I'm an alien?

What Kind of Monster Are You?

There were a few questions where I didn't like any of the answers, so I just picked the one that amused me the most. So am I really an alien?

Look out--it's another cross-post! Don't Stop at the Top!

I submit to you the rare cross-post between here and the angry impeachment bloggy, because I think this is an important issue. Hope you don't mind the brief political rant here at beginningtobird. Back to the birds soon, I promise!

Today I'm participating in Write to Marriage Day, a blogswarm against Proposition 8 in California. I hope any Californians out there in birdybloglandia will VOTE NO on Prop 8. Just remember--vote all the way down the ballot, because the propositions are at the bottom of the ballot.

As you all know, my own attempt at marriage didn't work out so well, but I will always support the right for two consenting adults to get married--whether I ever decide to go there again or not. "Civil unions" are merely the latest example of our country's propensity for trying to foist "separate but equal" institutions on us.

Perhaps the solution is to keep "marriages" in a religious context; if you get hitched in a church, we'll call it a marriage. If you want to be legally joined, with all the legal benefits (and drawbacks) therein, we'll call it a "civil union." Period. That would certainly uphold the idea of separation of Church and State, which is a separation I believe in.

Whatever the eventual solution to what is, in my opinion, a non-problem--I hope you'll join me in recognizing that the marriage of two people of the same sex does absolutely nothing to "weaken" the institution of marriage or any other silly right-wing talking points. I think enough straight couples weaken that institution all on their own without any help from the gay side of the aisle, thank you.

So vote no on Prop 8 -- unless you believe this:

Cape May!

The female half of the table (minus Laura, who hadn't gotten there yet, and minus me who's taking the picture)--L to R: Susan Gets Native, Birdchick, Beth the Lurker who owned up to her lurkiness AND positively ID'd lifer Lynne as Hasty Brook, said Lynne of Hasty Brook, and KatDoc of Katdoc's World (all links in the sidebar).

The male half of the table, joined by Birdchick who's everywhere that birders are!--L to R: John of DC Birding Blog, Birdchick, and Jay Davis of Birdjam.

Well, my whirlwind trip to Cape May included getting lost on the way there AND on the way back, but I made it there and back again in time to have my breakfast with The Kid. More on that later; first, the birdy roundup.

I should go ahead and confess that I got ZERO pictures of birds, even though I did end up with two lifers: a black-crowned night heron (spotted by KatDoc) and a lesser yellowlegs (spotted by me, and confirmed by the Hawkwatch Platform person). Both were too far away to get decent pix of.

I did get some pictures of these lifers, however:
Lynne, doing a Lifebird Wiggle (TM BOTB) after seeing her first black vulture:Kathi, rolling up her Ohio State sleeves and preparing for what would turn out to be a Penn State victory--sorry, KatDoc!:and John from DC Birding Blog! (not John Riutta, who didn't attend--my bad)Sweet sweet birders, all of them!

I also saw a life reptile, a black/rat/something snake that no one could ID with any certainty:He was very zig-zaggy: Here are Laura from Somewhere in NJ, Jay, and Susan outside the Grand Hotel:and lest you think I only got pictures of others, here's one that someone took of me and a certain nerdy Birdchick:Wow!

So--I made it back Saturday night/Sunday morning, in the rain and the fog, getting in at about 1:30 a.m. On Sunday, I had breakfast with Em (whose pic doesn't go on the blog or it would be mobbed by her fans). We had a great time, and she thoroughly approved of my new digs and my new wheels. It was, however, a bittersweet experience for me; I loved seeing her and talking with her about how her life is going, but I was reminded of how much my life has changed in just a few short months. My sense of loss was palpable. Still, she told me I'd always be her "other mother," and it felt good to know I'd see again in her just a few weeks (Thanksgiving). And, ever the wise one, she told me that life just goes like it goes, and we can't change things once they've happened. That's one smart kid.

Cape May update coming tomorrow!

