Been in New York for a few days. Took a walk around the cement landscape for reasons unrelated to bird watching. Good thing, too, because the variety was limited. You got pigeons, sparrows…and the list ends there. This reminded me of my last trip here, and a piece I wrote called “A Four-Fisted Birdwatcher.” It was late in ’09, so you might not have seen it. Here it is again. It still works. But while revisiting this cynical story, the world of birds threw a curve. And that leads to a little epilog.

“A Four-Fisted Bird Watcher.”

Even when you’re out of town, out of the woods and out of the ordinary, the sharpened senses of a two-fisted bird watcher aren’t entirely out of business.

For example, in the concrete and brick wilderness of New York City, in the narrow streets of the neighborhood they call Greenwich Village—which is no village of course—even there, you can see a bird or two. And the two birds are these: House Sparrow and Rock Dove, more commonly known as pigeon or rat-with-wings. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t interesting sightings.

A city guy is walking his dog on a treeless, grassless Greenwich Village street. This is the dog’s idea of being out in nature. But who are we to say he doesn’t like it. The man, with leash in one hand and baggie in the other, is strolling along when his dog stops short to look at a sparrow that’s picking at crumbs near a garbage can. One female House Sparrow. The dog’s fascinated. He strains at the leash and wants to scope out the bird, sniff the bird, eat the bird. The guy with the baggie waits.

The bird doesn’t like the dog’s attention and hops to the other side of the garbage can. The dog noses over to that side, so the sparrow hops to the opposite side. They continue this little dance. The sparrow doesn’t fly off; maybe it’s tired, maybe it wants to stay where the crumbs are. The dog can’t get close because the bird keeps the can between them.

Hey, we’ve got a sighting. Not the House Sparrow so much. It’s the dog. He’s more interesting than this common bird. He’s got his ears up, on full alert. He’s a muscular pooch, white with brown spots, a short coat, high forehead and long snout, an intelligent face. No pedigreed breed, just a mutt, but clever, and engaged by the strange sight of a bird on concrete. He’s got to see what it is.

This dog’s a four-fisted birdwatcher, with his rounded, bunched up big paws. He’s straining at the leash. The bird’s giving him nothing. But he keeps trying, out there on the street in a world of pavement and garbage cans. He’s all eyes and ears and into bird watching, taking whatever he can get.

The epilog:

Okay, just as I figured I’d share this cynical view of big city bird watching, and be done with it, I spot a bird in the murky river near Chelsea Pier. This is the Hudson River, where a two-fisted pilot named Sully landed his 737 safely after its engines quit. They ought to name it the Sully River instead of the Hudson. Anyway, I’m ready to go with the “four-fisted” story, and leave it at that. Then I see a few Lesser Scaups in the river. I’m not that much into the sighting of ducks. But the thing is, I’d never seen a Lesser Scaup before. Now I have. So much for assumptions.

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 6th, 2011 at 1:00 pm and is filed under "Daily Sightings" A Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.