Bird-Scobe | Frank Scoblete

They Fly

The South Shore Audubon Society’s lovable bird walk expert Joe was swabbing some stuff over his face and in and around his ears. Our bird walk was to take place at Jones Beach West End #2. We’d tramp through the underbrush as word had gotten out that migrating birds were in the area in full force. It’s spring; here come the birds!

We were in the parking field, the size of several football fields, waiting for everyone to show up. As Joe was smearing his face, I was engaged in a conversation that would probably make me a couple of enemies in the club. I seem to have that ability.

I had mentioned to some of the people around me that I watched La La Land the night before and that I disliked it. Well, perhaps I used the word awful a number of times and perhaps my wife was about to introduce me as her husband, Archie Bunker. I did not enjoy the poor singing (except for the one strong singer Johnny Legend), the even worse dancing and the story. Two men who loved the movie were crushed and dismayed by my criticism and strongly disagreed. I attributed that to the fact that we rarely see musicals anymore and that people have been hungering for such and La La Land filled the bill. For some reason, the two men didn’t speak to me for the rest of the bird walk. Hmmm.

Then Joe called us to attention. “Folks, there are a lot of mosquitoes in this area. I suggest you use mosquito repellent. They are out there in force.”

Mosquitoes! My sworn enemies! Even as I write this my face is itchy from a half dozen bites; my neck has even more such bites. My wife and I didn’t even think that in this early spring those monsters would be out, flying about, looking for a meal. And I am one of their favorite meals.

I kid you not. If I decide to take the garbage to the curb, I will return inside with a few new bites that swell and set me off a-scratching. My wife has no trouble with mosquito bites. The only upside to this is that my wife has to take out the garbage.

I wanted to find out why some people are the buffet of choice for mosquitoes and why some people are not.

I did a little research on the topic a few years ago. It seems that all humans have various kinds of bacteria on our skin – maybe a hundred different types. But some of us have a kind of bacteria that drives mosquitoes crazy with the munchies. As I stood next to my wife, I never saw one mosquito land on her. I was swamped with the buggers. It seems that I have the buffet bacteria and she doesn’t. Life is so unfair! But then again, there is the taking out of the garbage to balance things out.

We were in the dunes by the ocean, looking for beautiful birds (and we found many) but the flying mosquito monsters were buzzing around even more than the birds. I had a hoodie and I had it zipped to my chin but still my face and neck were there for a feeding. And those monsters were feasting. Every time I smacked my forehead I’d kill a couple, bloody mosquito carcasses were squashed on my fingers.

I learned a valuable lesson over the years; not all creatures that fly are wonderful and beautiful. Some are disgusting. Thus, the mosquito.

[Read Frank Scoblete’s books I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack, I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps and Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! All available from Amazon.com, on Kindle and electronic media, at Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

Birds of a Feather

When I first took up birding in late September of 2016, I figured two things; that the majority of birders would be nuts or so severely neurotic that they could pass for nuts, and second, that the entire group would be composed of progressive leftists and Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders Democrats.

I got those ideas over the years by knowing nothing about birding or birders, and my first talk with a birder on one of my first South Shore Audubon Society birding walks incorrectly confirmed the progressive nature of the birding population.

I opened my conversation with this woman by relating that my recent trip to Cuba disgusted me by the filth, poverty, and unemployment of the country. Even the ships in the harbor were rusty! [Read https://frankscoblete.com/cuba-triumph-revolution/, October 15, 2017)

She listened to me and then said she and her husband were really impressed by the country and the people on their trip to Cuba. That had to be impossible because every other building was a decaying dump and little had been done to fix the crumbling once-great architecture of Havana. I didn’t argue with her because she was fierce in her belief in Castro’s revolution; a true progressive, she probably cut her teeth on the 1960’s love for the Communist movement.

She didn’t have anything negative to say about the revolution’s golden boy, Che Guevara, the official executioner of the regime. He probably lovingly watched the executions of thousands of people — that is, those he wanted executed. I am guessing good old Che was a hero to her as he is to the government of Cuba.

