Bird Tweets

Shut up and bird!

I'm probably the last person under 80 in the civilized world without a Twitter account. I have several principled reasons for this: (1) sloth, (2) my life is generally boring, (3) on the rare occasions it's not boring, I'd much rather throw myself fully into whatever I'm doing than tell everyone about it, and (4) all those perpetually exciting people with Twitter feeds would probably agree with (2).

But there is a weird, haiku-like allure to some tweets. At best, they're like phone calls from kidnap victims: just enough info to leave you hanging for more. Thus,some pundits have declared blogging in full sentences to be hopelessly démodé. Just in case they're right, here's my weekend as a series of fake tweets!

Saturday, 8:00 a.m: 2 early 4 migrants at Palm Point. Here anyways. Y?
8:05: Whistle-like call/song in trees. Can't ID.
8:06: Can't locate calling bird. Where is it?
8:07: Nothing in trees but 2 ducks. No other birds. Who's calling?

8:08: Black-bellied WHISTLING-DUCK. DUH!

Sunday, 7:50 a.m: Deer at Paynes Prairie, by parking lot. Awesome!

8:15: Bobwhite calling. Can't find it.
8:20: 12-foot gator w/open mouth. Moving towards us. Yikes.
9:00: Found 2 Purple Gallinules! Freaking pretty birds.

9:01: Gallinules have 2 babies! Very cute.
9:15: Cool lavender dragonflies are everywhere! They look blue in pix.

10:00: At platform at end of trail. 2 rangers there.
10:01: Rangers are saying 2 Whooping Cranes seen earlier!
10:15: Waiting 4 cranes. Lots of growling gators. 1 is on trail by platform now.

10:30: The Whoopers are here! Mated pair. 2 far 4 pix.
10:32: Will they breed here? We all hope so.
10:40: Swallow-tailed Kites overhead!

11:00: Effing hot out here! Thunderheads moving in.
11:15: Ack, rain! 1/2 mile back 2 parking lot.
11:30: Swallow-tailed Kites again, and a Mississippi Kite too!
11:45: Hot. Thirsty. Sticky. Need a shower badly.
12:00: Outta here and heading home. Bye till next weekend!