I was watching the Cubs game when I heard a BONK. Should’ve been a bat connecting with a pitch. But it wasn’t. (In all fairness to the Cubs, they do occasionally hit the ball. But, again, that wasn’t what I heard.)

From the next room my wife said “Aw, a bird bammed into the window. Come see.”

This has happened before. Our back windows face a pond. Sometimes birds see the reflection and fly into it. After hitting they either rebound and take off. Or get knocked cold and take off later.

But sometimes they don’t survive.

I downed the rest of my beer, left the Cubs to their own devices, and went outside to see what caused the BONK. It was a Phoebe, unmoving. I picked it up. “See anything?” my wife asked.

“A Phoebe.”

“A who?”

“Phoebe. A kind of bird.”

“Hmm. Don’t know that one.”

She’s not alone. Most people would call this little grayish bird a sparrow. But it was an Eastern Phoebe, and it was where you find Phoebes: near water. Eastern Phoebes are similar to other flycatchers, but unlike the difficult empidonax group, they have no wingbars.

And their tails wag. This is a good way to know a Phoebe. Look in the field guide; you’ll see.

There are other Phoebes, too. The Black Phoebe and Say’s Phoebe are found out west. Not sure how you pronounce “Say.” But I’m assuming it’s “Cey.” As in former Cubs third baseman Ron Cey, also known as “the penguin,” an entirely different bird that’s easier to identify.

Cey makes me think baseball again. And I gotta get back to the Cubbies. But first I took a good look at the Eastern Phoebe in my hand. It didn’t make it. No movement.

I’m in bright sun and take a moment to study the bird. I think about the unappreciated intricacy of its hard-wired design. The template for its color pattern. Its bill, built to catch bugs in flight. Its high forehead giving it an intelligent look.

Studying this Phoebe, close up, I had the thought: this is a really complicated piece of work. Eyes with moist movable lids, feet engineered to hinge and lock. For something so small, it was a helluva machine.

And it had been running fine. But now it was out of the game. Whoa, a heavy thought. Where’d that come from? I needed another beer. I set the bird down under a bush and went in. The complexities of biological clockwork and the irrational inevitability of death are not subjects I wanted thrown at me.

The Cubs were looking good in their blue uniforms, and Wrigley’s green vines were looking good, too. I wanted to get back to the mindless comfort of baseball and beer. And I sorta did. The Cubs were still in the game. But, c’mon, I had no illusions about where they’d wind up.

Subject: me being an idiot. Witness: my son. (But you’ll soon know about it, too). Setting: a crowd in a forest preserve watching a ranger display a Red-tailed Hawk on a gloved hand and feed it a mouse.

But that bloody chomp was to be the climax. Before that, we had to endure a lecture about Red-tails. This one couldn’t fly but was healthy enough to be an exhibit. A hobbled hawk is not a happy sight. And I hadn’t patience for the monologue; there wasn’t much I didn’t know about hawks.

I wandered back to my car for a bag of cookies. Big chocolate chip cookies. I wanted one, and I knew my kid would, too. I returned to the group. Where was my son? I stood on a wood-rail fence to see better. There he was.

People below me… then the ranger…and on the other side, more people, with my son in back. I caught his eye and gestured with a cookie. Then I flung it his way. I was confident that he understood I’d left the boring lecture, got cookies, and was giving him one.

Time out: If you think this is about how the hawk sees my cookie and makes a move to get it, sorry. Didn’t happen. This hawk only had eyes for mouse.

What did happen: I spun the big cookie toward my kid. Used a backhand style, giving it lift, like a Frisbee. My kid’s good at grabbing Frisbees. What could go wrong? Well, if a spinning disk tilts, it might bank and miss its target.

This is what happened to our cookie. It arched unseen over the crowd, and landed gently on the head of a man standing next to my son.

The guy was wearing one of those flat caps, the kind that have no real brim. Its top was flat as an aircraft carrier, and our cookie settled there. The guy didn’t feel it. Nobody noticed. Just me. And my son, who was wide-eyed.

