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.

The woman across the street died suddenly. I wish I’d known her better, but our acquaintance was casual. I do remember that she was an adventurous traveler.

She and her husband had been to jungles, deserts and mountains. She’d rafted the Amazon. Trekked the Himalayas. Maybe she climbed Everest; I think there was some talk about that. I wish I’d listened better.

I saw the movie “Amelia” recently, and the actress who played Amelia Earhart, Hilary Swank, was tall and pretty, with a no-nonsense hairstyle and great smile. Like the real Earhart. Like my neighbor.

Earhart’s similarity to my neighbor extended beyond appearance. It included her adventurous spirit. I don’t know if Earhart was kind and personable, but our neighbor was.

When my wife got the news by phone she paled, and after hanging up, told me in a hushed voice about our neighborhood’s loss.

My first reaction, after a few expletives, was, “Hell, she explored Tibet.” As though I were saying: No, can’t be true; the woman once walked in the Himalayas, must be some mistake.

I guess I felt that a youthful, strong Himalayan explorer would live forever. Nothing about what I felt made sense. But then my wife said something that did.

“I’m glad she explored Tibet!”

This hit home, rang true, felt right, even offered a bit of solace. My wife communicated volumes in five words, and they made a pretty good eulogy, spoken privately and in shock.

What they meant was this: we can’t be sure how long we’ll be around, so those of us who are smart get out into the world and do things. Like see the Amazon and climb the Himalayas.

On Loren Eiseley’s headstone it says: “We loved the earth but could not stay.”

This statement applies to all of us, sorry to say. But at least our neighbor, the nice woman across the street got to see the earth. She climbed mountains in Tibet. We’ll miss her, but she didn’t miss much.

It’s not a chrome-dome. It doesn’t have a comb-over. It doesn’t have a thinning patch, receding hairline or bald spot. Get rid of the word “bald” altogether.

How did our Bald Eagles get such a stupid name? The science nerds who care about arcane things like bird taxonomy, and are picky about picking names, have blown it.

These guys changed the Baltimore Oriole to the Northern Oriole. Okay, they’ve got reasons. They changed the Marsh Hawk to the Northern Harrier even though Northern Harriers can live in Florida.

They changed the Rufous-sided Towhee, the Myrtle Warbler, and others. We’re not going to reopen that can. Two-fisted fans of this site have encountered similar rants. We’ll move on.

But the eagle thing is just plain wrong.

I was at Yellowstone Lake a while back on a bright, cold, clean morning with mountains in the distance, wild forest in the background. Inland pelicans and the promise of bears. A cool moment.

Very American. Purple mountains and all that. You could use it for a travel poster. Europeans would drop their tiny coffee cups and head for the airport. Yellowstone!

As though on cue, while I was thinking these American thoughts, a Bald Eagle flew by, low and slow. A great American moment. His thick, white head feathers lifted in the breeze and ruffled as he flew. That eagle wasn’t bald.

Call it the white-headed eagle if you want. Call it the snow-capped eagle, I don’t care. Yeah, I know, the word “bald” has linguistic derivations that go beyond the common meaning today by which someone like, say, George Costanza or Terry Bradshaw might be described.

It’s from “balled” in old or middle English and meant white and shiny. Well, balled has meant other things in my neighborhood. But all this is beside the point. The eagle I saw wasn’t bald. No Bald Eagle is bald. Its name’s a bald-faced lie.

Somebody oughta tell a taxonomist.

Footnote and afterthought: By the way, “taxonomist” is not such a hot word either. It means “classifier of biological names.” But there are plenty of yo-yos around who think it means taxidermist. Which is a guy who stuffs dead animals, puts plastic eyes in their heads and makes them into creepy displays. Or trophies. Or both.

It’s cold and windy in the woods. I’m on the planet of no birds. There’s nothing. It’s early in the season, so this isn’t too surprising.

But it’s curious that I’ve been seeing pictures of migrants on ambitious birding websites. Brown Thrashers, Eastern Meadowlarks, Red-headed Woodpeckers. Some guy even got a picture of a Scarlet Tanager. How can that be; it’s only April.

But my woods are bleak. There’s a visitor’s cabin near the parking area, and the rangers who work there have feeders out back. Seeds, suet, fruit. There must be birds there. But, damnit, I’m not going near the place.

I have this thing about feeders. They’re one step above going to a zoo. Why not visit the bird house and get excited about Flamingos? No way. The feeder’s unsatisfying, a kind of cheating.

So I stay away. As I walk the empty trail, I wonder why I’m here. Two reasons: One, after a day in an office it’s good to get into the wild. Two, I try to put some “daily sightings” on this website. I’m here for both of us. You, me. If I strike out, I’m sorry.