But I was wrong. The birders in our South Shore Audubon Society aren’t anything like a coherent group. Yes, most are of the left but there are plenty of Trump supporters. In New York City and its environs, the leftist Democrats rule by something like two or three to one over Republicans and conservatives. So I found the many rightists in the society surprising.

Now, many of my own opinions are leftist but I do not share the wide-eyed love of communism — a failed, violent philosophy that destroys societies. [Read the Black Book of Communism.] But I do have affection for some of the Trumpian ideas and I respect plenty of the basic conservative principles. I do not, of course, buy into the right-wing evangelism and anti-science nature of the ultra-right.

Aside from the love (or like) of birds, the members of our society are philosophically diverse but they all basically agree on several issues: protection of the environment, protection of our national parks and protection of the habitat of our feathered friends and other animals. Habitat is a key ingredient in the protection of birds.

The rightists and the leftists agree on these principles and that brings everyone together. They are birds of a feather.

[[Read Frank Scoblete’s Confessions of a Wayward Catholic and The Virgin Kiss. Both available from Amazon.com, on Kindle and other electronic media, at Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

Mother Nature is Nuts!

Mother Nature is nuts! I hate to offend nature lovers and those whose religious zeal makes them worship earth, known as Gaea, as if it were alive. Sorry, no, you have misplaced your trust. As I just said and repeat, “Mother Nature is nuts!”

As many of my readers know, my wife, the Beautiful AP, and I have become birders. I enjoy going into the wilderness (meaning a local park with cement paths where I can’t get lost) in order to pause in wonder at those beautiful birds, flapping their wings, sitting on branches, mating, hunting and (marvelous!) taking to the air.

Give me a power and it would be the ability to fly. Up there is a whole different world of wind whipping through my wings. Mother Nature’s blind evolution has worked wonders. Or has it?

At first glance it might seem so but then you realize the following creatures that are called “birds”: the Ostrich, the Emu, the Cassowary, the Rhea, the Kiwi and the pungent Penguin are all scientifically classified as class: aves; genus: grounded. None of them can fly! What kind of bird is that? Might as well call an elephant a bird since it can’t fly either.

To make matters worse, our distraught Mother Nature has created 900 different species of bats that can fly! What the hell? Scientifically, bats are class: mammals; genus: disgusting rodents. Why allow them to take to the air when those “flightless birds” are wandering around on the ground?

I am disappointed. Birds should not be allowed not to fly; it is a sin of immense proportions. Do you hear that, Mother Nature?

But, sadly, flightless birds aren’t Mother Nature’s only screw-up. Take whales and dolphins and porpoises; they are mammals that never leave the water. Class: mammals; genus: wet. What the hell?

This has caused me distress in front of my grandchildren.

“And the biggest animal in the world is the blue whale. No animal ever was this big. It lives in the ocean.” I said to my lovely granddaughter.

“In the ocean?” she asked, puzzled.

“Yes, it lives in the ocean,” I repeated.

“Isn’t that supposed to be a fish?” said my quizzical grandson.

“Uh, ah, ye, um,” I stammered.

Thanks, Mother Nature! I look like an idiot in front of my grandchildren.

Oscar Hammerstein II blew off science class and then wrote the lyrics, “Fish got to swim, birds got to fly,” I’m with you, Oscar! I don’t want my world to have rodents that fly, birds that don’t, and mammals that never walk the earth. That is not a sane world. Mother Nature has proven herself to be nuts!

My only advice is to avoid explaining this anomaly to your grandchildren.

[Read Frank’s new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic. Available on Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

They Rule the Sky? Yuck, No!

I make no bones about it; I am a lover of the predators: the eagles, the hawks, the falcons. These soaring birds are rulers of the Earth’s heavens. Such magnificent creatures do not just fly, they soar, hunting, always hunting for the fearful creatures these fearsome birds will kill and devour.