Later he explained that he had no idea I was aiming for him, but assumed that, being bored, I had obtained cookies, located a bird watcher with a flat cap, and tossed one onto his head.

He told me he thought this was pretty damn funny, and he was glad I did it. I knew it had been unintentional, and I was an idiot. But if it gave him some amusement, well, that’s what dads are for.

Footnote: This really happened.

There’s a wing of the birding community that lives to list. Loves to list. Lusts to list. Birding is collecting. So this is understandable.

All the guys I hung with had lists. Lists of ball players, of girls they’d been with. Of micro-breweries they liked.

Do I have bird list, a life list? C’mon, I’ve been wandering woods and fields since I was a kid. Of course I have one. But it’s not typical.

Somewhere in my stack of bird books, there’s a beat-up “Golden Guide to Field Identification – Birds of North America,” By Robbins, Bruun and Zimm. Copyright 1966. It’s so old it has a Baltimore Oriole in it. Fine by me.

My list is in this book. Actually, it is this book.

Not that I need a list. I recall every bird I’ve seen. Ask me if I’ve seen a Blue-Gray Gnatcatcher and I’ll tell you where I first saw one in June ’79. But, as the computer culture has taught us, it’s smart to back things up.

So back to my backup.

A few years ago I went through that old bird book with pen in hand. Next to every bird I’d seen, I put a check. Smooth-billed Ani? Sure. Kiskadee. Clark’s Nutcracker. My first Pine Grosbeak. I remembered them, and checked their picture. I still add checks as I see new birds.

That’s my life list. You can’t turn many pages without seeing checks. How many? A while back I ran the numbers but quit somewhere in the decent triple digits. Guess I don’t have list lust.

But I respect the hardy guys who do. No matter how two-fisted a birdwatcher you might be, somebody’s always better.

That’s okay. I see that I’d checked Abert’s Towhee on page 304. I remember the hazy Arizona afternoon when I saw it, and smile.

Maybe one of these days I’ll run out of unchecked birds in these old pages. But when I leaf through the shorebirds, the alcids, auks and puffins, I figure, no, probably not going to be a problem.

There’s something new in the world of bird websites. It’s a forum. Another forum, you say? Okay, stick with this: It’s not just another forum. It’s a better one.

We’ve had a forum with similar quality in Illinois for a while. Illinois Birders’ Forum. The guy behind it is a two-fisted type named Greg. He’s more than a bird guru; he’s an explorer. He’s hiked Amazon jungles, discovered unknown toads (yeah, toads, but he’s a bird guy), and has interesting friends.

For example, when he recently commented on our observation about “turfs” within forests, he mentioned that ornithologist buddies told him Swainson’s Thrushes defend a patch of woodland every summer in Canada, and amazingly these same individuals defend their own patch of forest in Costa Rica every winter.

Point is, Greg’s connected to the research side of things. He’s a good observer and writer. It’s good news for us that he’s taken the forum concept that he honed in Illinois, and has done a uniquely American thing: he’s created a new national version.

“North American Birders’ Forum” is in the soft-launch stage. That means there’s fine tuning going on. But it’s pretty okay, even now. It’s a single resource for whatever kind of birder you are at the moment, casual or serious.

It clues you in on rare sightings, news reports and other cool websites. It gives you a voice in the giant, democratic conversation that the web is designed to encourage.

It has a “links” section where birders can tell birders about links they like. And it’s adding a “listers central.” So you’ll be able to keep an online record of your own lists organized by month, year, lifetime, zone, whatever.

No point in our describing North American Birders’ forum any further. All you need is the web address and you can go there:

http://birdersforum.com/

Check it out. But come back here once in a while, too. Just for the fun of it.

You bushwhack through the woods until you hit a slow-moving river. There’s an old log there. Makes a good place to sit. You go often enough, and the place starts to feel familiar.