Today's the day for ol' Cape May!

this photo shamelessly taken by and stolen from Laura at Somewhere in NJ; this is some of us last year at the 2nd Avenue jetty in Cape May. From left to right, Susan in the water, me and Birdchick digiscoping, and Jay Davis from Birdjam looking cold and pensive as he walks down the beach

So I'm squirming in my seat at work, trying not to watch the clock as the day slowly moves on. I'm all packed up and ready to hit the road after a quick gas-up. Last night, gas was down to $2.85, though it may have gone back up for the weekend, as it often does. I sure hope not, because I'll be kicking myself if I have to pay more pennies today because I didn't feel like gassing up last night.

Such are the concerns of today's driver. When I started driving in tenth grade, gas was 79 cents a gallon. What was it was you first started driving?

Tomorrow morning, I'll be birding with Susan Gets Native, Laura H in NJ, KatDoc, Lynne from Hasty Brook, and -- thanks to my high school bud Liz Gordon--her hubby Jeff Gordon! Pretty exciting! I tell you, birding here in PA, usually on my own, is always fun. I get to walk around some of the prettiest woods Nature ever made and see and hear birdy magic all around me. It's the most exciting and yet calming thing, a paradox you fellow birders probably all understand.

But going to these festivals is such a blast; birders from everywhere come together, share their knowledge, joke and laugh and drink and eat, spot and help others spot birds of all sorts, and pretty much just have fun. There's nothing like it. This will be my second Cape May trip, and my third festival overall. I know that once I get there, I won't want to leave.

more silliness from last year, with Laura helping me take my own self-portrait for some weird reason

Meeting people whose blogs I've worshipped from afar is a real charge; birding with them is like... well, let me put it into a literary context. Let's say you've read Shakespeare's plays all your life and you just love him. One day, you find a room in a library you've never visited, and in the room, sitting at a table, is William Shakespeare himself, just hanging out and reading a book. You walk into the room, sit across from him, and talk about books, plays, movies, and what have you.

That's what birding festivals are like for me. I read these people's blogs and admire their photography skills and their birding field craft; I learn about their lives, which are all just as crazy as mine; and I realize how much alike we all are, no matter where we live or what we do. So when we get together, we're already like old friends who've travelled together and hung out at home with crazy kids and pets together, and gone out and birded together. They'll all laugh when they see themselves described in an analogy as the birding equivalents of William Shakespeare, but hey -- they're being modest, just another thing that makes them so cool.

I probably won't get to blog again until next week, so have a good weekend: see some birds, hang out with friends, and read a good book by your favorite author.

What would you write about?

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Are you thinking of writing a 50,000-word novel? Can you finish it in 30 days?

If you could (or are!), what would you write about?

P.S.--this is a rare double-post, here and at the Impeachment blog. It's not often that the worlds of backyard birding and political turmoil collide, so try to ignore the resulting sonic boom. I can't wait to compare and contrast the comments from both sites!

The loneliness of the long-distance flyer

Last year, when I was driving back home after experiencing my first Fall Migration at Cape May, I remember being overcome with sadness as I watched a flock of cormorants winging their way south over the highway. I told this story here. Prior to that moment, I had just never thought about how many birds die during the migration. Beginning to bird, indeed.

Photograph: Eric Hosking/Corbis

Well, this morning, I found this story of a migrant that reminded me of the happy fact that most birds DO make it, and they make it FAR.

I won't see a bar-tailed godwit in Cape May this weekend, but I know I'll see two lifers, Lynne and KatDoc, and I'll again see some of my favorite birds: Susan Gets Native, Laura H Somewhere in New Jersey, Birdchick, Patrick Belardo from the Hawk Owl's Nest (aka Mr. Thousand-Watt Smile), and John Riutta the Born Again Birdwatcher. I'll be checking these gems off on my lifelist, playing in the waves, watching some birds, and thinking about that bar-tailed godwit.

A flight with the flock

I'm doing a little fall migration of my own this Friday. I'm driving to Cape May on Friday after work (trying to get out early!) to meet up with some of The Flock! I'll finally get to meet Turkey-Vulture-fan Lynne and vet-to-the-stars Katdoc, and I'll get to see Susan and Laura again! I was hoping that Matty McMatterson would make the drive with me, but he's got some business to attend to here in town, so it'll just be me. I'll spend Friday night having pillow fights and prank-calling people with The Flock, and then after a full day of birdy nonsense, I'll drive back to PA. I've got a breakfast date with Em on Sunday morning, and I'm really looking forward to seeing her. It'll be the first time since--you know.