Little songbirds, while pretty and often gaily colored, can fly, yes, but they cannot soar high into the sky, they cannot dominate their world. They live lives of terror; flitting from here to there, to mate and to not to get eaten. The energy they expend flying is overwhelming, consistently flap, flap, flapping

In Cape May, New Jersey, my wife, the Beautiful AP and two friends of ours, Martine and Tom, saw hawks of some kind flying over the trees. There had to be at least a dozen of them; one bird soaring after another.

“Oh, man, look at those,” I pointed.

Four pairs of binoculars pointed heavenward to catch these magnificent birds in flight. Ohhhh and they were dominating the sky, watching for prey. Then one flew into the parking lot of the Cape May Preserve, where we were about to get into the car to go to Sunset Beach. This creature hovered over our heads, maybe 10 feet above us.

“My God,” I exclaimed. “What a hawk!” I had no idea what kind of hawk this bird was but nevertheless it was a marvel.

“That’s not a hawk,” said a young woman about to get into her car.

“What is it then?” I asked. “A small eagle?”

“That? Those?” she pointed upward. I nodded. She laughed, “They are Turkey Vultures.”

What the hell? “Huh?” I questioned. “They are hunting though, right?”

“Nah, they don’t hunt. They eat the carrion they find on the roads and in the fields.” She looked closely at my face. “If you feel any better, they don’t eat anything that is putrefying.”

TurkeyVultures? Soaring Turkey Vultures? My world was being turned upside down.

The word turkey is not an appellation signifying supremacy. In the schoolyards of Brooklyn, the borough where I grew up, calling someone a turkey (“Hey, turkeeee!”) is a sign of disrespect.

And the word vulture? Unpleasant at best; totally disgusting at worst. They look it too. Vultures look like what vultures should look like; disgusting. Except these birds didn’t exactly look like vultures until you looked at their faces – those faces were not hunters’ faces; they were the faces of the avian zombie horde.

Before I knew I was watching a turkey vulture, I saw a majestic predator governing the sky. Once I heard its name, I saw a derelict scavenger searching for an opportunistic meal. It’s the name that makes a difference. “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” said Shakespeare. As usual, Shakespeare got it right because he knew our species so very well.

[Read Frank’s Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! Available at Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

Swan Lake

It was to be an average Sunday birding expedition with our South Shore Audubon Society. There were about 25 people gathered on Merrick Road in Massapequa, New York. At this juncture of Merrick Road, the word “road” is a misnomer as the “road” is more of a parkway and the cars are whooshing by at 50 miles per hour.

That was okay; we were all on the sidewalk looking out over the beautiful Massapequa Lake checking out any one of the 31 species we would see that day.

I caught the event in my peripheral vision and simultaneously heard the woman scream, “Aaaaarrrrrggggghhhh!” A huge Mute Swan, one of those beautiful all-white creatures, had flown over our heads and across Merrick Road, then hit the electric lines and fell onto the road just at the edge of the curb. I saw it drop. The bird moved a little but I was sure it would die. It must have hit those power lines at maximum speed.

Four of our members braved the traffic with Bob yelling, “Don’t cross the road; you’ll get hit.” But committed birders are committed birders, that’s for sure. Four bravehearts, first Bill, who was then joined by Bill. Then Cathy and Anne crossed that road. The first Bill knelt by the bird. The bird moved its legs slightly so it was still alive.

“They had better get that bird onto the sidewalk or some car is going to hit them,” I said to Paul and Bob.

“The bird is dead or it will be dead,” said Paul.

“They were crazy to cross that road,” said Bob.

A car pulled up near us and a grey-haired lady got out. As fate would have it, this lady had just gotten her certificate in animal rescue. She and some of our birders talked and she called the animal rescue society.

“That bird is dead,” I said.

“Dead,” said Paul.

“I know dead when I see it,” I said.

“We’re lucky our guys didn’t get hit by a car,” said Bob.

Bill and Bill and Anne and Cathy lifted the bird to the sidewalk. These Mute Swans are quite large, upwards of four feet sometimes, so it took them a little time to get that bird onto the sidewalk.

“It’s dead,” I said.

“They should throw it into the stream,” said Paul.

“What a way to die,” I said, “slamming into those wires.”