Kentucky author Chris Offut wrote a book about spending his mornings by a river. Gave him a chance to think. (The book is “Same River Twice,” in case you’re interested).

Sitting in one spot is a way to see wildlife. There’s a chipmunk that comes around. Usually I see a coiled snake sleeping near the log. Deer walk by. There’s a Belted Kingfisher watching the water from an overhanging branch.

There are Red-headed and Downy Woodpeckers, Northern Flickers, Swainson’s Thrushes and occasionally I see a Woodcock. You wouldn’t see them if you were on the move. But you’re on the log.

The idea hit: this little spot is a neighborhood.

It’s a neighborhood just like the kind you find in cities. New York isn’t one big city, it’s a hundred little cities. The neighborhoods are defined by streets and El tracks.

It’s the same in the woods. This half-acre by the river is defined by a stand of trees to my left, the log by the bank, and a little creek on the right. Within those perimeters, it’s a neighborhood.

I understand now that it’s not a different chipmunk every time. This guy lives here. It’s the same Belted Kingfisher on the branch. His branch. Same coiled snake. Same neighborhood deer herd. The woodpeckers and Flickers live in those trees; this is their turf.

That’s my sighting of the day: an idea. The idea that the woods aren’t an expanse of wildness, but a collection of well defined turfs. And when you get to know one, you go back to it. And you like it. You’re not just experiencing nature. But human nature, too.

Got a comment tonight about our latest post, “Bear Pressure.” You can see it in the comment box under that post. Good stuff. Thanks Scott.

But the thing that really stands out is a link to a website that Scott’s wife found. It’s called “if it was my home,” and it’s not about bears, but about the oil in the Gulf. The interactive site let’s you visualize how the oil spill would overlay your neck of the woods. There are questions and answers, too. Also pictures. And information about what you can do.

We have nothing more to say about this ongoing story, for now. Nothing that would be worth more than the information you’ll find on “ifitwasmyhome.com” Go to it: (And thanks again to Scott and his wife).

http://www.ifitwasmyhome.com/#loc=Las+Vegas,+NM,+USA&lat=35.593889&lng=-105.216667&x=-105.216667&y=35.593889&z=7

Over a few beers, a guy I know told me he shot a bear. He shook his head and blamed it on peer pressure. I said nothing for a bit. Then I said: beer pressure?

I’d heard him okay, but I was interested in busting balls. If there are two things that piss me off it’s peer pressure and shooting bears.

I’d gone looking for bears myself on occasion but not to kill them. I wanted to walk the ground they walked. I saw a grizzly in a Yellowstone valley, but I was on a mountain. Even through binoculars it looked like a bug, and I don’t count that as a sighting.

I saw a black bear in Alaska but I was on water and it was on shore, so that can’t count either. I’ve hiked Michigan’s U.P., rich bear country and seen no bears. I can live with that. So can the bears.

On the plus side, when I was looking for bears I saw Evening Grosbeaks, Pine Grosbeaks, Black Terns, Snow Buntings, Pileated Woodpeckers, Bald Eagles, Ospreys, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and other species I don’t normally see. Pileateds and eagles, seen close, made up for not seeing bears.

But back to the guy telling me about bears over beers. He got talked into a Canadian bear hunting package by business buddies. He said no, but they pushed, suggesting he was unmanly.

So he found himself in a sniper’s tree above a stack of meat covered with molasses. A bear came. The guy shot it through the heart and felt bad about it.

Well, there was much to feel bad about. I agreed. He said he felt bad about the evil trick of molasses, and bad about the killing. Then he said the thing that bothered him most was that he gave in to peer pressure.

He threw back his beer and ordered another. I thought about saying “beer pressure” again. I like messing with words, but wasn’t in the mood any more, so I said nothing.

The following bit of information might have been quietly added to our Two-Fisted Library page. Or it would have made sense in our Heavy Duty Ornithology page. Couldn’t decide. So we put it here.