Anyway--getting excited! I'll finally have some good birdstuff to post about. The Bew River fest (in April 09) seems so far away right now, but this little trip will be just what some doctor somewhere ordered for me.

I needz to see some bewds!

Stayin' alive

I know it seems like I've disappeared, but I've been kinda swamped in political and journalistic pursuits (I volunteer for a local community paper, Voices of Central Pennsylvania) lately.

I'm still on the fence about whether to go to Cape May (just drive up for a day or something, just to hang out with The Flock when they're not on guided walks). But that's the first weekend Em will be in town since--you know--and we have a standing date at the Waffle Shop (a great locally owned place). So I just don't know if I'll make it.

As for birding around here, chances are pretty rare right now. There are some upcoming hawk watches, but while that last one I went on was cool--I think that was only because I'd never been to one before. Other than that, the local bird club and other birdy pals aren't planning any other field trips. I think we'll start to get some good ducks in November, but in the meantime--the bird pickins are slim.

I'll try to wander around outside soon--I'm definitely missing it.

OH MY GOD I’M SO FUCKING AWKWARD

I started thinking about this writing this post a few days ago when I had a really terrible stop-and-chat street conversation with a vague acquaintance. As soon as I saw him I was like ‘shit’ as I knew that he’d seen me and that we couldn’t just ignore each other (which is my standard procedure), so as we approached each other I sort of waved and said ‘Hello’ unenthusiastically; he returned the greeting. We looked at each other. I thought that was it – what else did he want from me? – so, without bothering to stop walking I played my power-card of ‘Well, see you in the bar later on!’ and started to walk off. LITTLE DID I KNOW THAT HE STILL WANTED TO MAKE BANAL SMALL-TALK and so he started talking to me when I was already well on my way out of earshot. ‘So, when did you move back?’ I clenched my fists in utter fury, stopped, turned round, nearly bumped into an old man, and yelled down the street – ‘Mid September.’ He pulled a face (?). I sort of stood there in space feeling awful, then pulled history’s most aggressive grin, gave him a thumbs up (?) and then ran off down the road.

So the post in question was basically going to be a humorous retelling of the above conversation, perhaps with some funny pictures of myself looking angry and it would have been serviceable and forgettable, but then TODAY came a revolution in social awkwardness that basically confirmed my suspicions that I must be borderline mentally defective when it comes to meeting new people; either that or a brain tumour. It was during a ‘get to know you’ tea-party for the new English Freshers in one of the third year rooms. This was pretty much my best and only chance to make a positive and lasting impression on the new year of English Students, who were all infuriatingly perky and passionate about poetry, but frankly it didn’t go so well. For one thing I was hungover and tired (and seeping blood from my thumb following an unrelated washing up accident) and thus wasn’t my usual sparky self; for another I don’t really know how to make conversation. I have like four questions I can ask in rotation and then I just say ‘well that was nice’ and then zone out, stare into the middle distance, start playing with the mechanical corkscrew, whatever means I don’t actually have to interact with another human being.

