A Celebration of Birds

Big, beautiful, and boisterous

I am not a very good birder. I have no ear for bird songs and can only ID a handful of birds by their voice. I can never remember the various shorebirds though I do love saying their names: whimbrel, curlew, godwit, turnstone. Each lovely and melodic and evocative, but not memory triggering. And, once after telling what looked to be a serious birder (big binoculars, gaggle (hope you like the way I seeded a bird-related word in here) of bird books) that I had seen a particular species, he quite nicely informed me that I might want to reconsider my observation. (He didn’t say this but the bird I named was rarely found closer than several hundred miles from where I misspoke.)

But, dear reader, I am not here to crow about my incompetence. I write today to celebrate my past week of birding, when I was able to identify three birds, in a very sort of Paul Reveresque manner: One by ear, two by sight. The first occurred in what I call birding by butt, which involves sitting and observing, preferably in a plush chair. (I think that with all the brouhaha about Big Year birding that a Big Butt Bird Year could be quite popular.)

In my situation, I was sitting at our dining room table drinking coffee and reading the newspaper at 6:06 AM when I heard the very owl-like sound of who-ing. I knew that I had heard the sound before but could not remember who was who-ing. So I cheated. I used the amazing app (yes, I do know how to use apps) Merlin Bird ID. If you are not aware of it, I highly recommend it. It’s based on the FM (F-ing Magic) Principle. You hold up your phone, the app listens, and tells you what you are hearing.

Barred Owl and Sound Recording on Merlin on My Phone

I was hearing a Barred Owl. According to Merlin, the owl was inquiring as to my household food situation: “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you all?” My wife and I share that responsibility. Barred Owls are an uber-owl with round head, no ear tufts, large eyes, and noticeable beak. They have a mottled brown and white feather pattern. My good friend, the eminent birder and artist Tony Angell, once shared his house with a Barred Owl and wrote in his wonderful book The House of Owls that Buttons was quite a charmer, allowing Tony to scritch his head and returning the gesture.

Barred Owls are somewhat controversial. Originally a resident of the eastern US, the species expanded their range to the west because of environmental changes wrought by settlement. The owls were first seen in western Washington in 1982 and subsequently have been cited as having a detrimental affect on Northern Spotted Owl populations. Barred Owls are now the most common owl in Seattle.

I actually had to get off my tush to see the other two birds. Marjorie and I were in Discovery Park on a lovely day. We were atop the bluff enjoying the view and looking at birds in the nearby trees, when she noticed a large bird partially blocked by vegetation. Ever the gallant birder, I handed her my binoculars, she took a gander, and discovered (hence the park’s name) that she was seeing a Pileated Woodpecker. We rejoiced. Who wouldn’t when seeing a rolling pin-sized, black-and-white bird with a red cap and a bill that looks as if it could penetrate cement.

Pileated Woodpecker, from allaboutbirds, by Marc St. One

Rarely seen, pileated’s are one of those birds more often interpreted to be present than encountered. That’s because of the cavities they excavate in trees searching for ants, termites, and wood-boring insects. An early regional bird book described cavities measuring 24 by 8 inches with depths of 2 to 4 inches. Cavity building helped give woodpeckers names such as hewel, hew-hole, and hickwall, whereas pileated comes from Latin pileus, a felt cap. Rumor has it that Pileus Hew-Hole played for the Phillies.

For our second exciting bird at Discovery Park, we saw the Ru Paul of the avian world, a bird once described as “shades of blending beauty, velvety black, brightening into fawn, melting browns, shifting saffrons, quaker drabs, pale blue, and slate with trimmings of white and golden yellow, and little red appendages on the wing.” They even have a drag queen kind of name, Cedar Waxwing.

Our sighting at Discovery was a particularly nice and unexpected treat. We have been lucky over the past years to have an ear-full of Cedar Waxwings flock to our front yard, black hawthorn (Cratægus douglasii) tree and feast on the berries and they hadn’t come back this year. Berry eating defines the lifestyle of waxwings and was what we were seeing at Discovery Park, where their fruit of choice was from a madrona tree. Waxwings though sometimes overindulge. If they eat too many fermented fruits they become intoxicated and occasionally a bit obnoxious. Just one more reason to like these lovely birds.

So, all in all, quite a nifty week with the birds. Wishing all of you splendid birding in the upcoming week, the only time all year, focused, ironically, on a dead bird.

---

Two bird jokes - Instead of a word of the week, I have two bird jokes, one of which I made up.

What do you call someone who studies birds of pray? An, ornitheologist.

Have you ever seen a gulp? No? They’re slightly bigger than a swallow.

As Marjorie says, “those jokes remind me of something funny.” If anyone does have a good bird joke, please put it in the Comments section.