“Daily Sightings” takes a temporary tour into the world of the bookish. Our sighting today is a website called “The Birder’s Library.” A friend from Princeton University Press brought it to our attention. We looked. Somewhat reluctantly. But we gotta admit, we like this website.

It’s got a two-fisted commitment to a simple concept: Reviewing books and other materials about birds, birding and ornithology. Currently it has a review of a book published by Princeton, “All About Birds: A Short Illustrated History of Ornithology.” You’d have to read the review to see if you want this book. But that’s the idea.

At first we thought that spending any time with such a book would be about as exciting as watching bird droppings dry. But after reading the review, we had to admit that some interesting things are revealed. Ornithology has a somewhat hidden history. And there are pictures.

The Birder’s Library website has reviews of countless books about birds and birding, including kids’ books, field guides, even fiction and periodicals. It also reviews CDs, DVDs and I-Phone Apps. It’s a labor of love created by a guy who loves this category.

With all the craziness we hear about every day on CNN (gotta stop watching that), it’s nice to know there’s an honest guy somewhere who’s a bird book librarian. A guy who cares about an honest sub-category of a sub-category and has made something meaningful out of it for anyone else who cares. Like us.

We give two fists up for Birder’s Library.          (http://www.birderslibrary.com).

The bird might have been a pelican or a cormorant. I know one from the other, sure, but this bird was so coated that it was hard to tell. It was the outline of a bird. The way a taffy apple is the outline of an apple. Even its eyes were covered.

This was my sighting of the day. Not from fields and woods near my home. It was sighted on CNN. A bird covered in tarry oil that’s spreading across the Gulf.

This isn’t another pointless complaint about the destruction of Gulf wildlife. There’s plenty of complaining going around. We won’t add to it. This is an honest inquiry into why I felt something in my gut that went beyond the condition of one bird.

It had to do with symbolism. Not the kind of thing we want to pursue particularly, but sometimes it’s unavoidable; it invades the back of your mind.

It’s because the bird buried in brown stuff had wings. Birds are all about wings. All about flying. That’s why I got interested in them. As a kid I wanted to fly out of every schoolroom I sat in. When I see a bird fly I appreciate the power of a whim. The bird wants to go somewhere, and it goes there.

Sometimes I aim my binoculars at a bird and before I focus, it takes off. I don’t get mad. I say, why not? Go with your whim, man. Birds aren’t made to sit still. They follow their whims. Because they can. Because they have wings.

So when I saw that bird glopped up, unable to fly, I guess it symbolized the fact that glop happens. The discomfort in my gut went beyond feelings for one victimized bird. It was a generalized feeling that came from understanding that the ability to follow whims can sometimes be taken away. And there’s not much you can do about it.

It’s two-handed. Two palmed. Too freakin’ interesting not to do something with. Our friend Pandy sent this picture.

I’ve always found that it’s hard to get hummingbirds to hold still. They’re not famous for attention spans. Okay, this shot is full of cuteness, and cuteness isn’t what we’re all about here.

But still, we’ve gotta admit it’s cool. Especially because the red in that Ruby-throated male is living up to its name. Most Ruby-throated Hummingbirds I’ve seen have darker throats. You know they’re red, but it’s a matter of how light hits.

West of the Rockies hummingbirds are common. I had an outdoor dinner with an L.A. business associate once, and various hummingbirds darted with a whistling sound all through the meal. After a while we got used to these little space alien birds.

But in our part of the country they’re more of a novelty. So, this picture could not be denied. Two hands, three hummers, a two-fisted nod of approval.

It’s not CNN’s “live feed” of oil gushing from the sea floor in the Gulf. That’s not news. It’s olds. News does that. Gets old fast. We won’t add to the million voices bitching about the broken well. No point. It’s like bitching about the Cubs. No point.

You can’t stop oil from spoiling the Gulf. It might spoil your day, thinking about it. So you turn away from news of the Gulf’s ruination. Then you see the one picture that stops you cold.