“Those guys were crazy crossing that road,” said Bob shaking his head.

Then the bird moved. It flapped its wings and tried to stand up. Our four birders lifted it. “Let’s get it back to the lake,” one of the four bravehearts said. And so Bill and Bill lifted the bird and started across the road while the grey-haired lady and Kathy and Anne stopped traffic.

As the bird came towards the lake it seemed much better. The men released it and it paused on the banks of the water.

“Man,” I said. “I really thought it was dead.”

“So did I,” Paul said.

“I still wouldn’t have crossed that road,” said Bob.

The bird took to the water and we all burst into applause. You would think this conclusion would have made our day but then…

…another Mute Swan came zipping over – this one was gigantic, much bigger than our injured one.

“Oh, God, no!” shouted one of our birders.

“No! That other swan is going to kill it!” shouted a second woman.

The gigantic Mute Swan aggressively slammed his head right into our swan. A skirmish ensued, but our swan struggled to shore while the gigantic one waited for him to reenter the lake. Our swan stayed put. When the gigantic swan saw that our swan would not head back into the lake, it paddled away but you could see he was still eyeing our swan.

When our swan reentered the lake the gigantic swan came flying over.

“I don’t think our swan can survive another fight,” I said.

“The big swan is going to kill it,” said Paul.

“Our swan should never have gotten back into the water,” said Bob.

“Our swan can’t fly,” I said at the exact same moment our swan took to the air and escaped the gigantic one who, surprisingly, did not follow it.

Joe, our leader, said: “They are territorial. They stake out a section of a lake and will fight any other one from going into their territory. Mute Swans tend to mate for life. Another bird enters its territory at risk.”

Our mute swan survived an awful ordeal.

“I really thought it was dead,” I said.

“So did I,” said Paul.

“I still wouldn’t have crossed the street,” said Bob.

[Read Frank Scoblete’s book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic. Available from Amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

Nature Flipped Me the Bird

I have become somewhat passionate about this birding business. My wife, the Beautiful AP, and I planned on a birding weekend. We planned that just the two of us were going to go to Camman’s Pond Park in Merrick on Saturday morning so AP could take some pictures of White-Hooded Mergansers which are supposed to be plentiful there.

Two days prior we had had a 12-inch snow storm and the park, we presumed, was loaded with snow. But we were going anyway except…

The Beautiful AP got a call from Scuba Steve who owns the pool where we swim and where she teaches swimming, asking her if she could teach classes that day since one of the other swim teachers was out sick. She said yes, leaving me and the White-Hooded Mergansers for another time.

AP has a saying, “No day goes as planned.” Well obviously going to teach swimming disrupted our original plan but even the swim-teaching plan went off the rails. Some tiny tot had diarrhea in the pool and everyone had to leap out.

She came home early. “A kid pooped in the pool,” she said.

“Crap,” I said.

Sunday our South Shore Audubon Society bird walk was to be at the Massapequa Preserve. Joe, our bird-walk leader, went on Saturday to check out the conditions. It was snowy and wet and, yes, icy – and Joe slipped and fell. Plus rain and sleet were predicted. So that walk was cancelled.

No day goes as planned. Often that is because Mother Nature has something else in mind—and this weekend, she clearly flipped me the bird.

Meet the Mrs.

My wife, the Beautiful AP, has taken up photography, specifically photographing birds.

Our birding group was at Mill Pond in Bellmore, New York this past Sunday and AP had a big breakthrough that brought attention and applause from our South Shore Audubon Society.

Now the Beautiful AP is a sociable person and as she has been learning her camera she has shared her ups and downs with everyone in the group and with some people who are just wandering around in the woods. They have given her encouragement as many Audubon members are excellent photographers. She has received valuable tips – from everyone, even those scruffy folks who might be homeless. To be honest, by and large her photos have been (shall we say) disappointing.

A couple of weeks ago, she got one great picture of a Great Horned Owl and one good shot of a Red-Bellied Woodpecker. Everything else was a blur.

