The Reluctant Twitcher (5 page)

Well, I reckon, if people know about it, I am at least going to lay down some clear ground rules. I decide all I want to do is
see
three hundred birds in 2007. Innocent though this seems, this turns out to be a problem. Imagine that pretentious wannabe Pope wanting to
see
three hundred birds and not count birds only heard. Who does he think he is? The American Birding Association (ABA) says one is to count heard-only birds to cut down on unnecessary harassment. Pope will be going around driving birds insane with huge tape recorders and ghetto blasters and dragging chains through marshes, crushing infant Yellow Rails just to get to
see
one. I already hate him, the dirty rail-maimer.

But I stick to my guns. I make rules not to kill, maim, or even disfigure any rails, even adults; to use tapes sparingly; and to almost never indulge in any kind of harassing behaviour — even when no one is looking.

Don't get me wrong, though. I thoroughly approve of the ABA decision to accept heard-only birds. Anything that cuts down on harassment of birds is to the good. Birds are already in enough trouble as it is without further danger from the people that love them — and I don't just mean the Red Knot. Anyone who does not think birds are on the ropes should immediately read Bridget Stutchbury's excellent
Silence of the Songbirds
and prepare to weep.

I want to
see
my birds because I know that identification of birds in the field by song can be very tricky even for the best ears. And sadly, I no longer have the best of ears. I discovered this a few years ago when we were walking along a trail and my wife, Felicity, said, “What was that?”

“What was what?” I replied.

“That loud, insistent song we just heard.”

Fifty feet down the trail I heard a faint song and said, “Oh,
that
. That's a Bay-breasted Warbler.”

I still remember the thrill several springs ago at Rondeau Provincial Park when I heard a Blackpoll Warbler for the first time in years. Felicity and I were waiting patiently, fifty feet apart on the bridge on the Tulip Tree Trail, for the Prothonotary Warbler to fly in, when suddenly I heard a Blackpoll.

“Dear! Dear!” I yelled jubilantly. “A miracle has happened. I hear a Blackpoll. Over the winter I must have reacquired my high range hearing. Cape Mays beware! Grasshopper Sparrows, don't even try to fool me. Poper is back!” I began madly glassing the towering silver maple tops. “I can't find it,” I called. “Wonder where it is. Can you see it from where you are? It's up pretty high.”

“It's not that thing right above your head, is it?” asked Felicity, pointing.

I looked up, and four metres above my head on a drooping branch hung a Blackpoll Warbler singing his heart out. I was thrilled. It was good news that I could still hear them, crescendo and all. So what if they have to be five metres away or closer. You can't have everything. You learn to adjust and use AAAA — automatic auditory avian adjustment. For example, if I hear a Grasshopper Sparrow now, I know just where to look — beside or under my feet. I don't waste time looking way out on the periphery like some poor rubes.

Photo
by BarryS. Cherriere
.

Blackpoll Warbler (male). Point Pelee National Park. Having just
completed the longest migration of any wood warbler, this bird is
resting quietly.

One day, while standing beside a barbed-wire fence in knee-deep poison ivy waiting to see a Loggerhead Shrike, I foolishly mentioned my incipient hearing loss to Glenn Coady, who was being driven mad by the myriad Grasshopper Sparrows singing six fields away. Coady was horrified. “I'd kill myself if that happened to me,” he said. That really made me feel good. It was clear that this was what any real birder would do. It was equally clear that to establish myself in his eyes, I would now have to off myself or he'd think I was bogus for sure. I was in a tough spot — no traffic, no deep rivers, nothing. And I was unarmed. I briefly considered throwing myself onto the barbed-wire fence or trying to get my neck wrapped in it or something, but if I only managed a half job — a maiming or something — Coady would really hate me. I thought it over and decided to wait until I'd finished the year. Maybe I could acquire a gun or a phial of poison or contact Rent-a-Krait in the interim. In the short term, I'd have to do the best I could and learn to cover my tracks.

Oh, birding by ear gives one an enormous advantage, no question of that, and although it helps to minimize warbler neck, it does have its limitations. Sometimes a bird does only part of his song and sounds like another bird. Often they sing just variations, not theme. And everyone hears birds differently.

One day I'm out with a novice and he says, “What made that
weedly queedly
?”

“What
weedly queedly
?” I ask.

“There, that
weedly queedly
,” he says.

“Oh,
that
. That's a Blue Jay,” I say. “I had no idea what you meant. It's not saying
weedly queedly
, but
queedly weedly
.”

“It's clearly saying
weedly queedly
,” he says.

“
Queedly weedly.

”

“
Weedly frigging queedly.

”

“
Queedly weedly
,” I insist, refusing to back down.

Such things often end badly. Only the arrival of several cherubic oldsters keen to nail their first Blue Jay forestalls the fisticuffs that so often ensue in such situations.