It’s not going to be a picture of tarred and feathered birds. We’ve seen those. Remember Alaska? No, what makes your blood freeze is new: a close-up of reeds in swampland. The reeds sit in orange, sludgy wavelets. The oil, or whatever the hell it is, reached the Gulf’s complicated swampy shoreline.

We knew this blob would screw up open waters. We knew it would mess up fish, birds and business. We can’t stop it. (Seems nobody can, but the world of investigative journalism is working that issue).

Okay, you figure, the sea has lost, and is lost. Maybe the authorities will skim some sludge away, but you don’t know how that works.

The unthinkable thing is that sludge would get into the wetlands. That it would stick to cypress and mangrove roots, and coat the weeds, reeds and rushes where nobody can go. That it would get into root systems of steamy jungle plants. That it would get into alligators’ eyes.

You can’t skim it away once it’s in there. That’s the picture you didn’t want to see but just did. Green stalks of swamp grass coated with orange stuff floating in an orange swamp.

As Ed Abbey once said, the unthinkable was always thinkable.

Noon. Birds are quiet. Even bugs are on break. A better time for bird watching is dawn, if you can get your butt out of bed. But you take what you can get. It’s spring migration. You want to see what’s going on, and you’ve only got lunchtime. You head to the wild area.

There’s a van in the parking lot. Two house painters relax inside, eating sandwiches, listening to the radio. Everybody takes lunch in their own way. You’re going for a hike. If you spot birds, fine, but you’ve got small expectations.

You lean on a tree and wait. Then you see a speck of blue in a lot of green. An Indigo Bunting. As you glass it, sun comes from behind a cloud and the blue brightens. You look until you get bored.

At noon, birds must be tired. They’ve worked all morning, up early, putting in their time. Like the guys in the van, they need a break. There’s an “out to lunch” sign on the forest.

You can still bird-watch, but you have to do it a little differently. In the early morning, you’d look for movement. Hey, a Wilson’s Warbler. Gotcha. But lunch hour requires a different tactic: Glass the trees without waiting for movement. You’ll see empty branches. But keep at it. Soon you’ll see a bird on break.

Today there was a Brown-headed Cowbird on a low limb, doing nothing. Then there was an Eastern Phoebe at the forest edge. This bird rarely sits still; it’s a flycatcher. Also sitting quietly was an Eastern Bluebird. Another scan and you see an Eastern Kingbird.

(Why all the “Eastern” names? Eastern Phoebe, Eastern Bluebird, Eastern Kingbird. Well, that’s what they’re called, if you play by the rules. Not always easy. In a minute there’s going to be an incorrectly named oriole).

Glass the nearby clearing. Nothing. The prairie’s out to lunch, too. But wait. There’s an iridescent Tree Swallow on a reed. And a Song Sparrow. No song from this sparrow, but why would there be? He’s on break.

So it goes. Before leaving the preserve, you’ve seen birds that you don’t see around the house. You got fresh air. Some exercise. Not a bad lunch.

The van’s gone when you get to the parking area. Work cannot be denied. As you pull away, you hear birds. They’re on the job again. To make this point, a Baltimore Oriole zooms in front of your windshield. Okay, everybody, back to work.

The phrase “eagle eye” popped up. We’d posted a little story about a carrier pigeon. A reader questioned it. Cool interchange. It pointed out that our readers, being eagle-eyed, don’t miss much.

This reminded me of a day when I was lying in a clearing and saw a bird known for its eyes. Why was I on the ground? One way to see birds is to get off your feet. Find a secluded spot, sit down, lie back. Birds will come.

I saw a Ruby-throated Hummingbird hover nearby. Don’t see them when tramping the trail. I saw Eastern Kingbirds, a Brown Thrasher, a red fox, but that’s not where this is going.

Looking up, I saw seagulls. I didn’t grab the binoculars. Gulls are in a family of birds I categorize as generics. Sorry, I know birding purists will see a Kittiwake or Ross’s Gull when I see a generic gull.

I do know a Laughing Gull from a Herring Gull (it’s the one that’s laughing, right?), but I usually don’t I.D. these birds. They’re like flycatchers. Too many look too much alike.

