{"id":684,"date":"2015-04-09T06:35:00","date_gmt":"2015-04-09T13:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=684"},"modified":"2015-04-09T06:35:00","modified_gmt":"2015-04-09T13:35:00","slug":"finding-my-inner-bird-brain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/?p=684","title":{"rendered":"Finding My Inner Bird Brain"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Birdfeeder\"<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Jack Edwards<\/strong><\/p>\n

You have heard the adage, \u201cTry walking a mile in his shoes.\u201d\u00a0 Recently, I have\u00a0tried to use this advice to repair a rift that has developed between me and my local bird community.\u00a0 I enjoy birds, but I do not claim to be an expert at Ornithology.\u00a0\u00a0You may recall from\u00a0high school that \u201cOrnithology\u201d is Latin for \u201cthe study of ornery things.\u201d\u00a0 I assume this includes ornery birds.\u00a0 In short, the birds and I are currently not of a feather.<\/p>\n

We used to live in a house with a birdfeeder in the front yard.\u00a0 This feeder looked like downtown Bombay at rush hour, except for birds.\u00a0 I kept a book near the window with photographs of every bird known to man, so I could identify them.\u00a0 Except only three species ever showed up: black-capped chickadees, dark-eyed juncos, and (please excuse my language) bushtits.\u00a0 Sadly, these three species are the most boring looking birds on the planet.<\/p>\n

Once in a blue moon, some exotic, colorful bird showed up.\u00a0 I logically assumed that my usual boring birds got him all liquored up the night before, and he was still languishing in a drunken bird stupor, unable quite yet to fly home.\u00a0 When this lucky happenstance occurred, I\u2019d race to identify the visitor.\u00a0 I would quickly study its coloring and note the shape of its beak.\u00a0 Then I would hurriedly flip through the pages of my book and quickly narrow it down to about twenty different species \u2013 none of which lived on my continent.<\/p>\n

I have a friend who is a \u201cbirder.\u201d\u00a0 For the purposes of this story I will refer to him as \u201cJim,\u201d because his name happens to be Jim.\u00a0 Jim is not just a birder, he is a proud birder.\u00a0 You might even describe him as a (no pun intended) mildly cocky birder.\u00a0 He\u2019s crazy about the birds.\u00a0 He keeps an Oregon list.\u00a0 And he keeps a lifetime list.\u00a0 He even travels to other parts of the world to look at birds and excitedly jot their names down on his list.\u00a0 (And you thought stamp collecting was exciting.)\u00a0 Even with the advent of nature programs available on high definition TV viewable from cushy lounge chairs, he still actually goes out \u201cinto the field\u201d to look at birds.<\/p>\n

But I digress.\u00a0 Back to my main point, which is my ongoing problem with the bird community.<\/p>\n

When I moved to my new house, I brought my experienced birdfeeder.\u00a0 Only, big problem, the birds are completely ignoring it.\u00a0 I know they\u2019re around.\u00a0 I hear them in the bushes, but they are snubbing me and my birdfeeder.\u00a0 And, yes, I am taking this personally.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want to jump to conclusions or cast undeserved aspersions on my new bird neighbors, but I did some research on my gigantic mistake of a cell phone \u2013 the iPhone 6 plus (if a salesperson even looks like he\u2019s going to suggest you purchase this phone, shove him into the nearest iPad display and run for your life).<\/p>\n

I found the following key tips:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Place the feeder in a quiet area. Check<\/em> – It\u2019s quiet as a monastery\u2019s library.<\/li>\n
  2. Place the feeder near shrubs or other shelter. Double check<\/em> – There are enough bushes to start a commercial nursery.<\/li>\n
  3. Place a birdbath nearby. Uh, no<\/em> \u2013 I\u2019m not running a day spa here.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So it turns out I was right all along.\u00a0 It\u2019s not me.\u00a0 It is the birds \u2013 They\u2019ve copped an attitude.\u00a0 My battle plan is simple.\u00a0 I\u2019ll wait.\u00a0 Sooner or later a lightbulb will go off above one of their little bird brains.\u00a0 He\u2019ll turn to his bird friends and say, \u201cYou know what guys?\u00a0 We should change our attitude toward the new guy.\u00a0 He\u2019s obviously trying to meet us half way.\u00a0 Look, he\u2019s even wearing wingtips.\u00a0 In fact, we should try walking a mile in his shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Jack Edwards You have heard the adage, \u201cTry walking a mile in his shoes.\u201d\u00a0 Recently, I have\u00a0tried to use this advice to repair a rift that has developed between me and my local bird community.\u00a0 I enjoy birds, but I do not claim to be an expert at Ornithology.\u00a0\u00a0You may recall from\u00a0high school that […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[491,492,18,532,33,19],"class_list":["post-684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor","tag-bird-watching","tag-birdfeeder","tag-funny","tag-humor","tag-laugh","tag-lol"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":688,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions\/688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jocularious.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}