling only 1 star, but the Spotless Starling 5 stars.
- You are not necessarily opposed to cannibalism... The only 328 people you have ever eaten raw, bones and all, and loved it, smiled sweetly and said a hearty "Good Morning !" after scaring away your possible prize lifer
- You read about a catastrophic bird-plane collision which killed 257 people and feel so sorry for the poor bird...
- Getting out of bed fully energized at 4 a.m. is perfectly fine for birding. Otherwise, getting up at 12 noon is getting up early.
***
- You realize that this list can go on for ages and ages...
:) :) :) :) :) :) :) All the best - Eran Tomer Atlanta, Georgia, USA etomer@emory.edu
more birder humour - Fri, 12 May 2000 Hello Gord,
Just a few more..you know your a birder when
-looking for hawks means checking the ditches first and where the nearest exit is from the field you find yourself driving into.
-you put a 'slow moving vehicle' sign on the back of your truck.
-you only keep the OFO bumper sticker clean on your truck.
-you are asked to remove your binoculars when entering resturants.
-your hiking trips don't include a walking stick.
-you dream of seeing a flying owl and discount the belief it means death.
-instead of beer cans and wrappers; peanuts, bread and seeds fall out of your truck when the door opens.
-just going for a loaf of bread means packing loads of equipment for the 'in case I see a bird along the way'..and you get back an hour later without the bread.
But the most pleasure from being a birder is that every road, every tree and field is an ongoing treasure hunt for you to discover yet another bird for your list.
~Spirit of the Bruce B&B~ http://www.bbcanada.com/spirit.html 672 East Road Bruce Peninsula Ontario
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I am l king for fun stuff to add to this page. Your input would be greatly appreciated! If you have any birding humor, funny birding stories, birding related graphics, animated gifs, or anything dealing with the lighter side of birding, please send it to me and I will post it in this website.
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Gord Gallant at Websites - Naturally. king forward to hearing from you!
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