So I was standing there frowning into space wondering if it was possible to sleep standing up, when a nice-enough looking fresher girl wandered up and said something like ‘Hey, can I get you a drink’. I was surprised, panicked, blacked out, and made a snap decision with my answer. I mean, what was going through my head was that, as a member of the second years who were meant to be hosting the party to make the freshers comfortable, I should have been the one offering to get her a drink, maybe pour her some nice wine, sit her down and in a non-predatory way soothe her fears and anxieties about moving out of home for the first time and assuage her worries about the reading list, lectures, become her friend, offer her a friendly face to talk to, etc, etc. What I actually did was yell ‘DON’T SMILE AT ME I’M NOT A FRESHER I’M A SECOND YEAR’ and take two or three steps away backwards looking fierce. Apparently. ‘Apparently’ because I don’t even recall saying or doing that, all I remember is staring at a confused looking fresher, wondering what the hell was going on. This is worrying because it means that I must have literally just blacked out for a few seconds and allowed my subconscious to joyride my response, which is kind of depressing once you think about it. I mean when other people black out, their ids turn them into serial killers and rockstars; mine is just borderline rude to people. Luckily I soothed the situation over by gabbling ‘Oh, sorry, I’m Tom, hello’ about fifty thousand times and trying to shake her hand; she sort of backed away looking scared and then sat on the other side of the room shooting accusatory glances at me. I heard later that the phrase ‘serial-killer eyes’ was being bandied about. I was thinking that I’d go and apologise for being a borderline-autistic weirdo but then I reasoned that there are lots of other new freshers who haven’t even spoken to me yet, I might as well persuade them that I’m not a complete psychopath and accept that trying to salvage a friendship with this girl is a lost cause. Anyway sorry, girl.

[ninja edit: turns out that the 'fresher girl' was in fact a Third Year who everybody knew but I had just never seen before in my life. That does explain a number of things, including the expression on her face when I said 'How you finding Oxford?' and asked her what subject she was studying. I am not sure if that makes things better or worse. Anyway, sorry Third Year girl]

So anyway after that debacle I was walking home glaring at pigeons and I realised that even though the party was pretty much a confirmation of my complete inability to converse (I spend much of the rest of the afternoon sitting on the floor and squinting at anybody who tried to speak to me), it really was just a standard example of my ineptitude with people. That shit happens every day (52% ranking for my customer service at the Wine Shop woop). Because when it comes to awkward conversations – and when I say ‘awkward’ I mean ‘welp I guess I can Never Speak To You Ever Again’, I am a master. A terrible terrible master. For example who wants to hear about

The Time That I Told A Girl That I Had A Manageable But Incurable Disease In Order That She Would Let Me Go Home
So through some pure fluke I managed to meet a female, talk to her, buy her a drink or two, take her to a club, and be taken back to her room, all within one night, without accidentally insulting her appearance, kneeing her in the eye, letting her walk into a lamp-post, sending a text message about her to her, calling her sister fat, or any of the multitude of terrible things that are well within my social capabilities; anyway after being in her room for a bit I was tired and bored and kind of wanted to go back home; she turned out to be a bit creepy and kept saying things like ‘I’m fucking gorgeous’ and ‘You’re so lucky’ (no). So anyway the following conversation occurred.

Me: So, I think I might head back now.
Her: What? Why. No, stay, stay stay here, you can go in the morning.
Me: No, no. I have to get up early to do an essay.
Her: Stay here! *sits on me*
This continues for four or five more minutes until I decide that the truth won’t work on this crazy broad
Me: No, I need to go back you see. To get. My. … medication.
See I’d had like four glasses of wine, I pretty much thought that this would be fine, she’d accept my excuse and I would be on my merry way.
Her: Medication? For what.
Me: diabetes
Her: Diabetes?
Me: … yep.
Her: My grandfather died of that last week.
FACEPALM but yeah right so how was I supposed to know about that. I mean at this point the romantic mood was gone and she was glaring at me and I couldn’t be like ‘ho ho ho just joking japes’ and I just had to keep digging.
Me: Oh. What sort of diabetes did he have?
I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT DIABETES
Her: Type two. But I assume that you have Type One.
Me: yep
Her: So you’re going home to get your INSULIN?
Me: Yes. *leaves*

Yeah that was pretty awkward. But still not as bad as

The Time That I Tried To Win Back My Ex By Quoting A Speech From Rocky IV
There had been a somewhat messy breakup and I’d decided that that wasn’t working for me and that I would seduce her back using the power of Clever Rhetoric. So I dressed in a nice suit and I showed up unannounced on her doorstep and I took her into an empty room and I poured out my heart and soul in a Speech. I was semi-convinced that as I spoke, passionate music would suddenly fill the room and angels would sing and she would tear up and towards the end she would just passionately throw herself at me and all would be well. Well that was the plan. The first part went ok, like I got her alone in the room and she was listening to me expectantly. Then. I made my main error.