I am not quite as sociable as my lovely wife but I do talk to my fellow birders about this, that or the other thing. Since I know little about birds we talk about politics. The Audubon Society is mostly liberal although there are some conservatives and Trump supporters. The liberals are concerned about the environment, while the conservatives are concerned about the liberals.

As AP photographed like a crazy woman, she’d show me some of them.

“What do you think of these?” she asked.

“Where is the bird?”

She hit me in the arm. “Right there,” she pointed.

“I just see fog with some dark lump in there,” I said. She hit me in the arm again. Honesty is sometimes not the best policy with a wife.

But towards the end of the birding day she nailed it! She had a picture of a beautiful Robin and two gorgeous pictures of a duck.

“Wow!” I said. “Now those are beautiful pictures. What kind of duck is that?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “It looks different doesn’t it? I’m going to ask the experts if they can identify it.”

She walked a ways down the path to the others of our group. I love the way she walks, so determined, so AP-like.

In a moment I heard, “Wow!” and “It’s a Pintail! Where did you see it?”

The Beautiful AP lead the group of about 15 to where she photographed the Pintail.

“That’s a female Pintail,” confirmed Bill our leader for this tour as he looked at the photo.

“She’ll be known as Mrs. Pintail,” said AP.

Bill saw Mrs. Pintail, pointed her out so everyone could see it. Cameras clicked, video was taken as Bill then explained why it is called Pintail. “You can see that its tail comes to a pin.” It also has quite a long neck.

Since it was February, this duck should have migrated south to winter. But here she was. Rather, here they were: Mrs. Pintail and my Mrs.

[Buy my book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic at amazon.com, kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

The Snowy Owl in Flight

Claire Reilly is an expert photographer whose pictures can amaze and delight. I enjoy viewing them on her Facebook page.

She also must have the patience of a saint because she has captured great pictures of a singular Snowy Owl who has been hanging out at Jones Beach on Long Island, New York.

My wife the Beautiful AP and I joined our South Shore Audubon Society a month or so ago to trudge the beach looking for this marvelous creature. We saw plenty of birds of different varieties but no Snowy Owl.

But not Claire! Here are some great pictures she took of the Snowy Owl – in flight no less!

Found: The Great Horned Owl!

If you read my article “The Hunt for the Great Horned Owl” you’d recall that my wife the Beautiful AP, my son Mike and I spent three days in Cape May during Christmas trying to locate one of the great apex predators, the Great Horned Owl. I wanted to find this amazing creature so that I could go back to the South Shore Audubon Society (which is on Long Island) and tell the members that not only had we seen this bird but I was now no longer just a birdbrain in the society.

I wanted to strut around like a birding big shot.

Such wasn’t to happen. The Great Horned Owl didn’t make an appearance.

But yesterday at Hempstead Lake State Park on Long Island, one month after the defeat in Cape May, on our Sunday bird walk with the South Shore Audubon Society we got to see this awesome predator. Olga, a wonderful photographer with a keen eye, spotted one. What’s ironic is that the Beautiful AP and I didn’t expect to see any birds because the day was foggy and dreary. “Do birds come out in this crummy weather?” I asked. Evidently they do.

The 15 members stood in awe, photographing and exclaiming what a magnificent bird the Great Horned Owl is. The Beautiful AP shot dozens of blurry photographs with her new camera (AP has taken up photography) but one stood out (see below). At one point this usually nocturnal bird let loose and flew over our heads. The Great Horned Owl is large and strong!

So we saw it, watched it for quite a while and then continued on our birding expedition. We saw a variety of birds but the Great Horned Owl was the hit of the day!

Photo by A.P. Scoblete

[Read Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! On sale at Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]

The Hunt for the Great Horned Owl

By Frank (and the Beautiful AP) Scoblete

After four months of weekly birding trips on Long Island, where I became the well-known expert in not-knowing-anything, my wife the Beautiful AP, our son Mike and I headed to Cape May, New Jersey for our annual Christmas trip. And this time, now knowing that Cape May is a premier bird-watching venue, we brought our binoculars.