The National Geographic
Field Guide to the Birds of North
America
says that the Eastern Bluebird sings
chur chur-lee chur-
lee
.
The Sibley Guide to Birds
says it sings
chiti WEEW wewidoo
. My friend Bob Carswell, poor fellow, thinks it sounds like “Peter, Paul and Mary.” Of course, in actual fact, it says “Vercingetorix,” a clear tribute to the famous Gallic leader who so valiantly opposed Julius Caesar, though, admittedly, there are those who fail to hear it this way. Sibley lists the red Fox Sparrow as singing
weet weeto
teeoo teeo tzee tzer zezer reep
. This is amazing, since if you listen carefully, the bird, at least the northern ones, quite clearly sings,

Sometimes song description is merely a reflection of the depravity of the listener. It has been claimed (note that I do not mention Fred Bodsworth's name) that the White-crowned Sparrow does not say, “Poor Jojo missed his bus,” but, “Poor Jojo pissed his pants.” Still more disgusting, the
Nuthatch Aid
to Birdsong Identification
, designed and written by Antonio Salvadori, claims Kirtland's Warbler sings, “Fel-ic-ity-has-to-wee-wee,” something so rude I have not even mentioned it to my wife, who would not be amused; nor, of course, am I.

Many birds sing or can sing overlapping songs. I think of Margaret's story of the Yellow Warbler, which perfectly mastered the Prairie Warbler's song and fooled everybody. And you have to be good to fool Margaret. She does chips. I have been fooled and seen experts fooled by Yellow Warblers doing their Chestnut-sided Warbler song, by lazy Red-eyed Vireos and vigorous Blue-headed Vireos, and by Pine Warblers, Worm-eating Warblers, and Dark-eyed Juncos trilling at uncharacteristic speeds and pitches. I once saw a lowly Chipping Sparrow fly into a patch of marsh grass, and watched as numerous expert birders dismissed its song as that of a Swamp Sparrow doing its faster call. Put it this way, if bird identification by song was certain, why did the new
Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario
not accept Yellow-billed Cuckoos unless they were seen? Birds can and do learn each other's songs. I rest my case.

The point is, if you rely solely on sound and get lazy with your eyes, you will miss some birds and may misidentify a few others.

Lord knows, birding by sight can be tricky enough. Just read Kenn Kaufman's
Advanced Birding
if you don't agree. I have a friend who had to be tranquilized because of recurrent nightmares featuring Kaufman's chart, “Bills of
Empidonax
Flycatchers as seen from below.” There are enough problems with bird identification even when you see them. I'm going to try to see
and
hear as many of my birds as possible, no matter how long it takes.

Margaret Bain and Hugh Currie, my main accomplices, try to be understanding. They see me as some kind of holy fool. When we meet people in the field, they both quickly explain that “of course, Richard is trying to
see
three hundred birds this year. He's a purist.” They mean nutter, and this is certainly how people take it. But I hang tough.

Not only do I hang tough on seeing my birds, but I decide I will only count birds I see well. I want only birds I am certain of and have identified beyond a shadow of doubt. None of this standing on the tip of Point Pelee and hearing Alan Wormington or Tom Hince or Pete Read yell, “Juvenile Dickcissel,” and looking up to see a distant speck flying madly back to the United States and then checking Dickcissel on my list that evening. No, I want to try to find and positively identify as many of the birds as I can myself, though this is not a rule. Phone tips and postings on Ontbirds are fine, and counting birds Margaret or Hugh or someone else sees first is okay, but I have to get a really good diagnostic look. I don't want to have Ron Pittaway ask me what the tertial fringing was like on my juvenile Ruff and have to say, “Duh.” Nor do I want to end up like Joey Slinger, who has made something of a career out of trying to convince clandestine doubters and sniggerers that he really did see a Curlew Sandpiper where everyone else failed. Though I have no doubts about what Slinger saw, I want only birds that no one can doubt on my list.

People say, “He's some kind of whacko purist, that Pope.” But I'm only doing it for fun and personal satisfaction, and what fun is it to have a list full of soft birds? I want a clean, hard list. That's a rule. I mention it to Ron Pittaway and he entirely agrees.

So there.

4
Pish and Chips

Chip.

—
MEANINGFUL SOUND HEARD IN THE BUSHES.

T
HIS IS NOT A CHAPTER
on the culinary aspect of birding and birders' favourite meals. It is a technical chapter dealing with two aspects of birding crucial to anyone hoping to do a Big Year or break some record.

First, pishing. There are, of course, those who call it
shpish-ing
. If you say
pish pish pish
and ignore the initial
pi,
it sounds like you are saying
shpish shpish
. Which is correct? It is an unresolvable ontological conundrum, so let us just call it pishing and get on with it.

Those who do not number among the cognoscenti may not have a firm grasp of the meaning of the term. Pishing is what you do when you walk along a path and a bird suddenly flashes into sight and goes to ground before you are able to get a decent look. You wait. Nothing. You wait longer. Nothing. Birds are patient. It could be napping. How can you make it show itself, however briefly? This is where pishing comes into play. You purse your lips and blow air through them, going
pish pish pish
and, theoretically, the bird will pop up to see what is going on and you will be able to identify it.