Birdness

Eight AM? I thought birders do dawn, which may as well be eight. Okay, I’d sacrifice my first nap — the one I take before I get out of bed. 

Because this was my chance to shadow Bob, a real birder. He travels after the WarbledKook on this continent, the Toe-NailedLinguini on that. His life-list is as tall as he is. Makes sense that since his eyebrows tangle in the high branches, he can spot TwitToodles better than I, knee-high to their droppings. 

Though I’d never chased feathers. Why bother, with Google photos, and pie to eat? But now I’d watch Bob’s watching, learn first-hand about this nature thing.

So Bob and me, and Mike, Kimi, and Peggy — all bushy-tailed and binocular-hung — dared the foliage-lined road. I hustled after Bob’s tree-trunk legs, the feet of the master. When he turned his head, I turned mine; when he raised his palm, I perked my ears. I gobbled each seed he sprinkled. Like when he said, “Scan for movement,” I mentally videoed every flutter of every leaf. The others in our group, I could tell, had been around the bird block, fluent in migratory predation territorials and last year’s TailedTemptress.

Tromp, pause. “Listen.” 

Stroll, step, freeze. “What d’ya think that was?”

Peggy stared at her phone; Mike aimed his toward the hill. A story rose in me, about when my friend and I once pondered three-toed prints on sand. His app identified: “100 percent certainty: Animal Kingdom.”  Good story. 

But instinctively, I held it in. Bob now intoned, “I should mention, it is best birding protocol to not talk. Except relevant to sightings. This is not the occasion to regale us with tales of your grandma’s cat.”

His frown was on me. Hey, my grandma never had a cat — but could she bake strudel! I again mazol-toved myself for my mature silence. I also thanked Our Protectress of the Big-Mouthed, in case she had grabbed my tongue.

Letting the only sounds emit au naturale, we Birders proceeded. Chirp. Tweet. Ba-linkety. ToulouseLautrec. Bob and Mike pointed to a SunSmoocher, or was it a NoodleNosedPlier? Bob and Kimi heard a Lessernoggin, though did it inhabit this latitude? Bob identified a Flouting, but Peggy’s app declared it a Heathenface.

 [Bird names may have been changed herein, to camouflage my poor memory and rich ignorance.]

A tweetleclunk happened. Not a twig jiggled. “Where is it?” I asked. 

“My phone,” Mike said. 

“Nice ringer,” I said.

“Nope, the birding-by-ear app. That’s the TongueTsker.”

“Right,” said Bob. “We should get one here.”

“Does the fake sound bring them?” I asked. “Don’t they know they’re being scammed?”

I ignored the humans’ dirty looks. The birds ignored their signal.

More strides, aural mysteries, flicks. Bob turned away, calling, “I gotta go shake hands with the unemployed.” 

“Huh?” I said.

“Hasta take a leak,” Mike said.

“Oh. I never heard that one. I know, ‘go see a man about a dog.’” 

“A horse.”

“Yeah,” I said. “A horse.”

With our guru off in the bushes, we could talk. Sweet relief.  I repeated, “The unemployed,” because I could.

Mike said, “We guys have lots of ways to say it.”

“Tell me more!” I felt a poem being conceived.

“I don’t remember. Pump the bilge.”

“Hmm. Others?”

“I dunno. Lots more for masturbation.”

“Not now,” I said.

Bob returned. We resumed the parade. 

Squeak scrunch. Squeak scrunch. I swept my binoculars around. Squeak scrunch. I lowered my aim toward the gravel. Kimi’s clean, thick-soled sneakers.

I refrained from blurting out that the children’s book Down Down the Mountain features new “squeaky creaky shoes” bought with a turnip. I did blurt out, “It’s probably protocol to not wear shoes that squeak?” Seemed polite to pose it as a question.

“They’re orthotics,” Kimi said.  

Okay then.

More almost sightings. A TangleGrope, they whispered. 

I thrilled to glimpse an orange blur while Bob narrated the TouristTrapper’s mating quirks. So, this had all been worth it!

Onward into the dappled and deciduous. At a squawk, I shot my hand upward, proudly.

“Just a fuckin’ Steller’s Jay,” said Bob. 

Walk, walk. “Hey, those!” I tried.

“Yep, too-voos,” said Mike. “Turkey vultures.”

I’d once, against my will, witnessed a vulture thing slurping into a carcass, on a driveway in a nice neighborhood. Where’s memory erasure when you need it? Suppressing a retch, I now said, “Don’t they have red neck feathers?”

“Red neck skin. Thick,” Bob said. “Keeps ’em from infections.”

 “Ah, the red matching the blood and guts. Brilliant fashion choice,” said I.

“My neck’s tired,” said Kimi. 

“Yeah, try on an Arctic ship,” Bob said, “You bend your head straight up to the sky for twelve hours.” I emitted an “aww” for his hard life.

“There — on those wires!” said someone. Two someones.

“I don’t see wires,” said Peggy. 

“ZitFlicker,” said Bob. “Woop, gone. Suckers move fast.”

“What wires?” said Peggy.

“Why’d everything stop?” said Kimi.

“We’re in the woods now. More action on the borders,” said Bob.

Kimi said, “So quiet. It’s like the recess bell rang.”

Bob said, “Yesterday I saw a FuzzedBedhead, right here.”

“Speaking of breakfast,” I said, “Which way back?”

They stared at me as if I were AI asking them for an answer. “Poor inner compass,” I shrugged. “I have other talents.” 

Mike pointed back up the road from whence we came. A sound turned their heads. “That’s the FuckIt! call of the Darling,” said Bob. “You hear how it goes high, then low?”

I strolled away, thinking scrambled, no, poached eggs. 

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