This would be a bird-watching vacation! The three Scobletes reveling in nature while staying in a magnificent hotel, just where we (meaning “I”) belong. Knowing that Mike sleeps just as well camping under the stars as he does in a top hotel, AP told him, “This is as outdoorsy as Scobe and I get,” as we navigated well-marked trails.

Cape May has woodsy, watery, and grassy places harboring birds of all types, from cute little colorful and skittish songbirds to ravenous raptors such as hawks, falcons, and sometimes even bald eagles. It is one of the best birding areas in the world.

As we entered the “bird observatory” (about two miles of trails around a few lakes) I noticed a prominent sign. It had pictures of the birds that were currently being spotted, and smack in the middle was a photo of the great horned owl.

The great horned owl – at almost three-feet tall with strong wings and slashing claws – is perhaps the largest owl on earth and it eats just about anything it catches, including mammals and birds, some of which are its size or bigger.

Seeing the great horned owl would be a major coup in my birding career and quite early on at that. Very few birders in my South Shore Audubon Society have ever seen this bird since it is nocturnal. It would give me much-needed status in the birding community and take me from my current position of “Oh, he’s a birdbrain,” to a position of, “Can you believe this guy once saw a great horned owl?”

The following two days as we tramped around the great areas near the Cape May Lighthouse, we saw an amazing number of birds:

On a small pier in a salt-marsh lake we saw three cormorants perched looking for lunch.

We saw disorganized flocks of robins moving from tree to tree.

We also saw ducks: mallards, pretty males with their plain females; several spectacularly colored wood ducks (I consider them the peacocks of the duck world); and a few American black ducks, which are mostly brown with some gray and a spot of blue.

Of course, there were the ubiquitous Canada geese (named after a man named Canada – seriously – not after the country); a half dozen majestic white swans; three great blue herons, the largest of which came flying down from the sky to stand still on the edge of the lake also looking for lunch. These herons can stand still for a very (very!) long time just waiting for their meals to arrive.

We also saw numerous gulls – I just don’t know one gull from another yet. To be honest I also don’t know the names of most birds from most other birds. Sadly, I am a birder without a bird brain yet

And, of course, there were dozens of different types of songbirds – those small, swift flying creatures seemingly always looking out for predators that are looking to eat these little guys. It’s hard to get them into view because as soon as you lift your binoculars the birds tend to zip away.

Although we saw various types of sparrows, they don’t give us a thrill; we have maybe 800 thousand of them at our feeders every day.

We got a close-up view of a nest of the cute black-capped chickadees. Actually it was more like a communal apartment building made of leaves and small branches with quite a number of these adorable birds flitting in and out.

Then we saw a bird that Paul, a member of our South Shore Audubon society, calls “butter butt” which I think is actually called the yellow-rumped warbler. If you look at the bird’s butt, right under it is a yellow horseshoe design – I’m talking bright yellow. I have only seen this particular one so far in my expeditions, although the Beautiful AP has seen several.

For three days up above we saw numerous hawks. We’re still trying to identify them. They glided in the sky as if they owned it.

In fact, these predators, and other predators like them, do own the sky. They don’t so much fly as soar; they glide through the air like winged warriors. All other birds, constantly flapping their wings, look as if they are putting such energy in flight, but not the predators. They are the birds to be reckoned with.

As we hiked, we scanned the trees for the great horned owl. We talked about the past, the present and the future. We stopped to focus on myriad birds. We admired nature (as outdoorsy as we get). We joked around. We looked up birds on AP’s Audubon app. One or another of us stopped to pee. One or another of us produced mini alcohol wipes for the person who peed.

And our hunt for the great horned owl? No luck there. But the walking, talking, kidding around, the spotting of all the other birds, the admiring of nature even at our modest level of outdoorsy-ness – isn’t marked or marred by the absence of the great horned owl. Instead it is an occasion memorable for the time we did spend together away from the hustle and bustle of daily life, for what we did see together and for what we did say to one another. And that, my friends, is a Scoblete bird walk.

[Read my new book Confessions of a Wayward Catholic! Available from Amazon.com. kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.]