Hello, all good bird people:
John Yow here, author of The Armchair Birder: Discovering the Secret Lives of Familiar Birds (University of North Carolina Press, Spring 2009).
I see from roaming the blogosphere that I’m not the only armchair birder out there, but the term may mean different things to different people. For me it means not only watching the birds from my armchair (or office chair, actually), but also reading about them–reading about them, especially (but not exclusively), in the vintage works of people like Arthur Cleveland Bent, Edward Howe Forbush, and John James Audubon (where you will find, for example, Audubon’s hilarious account of being chased into the river by a wounded, and very angry, sandhill crane.)
It doesn’t mean that I don’t “go birding.” Actually, I’ve been birding once or twice. But it does mean that I’m not likely to get in my ratty, broke-down truck here in Acworth, Georgia, and drive to Choke Canyon State Park in South Texas to witness the first-ever appearance in the U.S. of the pine flycatcher. Some folks did. Steve Matherly drove down from Houston, three and a half hours away, and admitted, “The dollars [spent to get here] per gram of bird is kind of amazing.” Wes Biggs flew in from Orlando, and Dotty Robbins made the trip from Gainesville, Florida. “He’s not spectacular,” said Dotty, “but the sighting is unique.”
Now those people are birders–no armchair needed, thank you very much. And more power to them.
But I have to say: there’s a whole lot going on right here outside my window. Every day another question I don’t know the answer to. Like, why have the pine siskins descended upon me this year in flocks of up to 50 birds, when I’ve never had more than a handful before? Why have the bluebirds let the chickadees take over their box? And where the dickens have my redbellied woodpeckers gone to?
That’s the idea behind the book: OK, I know who you are, but what are you doing? And why are you doing it? That will also be the idea behind this blog. I hope you’ll talk to me.
(And if you want to buy the book, that’s okay, too.)
4 Responses
April 15th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
John, congrats on your first blog post! It will be great fun to hear more about your continuing adventures with the book and with armchair birding.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
This is going to be fun…talking to you about bird experiences. The other day while walking my dog in the park, I saw a huge red headed woodpecker. My neighbor told me that woodpecker used to hang out at her house but was doing damage to her deck so she had to hang a fake snake to scare it away. She said it was a rare woodpecker. Now, I take my camera with me on my dog walks in hopes of seeing that woodpecker again and snapping its picture.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Nettie: You saw a pileated woodpecker. Not rare, but very cool anyway. I’m sure you’ll enjoy my essay on same in my bestselling book, The Armchair Birder.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Mike is still hogging your book, but he does share fascinating tidbits. Yesterday he told me that bluejays pick up hundreds of ants and tuck them under their wings to eat the mites there. I thought he was kidding me, like he does the guys at work when he tells them my name is Dixie. But he swore it was true and that you wrote about it.
P.S. I put a link on my Facebook page to this blog.
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