Near an open field, I see something eye-catching in the weeds. Man-made, small, flat, greenish. Money? It’s a five dollar bill, I think.

Then I get closer and discover it’s not the real deal, just an old coupon for a pizza restaurant, a piece of paper shaped and patterned like a fiver. I put it in my pocket to throw away later, and head out of the woods.

As I walk, I’m imagining that every bird in the county must be at the feeder behind the cabin. They must be in the trees above it and on the ground around it. All species, sizes and colors. Common and rare.

I’ve seen no birds on the trail where I walked, and have no five bucks, either. But the air was good to breathe, the feel of the office is now gone, and I’m ready to hike back to the car, back to whatever’s next.

I never went near the feeder. A moral victory of sorts. I don’t care for zoos and don’t count on feeders. When I tell you about a bird, I’d rather that it not be eating out of human hands. I’d rather it be a sighting in the wild, the real deal.

What could be better than a Cubs game in April at Wrigley Field. You need two fists just to hold the hot dogs and beers.

You like the outdoors? There’s nothing like the view that hits you when you enter Wrigley. The green infield and outfield. The vines. The sky. The charge in the air.

Wait, isn’t this supposed to be about birds?

Well, sometimes you get Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays. But sometimes, you settle for Houston Astros. Which isn’t bad when they lose.

So there you are: a two-fisted bird watcher at Wrigley, enjoying the sun, the wild crowd, John Cusack singing “Take Me Out To The Ball Game” during the seventh inning stretch. This is so corny it’s cool.

While you’re watching the game, and eating nachos, and while Mike Fontenot is getting walked because he’s dangerous, and while big Derrek Lee (D. Lee as he’s called around here), is coming up, while all this is going on…you see a gull over the field.

Hmmm. What kind? Wait, no. Who cares.

You care what kind of pitch Lee’s going to get. You care about not spilling nachos when everybody stands. You don’t care about no stinkin’ gull.

But you gotta wonder: the gull’s wings are unusually wide. And skinny. Like those of an Albatross. You think, hey, Albatross. Not a bad symbol for this place. The Cubs have a curse because they haven’t won a world series in like a hundred years. So Albatross might fit. It’s a curse bird, right out of the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” a two-fisted poem.

Enough. Albatrosses aren’t in Chicago. If they are, notify Illinois Birders’ Forum right away. And poems aren’t mentioned at Cubs games. Let’s move on.

But then you remember that the Albatross is known as the “Gooney Bird,” a great name. And appropriate at the moment, because there are gooney birds behind you, rooting for the Astros.

Suddenly……none of this matters!

The musings about the gull, the albatross, the gooney guys behind you, the nachos that will fall, none of it, because Lee connects on a low & outside slider with a sound that means homer. The ball goes out of the park, onto Waveland Avenue. A Wrigley moment, a game winner, a 3-run blast. And that’s all that matters.

But as you shuffle out of Wrigley after the game while 40,000 people are singing “Go Cubs Go,” you think: It was a Herring Gull. Could’ve been a Ring-billed Gull. But no, too big, it was a Herring Gull.

And you figure that just thinking this thought at this moment makes you kind of a gooney bird yourself. But who cares. Cubs win!

I pull into the parking lot of a forest preserve. Kill the motor, grab binoculars from the back seat and get ready to leave the car.

Nearby, a car is backing out of a space that’s marked with diagonal lines. An illegal space. Illegal, because it’s in front of a garbage can.

As the car pulls out, a guy with a digi-scope walks past. A serious birder. He notices that the space wasn’t legal and glowers at the driver. Then, looking down, shakes his head.

The guy in the car stops backing up. Suddenly. Through his open window, he says to digi-scope, “Got a problem, sport?” Digi-scope shakes his head again, as though to say, “what a jerk.”

The driver leaves his car now. Digi-scope turns and says, “Unless you want this scope up your ass, keep moving. And learn where to park.”

There was a bit more muttering, but digi-scope kept walking and the guy in the car drove away. That was a scene more suited to a barroom than a forest preserve. Since when do bird watchers behave like this?

Then a thought hit: Could it be the “two-fisted” image? Could it be the stuff we write about here? Could it be our attitude? Are we changing the way birders behave?

Ah, get real. Those guys probably never heard of the website. I left the parking lot, went into the woods and saw birds, but I always see birds. My real sighting of the day was a couple of bozos with fists ready to fly.

Later, on the trail I walked past digi-scope and we nodded. I thought I saw a two-fisted birdwatcher logo on the guy’s T-shirt, peeking out from under his vest. But maybe it was my imagination.