Basically, in the film ‘Rocky IV’, the hero (Rocky) is forced to travel to the USSR to fight Ivan Drago, the huge soviet super-boxer trained on drugs in a fancy gym (Russia!!) who killed his best friend. In one scene Rocky is lying in bed with his son (not gay) and his son is all ‘Oh Dad don’t you get scared that you are gonna die in the ring’ and then Rocky breaks out this tasty speech:

When I'm in that ring, really getting hit and my arms hurt so much I can't lift them, I'm thinking, "God, I wish this guy would hit me on the chin so I don't feel nothing anymore." Then there's another side that comes out that isn't so scared. Another side that wants to take more... that wants to go that one more round... because by going that one more round when you don't think you can… That's what makes all the difference in your life.

So I’m not entirely sure why I thought that this bit of macho father-son bonding would be an appropriate way to win back the affections of an eighteen year old girl. This was about three weeks into my campaign of winning her back through making a nuisance of myself so I guess I was running out of inspirational wooing metaphors but as soon as I said ‘Have you ever seen Rocky IV?’ I realised that this was probably the worst idea I'd ever had. But at this point I was more or less locked into the speech and I just kept speaking. Words kept coming out of my mouth. And as I said ‘we just always have to go one more round’ I realised that I’d been mistaken; this wasn’t the stupidest thing I’d ever said this was the stupidest thing that ANYBODY HAD EVER SAID IN THE HISTORY OF ORAL COMMUNICATION. Like even if some primordial cavemen who just knew the words for ‘mammoth’ and ‘rape’ had been watching me through the window, they’d still be all ‘Damn that’s one inarticulate motherfucker’. It was so bad that I trailed off halfway through, staring slackjawed into space, random vowel sounds dribbling pathetically out of my still-moving lips. I kind of tried to fill the cavernous silence by half-heartedly misquoting some Mint Royale lyrics but at this point I think the game was more or less lost. Girls just don’t get turned on by quotations in the same way that men do.

The Time That I Actually You Know What Let’s Go Back And Talk About The Rocky Thing Some More Because Seriously
I just thought about it and I honestly thing I’d never realised how monumentally terrible that conversation was until now. Like at the time I was running entirely on adrenaline and so I didn’t particularly realise the fallacious nature of using the rhetoric of a punchdrunk brain-damaged ex-bodybuilder as primo seduction material. And I didn’t pick up the non-verbal communication that the lucky object of my affections was sending – a worried expression when I mentioned Sylvester Stallone, slight pity when I tried to compare our relationship to an organised fight, a shying away and a glancing for the nearest exit as my voice grew shrill and tinny when I started to realise that maybe not everything was going to plan. All of these clues as to the true awkwardness of the conversation were instantly lost in the sullen and icy hush that fell over the room when I’d finally run out of steam with my boxing allusion. I mean bless her she tried to save me some embarrassment by halfheartedly saying ‘but um I don’t want to go…one…more…round’ so perhaps I interpreted that as being ‘Job Well Done On The Metaphor Front’. And for some reason when I finally got up and left the room I ended up STILL thinking to myself ‘Well that wasn’t the worst conversation I’ve ever had’. No. It was.

To be honest I suspect that what happened was that my subconscious mind took a step back, examined objectively the outcome of the conversation so far, said ‘Hmm’, piled all of the memories into a metaphorical dustbin, doused them in petrol, flicked a match onto them and nudged the burning mass off a ledge into a dark and forgotten corner of my consciousness. It was such an awful terrible abomination of a social interaction that my brain didn’t even try to process it. It’d be like if you opened a bottle of milk one day and found out that it was full of pustulant maggots and mewling bat-babies with the heads of snakes. You’d just hurl that bottle into the nearest tarpit and never ever mention it again. This is what I think happened to that conversation. I’ve never even thought about it up til this night and I had to actually crawl under my desk and moan in shame and horror. Seriously it was like two years of self-loathing an embarrassment reversed over my spine.

