South Shore Audubon Society

Are Birders Liars?

I mentioned this topic in a past article. My birding friend, Bob, is convinced that many birders are much like golfers, they lie to make themselves look good, especially those birders who keep lists. He believes it is inherent because birders are on the honor system and that leaves it totally open to liars and cheaters.

Has any honor system ever really worked? There have been scandals at West Point for crying (or lying) out loud. I remember that when I was a teacher the “leaders” in education (such sad, sad people) were always trying to figure out a way to have students “share” knowledge as opposed to cheating to get good, or at least passing, grades. None of these impractical ideas worked. Obviously. Did anyone of any intelligence think they would?

Antony in Shakespeare’s, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, sarcastically said of the murderer of Julius Caesar: “For Brutus is an honourable man; / So are they all, all honourable men—“

Are all birders honourable men and women? Or are some outright or closeted liars?

When you are on a birding walk most birders don’t necessarily see every bird that someone else points out or points to. I certainly don’t see all of them. I probably— to be blunt here—don’t see half the birds everyone is saying they are seeing. “Look, there’s a tufted tit mouse over there!” I put my binoculars to my eyes but the bird zips away like lightning, as do most little song birds. Song birds are the biggest annoyances in birding—beautiful but fast-flying birds that are hard to see at times. (Give me high-soaring raptors any day.)

Okay, I don’t see half of them.

Yet, I wonder how many of my fellow birders are actually just lying about it all? “Oh, yeah, yeah, I see that tit mouse!” Did you really? I mean really?

Many birders keep lists of the birds they see; on a given day, week, month, trip or year and also in areas, countries and continents. Some birders go on “Big Years” where they try to see as many species of birds as they can in a single year. Some birders do a big year restricted to provinces, states, or countries, and some traverse the entire earth.

The American Birding Association states there are 993 species of birds north of Mexico. John Weigel, an extreme birder, saw 783 of these species in 2016. There are a host of “see-ers” throughout the North-of-Mexico birding community. Are any of them total frauds?

Additionally, you don’t have to see the bird to record it on your list—just hearing it counts. Don’t laugh at this; there are plenty of birders who know the songs of almost all the birds they encounter, perhaps some birders know the songs of all the birds in the world. Hey, I recognize a few bird songs, two of which are my parrots sitting to my right in my office as I write this.

As for the big guns in birding, I think these folks are probably honest as they are driven to be the best at what they do and they probably have folks joining them on many of their expeditions.

But what about the rest of us? Are all the birders in my group the South Shore Audubon Society totally honest observers of birds?

So I decided to do a survey to see if honesty would prevail. I would just point up to the tree and say, “I see a Baltimore Oriole up there.” There was no Oriole. I did this several times, naming different birds. Did anyone lie to me and say they saw these missing birds at which I was pointing? No. People just admitted to not seeing the bird.

And what of when others saw birds and pointed? Did anyone flat out say, “I don’t see it.” Yes, quite a few, myself included.

Of course this was not a scientific poll such as the ones that predicted Trump would lose the Presidential race in 2016.

So, my opinion is that while birding does allow for subterfuge, I haven’t actually witnessed any as of yet. If I do I’ll let you know.

[There is an excellent movie titled The Big Year starring Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson as birders going on a big year. Enjoyable all the way.]

Frank’s books are available on Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, and at bookstores.

Life, Death and DeBare

June 3rd was the last Sunday of the South Shore Audubon Society’s Sunday bird walks until these pick up again in late August. We were at the Massapequa Preserve, a beautiful area of woods and lakes and streams with magnificent birds everywhere.

There was also a bicycle event of some kind taking place while we were bird watching and as the bikes whizzed past the 28 of us ambling along the small paths Paul and my wife the Beautiful AP’s voices rang out to the rest of us, “Bike coming! Here comes a bike!” Other voices would lift as well. Those bikes were scary. Indeed.

Paul was somewhat annoyed, “These bikes are supposed to have bells that they ring as they come up to pedestrians. That’s the law. They can kill us. They must have bells!”

He was right, of course; those bikes could kill us. The paths were not very wide. Some of the riders seemed to enjoy almost hitting one or two of us as they whizzed by. (“How many birders did you get today Tim?” “I got me a few, maybe even killed a couple.” “They are really weird people,” said Ben in his multi-colored helmet.)