Above the gulls I noticed other soaring birds. Black, with wide wings. Hey, Turkey Vultures. For these, I used binoculars. Like planes stacked over O’Hare, we had levels of circling birds. First gulls, then vultures.

But wait: Above the vultures there was a speck. A single bird, tiny due to distance. It had nothing to do with vultures. This was stacked higher. I could see dark wings with splayed tips.

Sun was shining white through the bird’s tail. The head was white. This was rare: a Bald Eagle. I thought of the humbling old idea that no matter how high up you are, somebody’s higher.

The gulls were up there enjoying scenery, the vultures were higher, looking for food, but there was something even higher. What was the eagle doing? It was looking at me.

That’s ego-centric, sure, but I felt it. Eye contact. He was looking at me because I didn’t belong in a field. And I was looking at him because he was an eagle.

I needed binoculars and all he needed was eagle eyes. He was like the guy who commented on our carrier pigeon story. He didn’t miss much.

You’re walking to work in the concrete canyons of Chicago and up ahead three or four people are looking at something on the ground. It’s a body.

Around this time of year, migrating birds hit tall buildings. Some birds are killed. Chicago has a lot of tall buildings.

You approach and say, “What’s going on?” Someone says, “A dead pigeon.”

But these ninnies are looking at a Northern Flicker. A male, with a red patch on its gray-blue head. It has a long beak, tan chest with black spots. You can see yellow under its wings.

“A pigeon, eh?”

Someone says, “Wonder what killed it.” Someone else says, “Maybe some bad birdseed.”

It’s always cool to see a Flicker. Although you prefer them alive, in the wild. Eating ants on the ground or climbing the sides of trees.

The bird’s long tongue is out of its beak. A cartoonish cliche, the corpse with its tongue out. No pigeon has a tongue that long. That’s a woodpecker tongue, an ant-eater tongue.

No pigeon has red on its head, yellow under its wings, or a beak that long. But the people who stopped and stared weren’t stupid. They saw a large, multi-colored bird in the city, and drew on common wisdom: pigeon.

Once again, the thought hits that you see what you know. This has been covered elsewhere here (Banjos, Birds and Janis, in Viewpoints), but it’s interesting.

Somebody sees a car. Somebody else sees a Lexus. Awareness lives in the specific, not the general. But that’s getting way too philosophical.

Meanwhile, there’s a dead Flicker on the ground and people think it’s a pigeon. At least they didn’t say it was a bird. On the other hand, that statement would be true. While calling it a pigeon was a false statement.

Getting philosophical again. Sorry.

Next time I see a Fox Sparrow I’m going to think of Teddy Roosevelt.

I like Fox Sparrows. They’re big and burly for sparrows. But their being burly has nothing to do with why I’m going to think of Roosevelt. He wasn’t all that big a guy, anyway; around five-eight and only heavy-set when he got old.

I like the Fox Sparrow’s thrush-like, streaky breast and rust color. These sparrows are prairie birds. I live near prairies in the Prairie State of Illinois. Land of Lincoln, as they say, but I’m thinking of Roosevelt.

This guy was our toughest president. Two-fisted, literally.

As a young man in the Dakota badlands he had an altercation with a drunken cowboy. The cowboy got in Roosevelt’s face and held a six-gun in each hand. He teased Roosevelt about being “four eyes,” something like that.

Roosevelt cold-cocked the cowboy. One punch. And got some respect in the badlands.

He was a big game hunter, and I’m not sure that’s really sporting, but it was a different era and people had different ideas about animals. He was also a bird watcher.

The first two-fisted birdwatcher.

His idea of spotting birds sometimes involved shooting them. That was one of Audubon’s methods of looking at birds, too. Times change.

But Roosevelt knew the birds by name. He even wrote a book about them. He was more than a bird watcher. He was an ornithologist.

