What the … ?

There I was, washing up at the kitchen sink and looking out the window into the back yard. Six feet away from my nose, perched pertly on a bare branch of the ash tree, was a bird I had never seen before. It was blue and a little bigger than a robin. Suddenly there was another one in the tree, and another, and soon there were ten of them hopping from branch to branch. I had time to call Robin over to see them and marvel along with me before the whole bunch grew bored with our tree and moved next door to try the neighbor’s.

There were enough identifiers present, and I had such a good long look at these beauties, that I was easily able to identify them as Woodhouse’s Scrub Jays using the Sibley Guide to Birds of Western North America.

I consider myself a “birder,” even though I recognize that there is a great difference between me and the sort of person who deliberately plans their vacation around some spot on the globe where they hope to see a new bird species. I am the sort of birder (Type D) who, if he spots a bird he’s never seen before while reclining in a hammock with an iced tea nearby, gets excited and looks it up.

• Type A birder: will drop a baby they are carrying in order to grab their binoculars to identify a bird in the vicinity
• Type B birder: will plan a vacation trip to see a chestnut-sided tomtit and be depressed for months if they don’t find one
• Type C birder: never leaves the house without binoculars and a copy of Sibley, even if only going across the street to buy milk for supper
• Type D birder: as above
• Type E birder: regards all bird species as pests who might poop on their BMW. Cannot tell a crow from a peacock and doesn’t care.

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There are probably thousands of great books and videos about birds that I’ve never seen, but one of the most beautiful that I have viewed so far is the documentary Winged Migration. It is extraordinary. I found an extended preview for you to watch when you have the time, and if it whets your appetite for more, Prime Video will let you watch the entire film for the cheap cheap price of $3.99. 

Now if you rent it, and are anything above a Type E – your day will be improved and your life’s schema broadened for less than four bucks. That, compadres, is a banner deal.

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It was my fifth grade teacher, Miss Behrens, who turned me on to watching birds. She brought her copy of John James Audubon’s Birds of America to class for us to look at, with its dramatic illustrations. I pored over that book, and still am drawn to the art even though it has come under some fire over the years because the birds were painted in postures at times that were inaccurate, and might have not even have been achievable in life.

(Audubon is said to have killed his subjects, then posed them. A common practice for naturalists of the day)

In spite of these criticisms if I were to find a copy of that big book on my coffee table later today, I wouldn’t be much good for anything else for the next several hours as I slowly turned the pages.

More recently Mr. Audubon’s name has stirred up yet another controversy when it became more widely known that he had been a slave owner and slave trader, and some of his writings have been described as racist. Although several chapters of the Audubon Society around the country have changed their names to avoid being associated in any way with these abhorrent practices, the national organization has retained the name Audubon, as has our local chapter here in Paradise.

Personally, I think a name change is probably inevitable and it would be good thing for the organization to go on and get it done.

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I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but the grand old disease of syphilis is back in style once again. It was never completely eliminated, but the incidence was low enough that a graybeard like myself only saw one case in his professional lifetime.

The CDC statistics tell the story pretty well, I think. There were 5,979 cases in the USA in 2000, and 133,945 cases in 2020. A 2,140% increase!

Some historians believe that it was Christopher Columbus’ Crew that brought syphilis back with them to Europe, since prior to his voyages it had been a disease only of the Western Hemisphere. What is certain is that when it hit Europe, every country blamed it on a neighbor, especially one they might have had hostile relations with.

So, the inhabitants of today’s Italy, Germany and United Kingdom named syphilis ‘the French disease’, the French named it ‘the Neapolitan disease’, the Russians assigned the name of ‘Polish disease’, the Polish called it ‘the German disease’, The Danish, the Portuguese and the inhabitants of Northern Africa named it ‘the Spanish/Castilian disease’ and the Turks coined the term ‘Christian disease’. Moreover, in Northern India, the Muslims blamed the Hindu for the outbreak of the affliction. However, the Hindu blamed the Muslims and in the end everyone blamed the Europeans.

NIH

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