Luke is introduced to birds by two of his friends (a married couple). They are originally from England but now live in NYC. One day, they are all together at Luke's second home in Pennsylvania and his friends see a Common Yellowthroat. Luke is the novice and can't see through the binoculars at first, but then: "Oh my! Wow! Are you kidding me? Wow!"
And so they all begin birding together. They make periodic trips all over the US, and this is the wonderfully funny account of what they find, of their friendship, where they go, and the people they meet on their quests. Birding is a strange passion, I suppose. The author says that "I can't log how many times I've seen a blank stare, even a twitch of an eyeball, when I admit that, yes, I love to look at birds. With strangers, I can go from mildly interesting to completely written off in about a second and a half."
But for those of you who are seduced by birds, and even if you're not, this book will probably make you laugh out loud--more than once.
Esther was in Michigan last week and I took her on my favorite trail. Her cell phone kept ringing until she turned it off. It has a loud obnoxious ring. She was carrying a blue Crown Royal bag with batteries, phone, etc. The bag had a hole in the bottom and the batteries kept falling out on the trail. But, she settled in after a bit. We saw Common Yellowthroats, close enough to see even without binoculars and (I think) she may have progressed a bit along the spectrum of birding from a starting point of barely being able to distinguish a robin from a cardinal to the far end of being able to confidently ID Empids.
She actually started a list: the glorious male Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Cardinals, Baltimore Orioles, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Goldfinches, the constantly singing House Wrens nesting in my yard, along with several other species. She will figure out the doves and parrots she sees all the time in Florida, and she bought a small feeder with seed cakes to take home with her. Should she accept this challenge, she will be the fourth (of six) sisters who carry around binoculars, buy bird books, take birding hikes, go to birding websites, visit sewage lagoons and beaches and marshes.
No comments:
Post a Comment