Like all bird watchers, he didn’t miss much. Toward the end of his term in the White House, he was in the garden with his sister. As they talked, he picked up some tiny thing from the ground.

He held it between calloused fingers. It was a feather, presumably rust-colored and streaky. “Hmm,” he said, “very early for a Fox Sparrow.”

This isn’t a random comment to show that this guy was interested in birds. These were the final words of “Mornings on Horseback,” a National Book Award-winning biography by David McCullough.

They were powerful enough to end this 400-plus-page masterwork with a strong finish. I recommend this book. I also recommend knowing something about Theodore Roosevelt.

I’ll think about this tough old bird when I see a Fox Sparrow. Maybe you will, too.

Today, an unexpected Great Blue Heron flew toward me. These big birds are solitary, so I figured he’d veer away when he realized the beach he’d intended to land on was occupied.

Maybe he had poor vision (unlikely in a bird designed for fishing and frogging), or maybe he didn’t care. I thought of an F-18 dropping onto the deck of a carrier. Getting bigger, almost hovering, then down.

The heron tucked its wings and stood unusually close. I waited for him to realize his mistake and leave. But he didn’t want to move just yet. My being there didn’t matter. This bird would stand his ground.

A Great Blue Heron is described in the two-fisted novel, “Cold Mountain.” Charles Frazier’s writing is memorable. Here are some of his words:

“The heron made tiny precise adjustments of his narrow head as if having trouble sighting around his blade of beak…he was a solitary pilgrim, strange in his ways and governed by no policy or creed common to flocking birds..”

“…no policy or creed common to flocking birds…” Good stuff, strong and true. Here’s more:

“…then the heron slowly opened its wings. The process was carried out as if it were a matter of hinges and levers, cranks and pulleys. All the long bones under feathers and skin were much in evidence….”

While I was thinking about these words, especially “cranks and pulleys,” the bird did that. He opened his wings, maybe deciding he’d had enough of me.

As I looked at him, I figured: words don’t do the job. Even if they’re written by a guy like Frazier. This is something you gotta see.

The heron took off. Wings as big as eagle wings. Maybe six feet across. Big enough to lift that long-legged, long-necked bird with no effort.

He banked away from me and headed someplace along the shore to hunt in privacy. But he’d stayed for a while. He made his point, and now it was okay to leave.

I was running late. I needed to get a move on. But my dog looked glum as I passed her on the way out. She’d been having a tough time lately, getting old. I figured I should give her some time. Okay, two minutes.

I got on the floor. Talked to her. Rubbed her neck. She seemed down. Ah, what the hell. How ‘bout a walk? Just a quick one. I got the leash. Her eyes got a light in them. She struggled to stand. She was up for it.

It was a nice day. We made it to the corner and instead of heading back, we kept going. One more block. It’s May and the greenery was looking good. My dog sniffed around and seemed happy for a change. A bird flew past and landed high in a tree.

I noticed.

It was a bright, unusual bird. There are plenty of birds on our street, mostly Robins, Grackles, House Finches, but this was different. It was a bird I try to see every year around this time, but sometimes I don’t.

What kind? That’s not the point. In any case, I’ve mentioned this bird’s name before, and done it a little too much. Anyone who’s familiar with the stories on this website might say: not again.

But it happened, this sighting. I had the passing thought that next time I walk the dog I should bring binoculars. Then I figured: no way. If I bring binoculars I probably won’t see anything. Better to just go with the flow.

Besides, this wasn’t about a bird. This was about a dog.

Two-fisted bird watchers are for real. Yeah, you. You’re part of a group that gets out into the world. You go where the wild goose goes, as the cowboy song says.

Today we heard from a guy who visits this site from time to time. He’s exploring Asia. He found an internet hookup outside Shanghai and sent a message. I pictured him in that faraway place looking at people, birds, maybe some shaggy Bactrian camels, and clouds in a Chinese sky.

(I notice clouds when I travel. On a St. Petersburg park bench where I’d been watching Hooded Crows I leaned back, looked up and said to my wife: Just think, those are Russian clouds. She looked at me funny. Nothing new in that).