Do you know what I think that I might have repressed post-traumatic stress disorder. Could it be possible that the Rocky Incident is responsible for of my complete inability to form a coherent sentence in the presence of somebody I don’t know? I mean I went from being a happy-go-lucky little elf, merrily telling girls that they looked like newts and speaking at political rallies to shouting at freshers who startle me and making up pathetic lies about diabetes. And the tipping point may well have been about the time when I said “and its like, you have to always go on for one extra round, if you get what I mean”. It was as though my brain was like “Well we gave you the ability to enunciate long speeches and look what you did, you made us all look stupid. This is why you can’t have nice things.”

Fuck I’m going to take a vow of silence.

SERIOUSLY THOUGH.
ROCKY FOUR.
ROCKY. FOUR.
NOT EVEN A GOOD ROCKY FILM
THE ONE WHEN ROCKY ESCAPES THE KGB THEN RUNS UP THE SIDE OF A MOUNTAIN.
DRAAAAAAGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
THERE WERE LIKE SIX MUSICAL MONTAGES.

JAMES BROWN WAS IN IT


IT WAS THE ONE WHEN ROCKY ADOPTED A PET ROBOT FOR CHRIST'S SAKE

The State of the World's Birds report

click for larger--screen capture of map in report

In case you haven't seen this, birdy pals, it's a report titled "The State of the World's Birds" done by an organization called BirdLife.

I'd never heard of this organization, but the report is fascinating (if depressing). It claims to be "a brief summary of the information available on BirdLife’s State of the world’s birds website. Using the most up-to-date analyses, it outlines why birds and biodiversity are important, what we know about the changing state of the world’s birds (STATE), why birds are declining (PRESSURE) and what can be done to improve their status (RESPONSE). It presents and lists a small sample of the case studies providing evidence for these messages and examples of BirdLife’s work. For more detailed information on these and other case studies, visit BirdLife’s State of the world’s birds website and database at www.birdlife.org/sowb"

The weird thing is this: I got to the last page, where the heading read, "BirdLife comprises more than 100 conservation organisations working together to promote sustainable living as a means to conserve biodiversity." Then there was a collection of little logos from all these countries--but no USA. I don't get it. Is this organization for real? Is it just not needed here in the USA? (as if!) Does anyone know more about BirdLife? I'm just curious. I mean, I'm not exactly up on the latest info on birds and stuff; I'm just a backyard birdwatcher who tries to go birding elsewhere whenever I can. Still--anyone ever heard of them?

Anyway--the report contains so much information, some of it simply mind-blowing. Did you know that, according to Birdview, "Human uses have been recorded for one purpose or another for 45% of the world’s nearly 10,000 bird species. Over a third of species are kept as pets and around one in seven is hunted for food. It is difficult to know how many individual birds are used, although it is estimated that between half a billion and one billion songbirds are hunted each year in Europe alone, for sport and food." HOLY CRAP. I knew that parrots and other exotic birds are huge dollars for the pet industry (hey, I watched Romancing the Stone; I know all about those parrot poachers down in South America!), but songbirds hunted "for sport and food" in Europe? Are they eating finches over there or what? Shooting warblers? What is going on over there!?

Go check it out. Let me know what you think.

No birds, only buns

I still haven't gotten around to going anyplace to see any birds. I've only seen the crazy starlings that hang around my house in the early morning, making crazy high-pitched noises. These guys are way noisier than the starlings at the Marsh House. The chimney swifts seems to be leaving, however, which is good. One or two swifts is really cool. Six or seven? A delight. A flock of ten or more, all cheeping at the tops of their little birdy lungs all the time? Kinda annoying, actually.

So the other morning I was feeling kinda headachy and sick, so Niblet took it upon himself to give me a little TLC, in the way that kitties and doggies usually do: he slept next to me and snuggled me.


I wanted to stay with him all day long, but I had to go in to work.

I'm hoping to get a little birding in this weekend. There's a marsh right near Penn State called Millbrook Marsh that's supposed to be pretty decent, and I'm hoping this cold weather and rain will drive some shorebirds down a little.