by
Robert LaFrance
In today’s column we shall go over
the rules of bird-watching – which of course includes ‘bird-listening’ – and
the first rule is this:
When you are outside (one assumes)
and see an unusual bird and do your best to memorize every feature of that
bird, you will not find it in your $27.75 book entitled Birds of Eastern
Canada. Never. So you grab your camera and put on a telephoto lens, which leads
us to rule number two:
You will never, never see that bird
or any other bird except chickadees and robins while you are holding your
camera at the ready. As a test, take your camera and place it carefully on the
ground beside your hammock and it’s the same two birds gambolling around your
yard. Next, take the camera and set it on a woodpile ten feet away. There will
be an instant array of California condors, Minto Marsh hawks, ostriches, and
Baltimore Cardinals (mixed breed) – so many you’ll have to shove them aside to
get to your camera, at which point they’ll all disappear and you are left with
the chickadees and robins. And possibly a Canada Post carrier pigeon who has
lost his way.
There’s something about a camera
that makes relatives and birds shy, not to mention any other kind of wildlife except
Flug’s nephew Flagg, who just moved here from Arizona. Flagstaff, Arizona of
course. We’ll mention Flagg later.
I recall the days back in the late
1970s when I and relatives would drive from Tilley for what seemed like 99
miles (it’s even farther in kilometres) to fish in Clearwater Brook which
crosses the Renous Highway, such as it is and was, about 23 miles from Plaster
Rock. If I had my camera we would see a mosquito or two and maybe a dead toad,
but should I forget to bring that Kodak gem, the road would be covered with
everything from aardvarks to polar bears to moose to leopards. We’d all swear
to this too, but no one would believe us.
Such is the way it is with
bird-watchers, at least this birdwatcher. I could walk from here (Kincardine)
to Riley Brook and my camera need never be brought to my eye. Other people –
and I won’t mention Murray Watters’s name - report seeing a Ruby Crowned
Kinglet, but I count it a great coup if I can see a barn swallow. (“See a barn
swallow what?” you might well ask.)
In all seriousness, this year I have
made a real effort to learn the names of birds I see around here. There are
nuthatches (called ass-ups by a certain birder uptown – no names I said –
because they are upside down when they eat), purple finches, the birds I
mentioned before, a catbird, grosbeaks, evening primroses…
“Wait a minute!” said Flug, who had
been reading over my shoulder, as is his habit. “An evening primrose is a
flower, not a bird.”
Flug has been jealous of me for a
long time because this column of mine is read by tens of thousands of people
all over the world and he is…well, he is merely Flug. I happen to know that an
evening primrose is a bird and not a flower. Next he’ll be telling me that a
titmouse isn’t a mouse.
“It isn’t,” he said over my shoulder
again. “It’s a bird.”
Tomorrow morning I plan to go on a
serious bird-watching expedition up in the north country of the Scotch Colony –
Upper Kintore. Many have gone there, but few have returned. Those who have
returned brought back tales of a wild band of fourth generation Scotsmen and
women throwing large sticks through the air, and rocks as big as birthday cakes
landing with a crash on people’s Toyotas. Those stories won’t deter me though.
I have heard reports that the dreaded Robbie Burns Manure Hawk has been spotted
up near the fire tower. When I say I’m going to go there I mean I’m going to go
there.
(No sooner did I write the above than
Flug’s nephew Flagg stopped by and said he wanted to go too. “I saw a
California Condor once, in Arizona,” he explained, “and I want to see a Quebec
Wren in New Brunswick to sort of even things out.” )
Do you blame me for drinking, er,
lemonade, sometimes to excess?
-end-
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