Last year we emailed a guy to tell him he won a sweatshirt. He lived in Alaska, which in itself is a two-fisted thing to do. Then he wrote back saying that he was leaving next morning for a months-long research expedition to study birds in the steamy wilds of Borneo. He figured the sweatshirt would be useful when he came home.

We heard from a woman who rehabs raptors, owls, vultures. She’s the owner of a handful of scars and the author of a pretty good book. We’ve heard from guys who explore Amazon jungles and find new species. One guy wrote us about Magellan Penguins that he saw when visiting Puerto Madryn in Patagonia.

We hear from swamp explorers in southern bayous, desert hikers in Arizona, mountain climbers, beach combers and science geeks who spend way more time in the wild than they do in a lab, ala Indiana Jones.

The two-fisted birdwatcher is no fictional figure; no wannabe. He or she is out there, getting bug-bit and windblown, seeing birds and other wild things and knowing their names. Hey, that’s you.

People are out of work. Companies have closed. And companies that haven’t closed have gotten smaller. But life in the woods is the same. Business has no business here.

I’m walking along and see a Blue Jay. This eastern jay is big, colorful and has a two-fisted attitude. But don’t call the hot-line. I’ve seen Blue Jays a thousand times. They’re common.

Wait a second. Not so fast.

Jays have been rare in the last few years. They’ve been out of work. Laid off. Let go. Retired. Fired. Downsized. Not by the economy, but by a mosquito with West Nile Virus.

West Nile: exotic words. They recall adventurous places and giant crocodiles. The word “virus” is not so interesting. It’s a word, and a thing, we could do without. Even my computer thinks so.

Blue Jays got hit hard by West Nile Virus. You’d walk the trails where Jays used to be, and there’d be no sign. Crows were decimated, too. And some people got sick.

The virus is old news now. And the dip it caused in bird population is old news, too. But the new news is that after a couple of years, Blue Jays, and Crows too, are showing up again.

In any downturn, there are natural immunities. And some individuals just take the hit and get through it. They find their way back.

I saw this Blue Jay today and thought about business. I didn’t want to bring thoughts of economics and unemployment into the uncivilized woods. But the parallel was noticeable.

The Blue Jay got downsized and disappeared. But now this tough bird’s back. And he’s not alone. Recovery happens.

Things will probably work out that way for the people I know who were let go, and for companies who are against the ropes. This stuff passes. Meantime, it’s spring and the woods are full of birds.

It’s hard to write upbeat stuff about warblers in clean Midwestern woodlands when you’ve got a blob of sludge the size of Puerto Rico heading for coastal zones along the gulf states and all around Florida.

Those steamy sunny places are where I’ve done some of the best bird watching of my life. I’ve seen Willets and Sanderlings in so many numbers they became junk sightings. I know they’re possible on Lake Michigan beaches but I almost never see them up here.

Down on the warm gulf I’ve seen Frigate Birds, Laughing and Bonaparte’s Gulls, Brown Pelicans flying low in single file, Anhingas, ducks, egrets and herons of all makes and models; ibises that look like they escaped from a zoo but didn’t.

I saw a Purple Gallinule one time—that was something to remember—countless sandpipers, and my favorite Ruddy Turnstones. I’ve taken for granted that there would be beaches with Common Terns, Least Terns, Caspian Terns. The list goes on. And it’s not a life list. It’s the freakin’ opposite.

Yeah, sure, the problems that the gulf oil slick might present for birds and other wildlife are only part of a multi-dimensional story. There’s the human cost. And the fishery story, the possible devastation of an industry. The blob of runaway oil could muck up a big chunk of the natural world if it’s not contained, and the unnatural world, too.

Even though we live up north, we’re watching what’s going on down there. We don’t know how the story’s going to end. Or when. But in the meantime, the spring warbler situation around here seems kind of trivial at the moment, and it’s going to have to play itself out without much commentary from us.