For The
Birds
This
“Birding” Thing's a
passioned Sport,
Though
Birders are a strange Breed Sort;
They’ll
range indeed from young to old,
Yet
walk in Rain or bitter Cold!
Through Woods and Fields, they trod a lot,
From
Dawn to Dusk, some Wren to spot;
Binoculars
and Scopes in Hand,
They love to count; sometimes they’ll Band!
At Feeders, Blinds, they congregate,
In Silence, cramped, to watch and wait;
Then
travel near or trek afar,
To
get their “Life Lists” up to Par!
They’ll
wait
for Swallows to come back,
Or Common Ravens, oh so black;
Yet paw through Pellets; check out Scat,
Then shoo
away that feral Cat!
If viewing Eggs should be their Whim,
They’ll climb tall Oaks; risk Life and Limb;
To reach a Roost; new Broods inspect,
While West Nile does those Crows infect!
Look in the Sky; out on the Lake,
A
Mute Swan Cob; a Ring-necked Drake;
As
Raptors soar and Songbirds sing,
They
dream of Flocks, Migrations bring!
Atop a Church;
in
someone’s
Yard,
Stay on the Search;
be on your Guard;
You'll never know
what you might see,
When Ospreys dive, it's Ecstasy!
Though
Cockatoos, or coarse Jackdaws,
These
Birders cheer, Coos, Chirps and Caws;
They’re
driven to a frenzied State,
When
Mimid Mimics imitate!
It's
Rufous-sided; has
no Crest,
Up in the Air or
on the
Nest;
Gallinaceous; Pileated;
Why are Vultures underrated?
They'll peer at Gulls in Garbage Dumps,
And
thrill to hear those Ruffed Grouse Thumps;
But never, ever get their Fill,
Until they've ticked that Ivorybill!
More Whooping Cranes, in steep Decline,
Like
Kirtland’s Warblers, perched in
Pine;
Poor Piping Plovers' Periled Plight,
A Specie's Loss is worth the Fight!
In unmown Grass or
muddy
Muck,
Bright Bobolinks; brave Ruddy Duck;
A
Redwing here; that Screech Owl there,
Whose Find will be that Bird most rare?
Yet
weird Bird Calls or Hoots at Night,
Give
Listers Chills of sheer Delight;
But
hear's still not the same as see,
Don't
post lest you, a Stringer be!
So
should you spot some Bird, quite strange,
Though
Date's not right or out of Range;
Resist
that Guess, don't make a Gaffe,
Play
safe and get its Photograph!
Now
Picture Takers, fuss and fume,
With
focused
Lens, they'll pan and zoom,
To
catch that Brown-backed Solitaire,
But
just like Birders, not quite there! 
Addendum
I’ve
learned
that Birders take their avocation very seriously. Not only do they try
to see
every possible bird on the face of the earth but
they then attempt to ornithologically classify each
one ad nauseam. One
of the members
of
our local bird watching group spotted
an unusual
color variation of a White-throated Sparrow and asked me to try and
photograph
it. The
discovery initiated
a dramatic debate about whether it
should be called “albinistic” or "leucisitic”
or “partially albino” or “incompletely
albino” and so forth. Each contender
heatedly
defended his point of view and, of
course, provided
lists of
references, both scientific and artistic, supporting his position. This
battle of definitions lasted
for
two
days amongst our
erstwhile orniphiles. In any event, the photos depict
the issue and my verse attempts to address the
controversy.
Your
Usual Everyday White-throated
Sparrow
We
spent two Days in hot
Debate,
Deciding
on this Sparrow’s Fate;
Just
what it is, we did not know,
Our
feathered Creature, Curio!
Though
“albinistic” makes Things white,
Some
others think “leucistic’s” right;
To
fight about it seemed absurd,
It’s
just a small “white-headed” Bird!
...and then
a few days later a very small strange dark
Chickadee came into
our feeders
and started
the
discussion all over
again. Here are two photos
for comparison:
Melanistic (?)
Chickadee
A strange dark Chickadee
today,
Flew
in to join our Expert’s Fray;
One
said “Genetics”, then he’d pause,
“Perhaps Pollution is the
Cause!”
I
guess we’ll never know
just why,
This
little Bird has gone
awry;
With
twisted Beak to make
Things moot,
'Twas
melanistic or from Soot!
...this
past
week we located a couple of Blue Grosbeaks. Although we saw an amazingly
indigo
colored blue Male, I could
not get a
shot of him. The photograph below shows four
different views of the
other bird. It has developed into a real
controversy. My very good friend
staunchly maintains that
it is a female but most of the other "experts" have said that
it is a First
Summer
Male.
This Grosbeak’s been a
Mystery,
Our Experts really
can't agree;
Some said, "It's
just a First Year
Male! ",
While
others yelled, “No, bright Female!”
Now
Sibley's doesn’t have one
Word,
To help us gender this blue
Bird;
The Answer true eludes our
Grip,
Perhaps a Coin, we'll have to
flip!
Today
a dark blue Male did
sing,
While
this one fed a young
Fledgling;
Two Males together would not
be,
So she’s a Girl
with Certainty!
During
the past couple of years, we have seen at least twenty birds that are considered
rarities
in
Pennsylvania and New Jersey. I was even fortunate enough to be able to
photograph an Eastern
Kingbird at Mitchell
Lake Audubon Center in San Antonio, Texas in 2007. This bird is quite a rarity
this
side of the equator during the winter months.
Here are some photographs
of a few of these vagrants or "accidentals"
who seem to have
strayed very far from their traditional turf or migration
routes:
Ash-throated
Flycatcher Black-headed
Gull
California
Gull Iceland
Gull
Lapland
Longspur Rufous
Hummingbird
Savannah
Sparrow (Ipswich Variety) Western
Kingbird
Western
Tanager Dining On Rose Hips Yellow-bellied
Sapsucker
Lark
Sparrow Eastern
Kingbird Seen In San Antonio, Texas in January
Scott's
Oriole in Mechanicsburg, PA Lazuli
Bunting in Red Hill, PA
Female
Curlew Sandpiper at Heislerville WMA Wood
Sandpiper at Prime Hook NWR in Delaware
Reeve
(Female Ruff) at Heislerville WMA Allen's
Hummingbird in Leola, PA
Clay-colored
Sparrow At Koch Property, Easton, PA Spotted
Towhee Female At Palmyra Cove Nature Center, Palmyra, NJ
Male
Bullock's Oriole, Barto, PA Northern
Wheatear, Fox Point SP, De
Anna's
Hummingbird, Shartlesville, PA
One
of the rarest of birds to appear in the eastern part of the United States was
a Long-billed Murrelet
from Siberia. This
little sea bird showed up at Sandy Hook, New Jersey last weekend. Hundreds of
birders queued up trying to get a
look at it for their life lists. Here is my birding report (in verse) for
the day we were there with great hopes of being
able to photograph it:
The Weather cold; blue Sky so clear,
We set out with our Scopes and Gear;
While on the Beach, prime Birder’s View,
Some Razorbills, we saw a few;
Red-throated plus a Common Loon,
Song, Ipswich Sparrows near a Dune;
We watched the Goldeneyes with Friends,
Though Barrow's stayed beyond my Lens;
Two Harriers, Horned Grebes and Crows,
Then Gannets, Gulls, what else, who knows;
Huge Raft of Scaup; a Long-tailed Duck,
I wish we'd had some better Luck,
Yet still we tried, but could not get,
That damned elusive Murrelet!
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Revised August
6th, 2011 ©
Howard B. Eskin 2011