Perhaps the most illuminating of the events of that day were the two families of Canada geese, both with a “husband” and “wife” ushering their young from the fast-moving stream. Although the geese were not afraid of us, mom and pop kept a close eye on their goslings and us gapers.

I love birding; it’s fun getting out into nature, watching the beauty of beings that can fly. I even like the rabbits and chip monks and the plants and trees and water and the occasional fish you see and…

I am thinking about death and not just death by bicycle.

A former teaching colleague of mine, Mike DeBare, just passed away shortly before this bird walk. Passed to where? Passed to what? Passed to anything at all? Are we actually passing through something or does death just stop us at the dead end which is really nothing, nothing at all?

I liked DeBare. We’d talk now and then, especially if we were on hall duty together. He seemed like a good guy; he was certainly a good teacher; his students liked him, which is a good sign of a good teacher.

I can’t count up on my fingers and toes the number of my former colleagues who have passed because the number of dead far surpasses the number of my digits. Most were my age or younger; some somewhat older, some were close friends, some favored colleagues; and some of these passed colleagues, I really didn’t know well or at all.

I am more aware of death now than ever before in my life. It waits for me like a bike speeding by me along the path on which I am walking.

Frank’s latest books are Confessions of a Wayward Catholic!; I Am a Dice Controller and I Am a Card Counter. All of Frank’s books are available from Amazon.com, Kindle, Barnes and Noble, e-books and at bookstores.

The Great Horned Owl in Our Backyard!

It was early morning, maybe 5:30, and I was working on an article for this web site when I heard it. “Who! Who!”

My wife the Beautiful AP came into the office. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Who! Who!…Who! Who! Who!”

“Wow, it sounds like an owl,” she said.

“Yeah, yeah,” I agreed. “It does.”

Our office is in the back of the house and it is three-quarters windows. The “who, who” seemed to be coming from the corner of the room nearest to my desk. AP’s desk is in the center of the room; behind her back are the cages of our two parrots that were not yet uncovered from their night’s rest.

“Who! Who!” came the sound again.

“Oh, man,” I said. “Now that is definitely an owl. It sounds like it is right outside this window in front of me.”

“Who! Who!…Who! Who!”

“No, no, it’s to your left on Brendon’s side of the house,” she said gesturing towards our neighbor’ home.

“Who! Who!”

I went around my desk to the window and peeked through the shade. “I don’t see anything in the bushes or on the fence. Nothing on Brendon’s side either.”

We shut off all the lights in the office and both of us scoured the yard.

“Who! Who! Who!”

“Oh, yeah, that damn thing is right here!” I said.

“I’m going out with my camera and binoculars. I might be able to get a good picture,” she said, scurrying to grab her gear. “Wouldn’t that be cool?”

“I remember that owl in the tree about 15 years ago,” I said. “But that was really far away. This thing is right here.” I pointed to the windows.

The Great Horned Owl is an apex predator, a large creature that can even scare hawks. It’s not a creature you want to have hunting you.

AP went outside and I kept looking out the office windows. In about 15 minutes she came back. “Nothing,” she said, disappointed. “I couldn’t even hear it.”

“Really?” I asked. “It cooed a few times while you were out there.”

“I didn’t hear a thing,” she said, perplexed.

We didn’t solve the mystery right then. But when we came back from the pool (we swim most mornings) we heard the owl again.

“We’re never going to find that thing,” I shouted from the kitchen.

“We don’t have to,” she said from the office. “Listen!”

And the owl gave a double hoot, loud like crazy. It sounded as if it were in the house.

“Come in here!” AP called to me.

I came in.

“It’s right there.” She pointed to my computer.

“Huh?”

“It’s the live cam that Paul gave us,” she laughed.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” I said.

Paul is one of the members of the South Shore Audubon Society. He runs a monthly book discussion group and often recommends books, videos and websites.

He recommended a Cornell University web site (https://explore.org/livecams/).

The site has all manner of birds and animals with live web cams. I usually keep mine at the Great Horned Owl and check this creature and her babies out every morning. The site was up but the screen was minimized. So when mama owl hooted, well, it sounded as if she were hooting outside our windows.

No live sighting, no great photograph to add to my wife’s portfolio, but one mystery solved.

Frank Scoblete’s latest books are I Am a Dice Controller: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Craps, Confessions of a Wayward Catholic and I Am a Card Counter: Inside the World of Advantage-Play Blackjack. 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.

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.]