The Old Coot is a birder?
By Merlin Lessler
There was a bird on a rooftop across the street from
me in Florida yelling, “Blow-Ah, Blow-Ah.” It was a call I’d never heard before.
It looked like a crow, but I know what a crow sounds like and that wasn’t it. I
should know, after all, Cornell Ornithology Laboratory has a free bird identifying
App that is named Merlin, just like me. I have the App on my phone; I use it quite
often, like when I’m sitting on the porch. I use the “bird sound” function to
call birds in the vicinity to come to me. I pick one of several mating calls
and soon enough, a bird flies over, but quickly figures out that I’m not a proper
mate and flies off to tell their friends to stay away; it’s just an Old Coot
calling, not the Coot Bird. (Coots are dark, chicken like waterbirds)
It is a fun thing to do, but it can get out of hand,
as it did one evening at our friends, Paul and Carol’s house in the early evening
while we were sitting in their lanai at the back of their home. Carol said a lonely
screech owl flew over and sat on the fence next to where we were sitting. It
was quite regular; it came every night.
Just one owl, all by itself. She thought it was the only one around. I
pulled out my “Merlin App” and scrolled down to the screech owl section and
tapped on one of several available calls.
It didn’t take
long. First one owl came by, then another and then another. One flew into the
screen around the lanai, then did it again. Being the jerk that I am, I’d
overdone it. A single screech from Carol, not the owl, got me to shut the thing
off. I felt the same fright as she did; it was like being in the Alfred
Hitchock movie, “The Birds,” where the whole town was trapped in their houses
by angry swarms of birds that attacked and tried to kill anyone who ventured
out the door.
Anyhow, back to the bird that was chirping, “Blow-ah.”
It flew off before I could get the Merlin bird ID” App going to identify what
it was. I tried artificial intelligence on Google; It wasn’t sure, but thought it
might be a “Fish-Crow,” and then suggested I install the Merlin Bird ID App. It
didn’t say it, but I could sense it thought it was appropriate for me, since
I’m a bird brain.
Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com
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