Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!csus.edu!ucdavis!csusac!unify!Unify.com!grp From: grp@Unify.com (Greg Pasquariello) Newsgroups: rec.birds Subject: Re: Car Birding Message-ID: <1991Apr3.095432@Unify.com> Date: 3 Apr 91 17:54:32 GMT References: <31546@usc> Sender: news@Unify.Com (news admin) Reply-To: grp@Unify.com (Greg Pasquariello) Organization: Unify Corporation, Sacramento, CA, USA Lines: 65 In article <31546@usc>, burhans@mizar.usc.edu (Mustang Sally) writes: > > But anyway who can give me tips on car birding. Should you avoid it if > you are the driver? Should you use binocs? Should you point them > forward or out the side window? Should you avoid yelling Look! Look! > to the person trying to drive and avoid the other crazed maniacs on > the road or what? Ah, car birding! The deadly sport of birders everywhere! I've not yet met a birder that doesn't bird from the car. Some are worse than others however, and I beleive I am one of the worst. My worst experience with car birding involved the Michelin Man. The Michelin Man is this odd white puffy thing. I think he's supposed to be a stack of white tires with a head, but I'm not sure. I was stopped at a traffic light at one of those really strange intersections, where cars are always coming at you from 5 directions. On my left was a tire shop. My goal was to cross the intersection, and make a left on the far side, thus ensuring that I was traveling in the right direction. The light turned green. I began to cross. I peeked left to see if anything was coming, and there, yes right there in the parking lot of the Michelin Tire store, plain as day, perched atop a dazzling yellow Michelin van was... a Snowy Owl!! "Holy smoke!", I thought to myself, as I ran up onto the center island and bumped into the traffic light... My best experience with car birding was on the Garden State Parkway, probably one of the concentration zones for car birders (especially on a Big Day). For those of you unfamiliar with it, the GSP is 10 mile stretches of three lanes that suddenly widen to about 10 lanes with a significant barrier plopped across them. This barrier, called a toll-booth by state officials and various unprintable things by others, is a signal that everyone should immediately zoom across as many lanes as possible. You get bonus points for cutting off other drivers. Anyway, I was headed toward Brigantine, when the zoom single/tool booth loomed on the horizon. I was in the far left lane. As I glanced across the highway to see who was going to hit me, I noticed a largish gray bird perched rather horizontally in the trees on the side of the highway. Yelling BANZAI! (which, of coures, is Japanese for Northern Shrike), I cut the wheel hard to the right. Immediately, bird books, lunch bags, and various sundry peices of birding flotsam became weightless and floated through the car. I think I saw white knuckles on one of my passengers. We shot across umpteen lanes of traffic, amidst flying gravel and shreiking tires, and came to rest on the shoulder. A hundred yards behind us, perched in the same spot, sat the Northern Shrike. No one died, but then again we were lucky. Otherwise we wouldn't have seen the shrike! > > Thanks! > > Bonus question for movie birders: What kind of analysis has been done > regarding the birds in the movie The Birds. > -- > Jackie Burhans (burhans@usc.edu) > Data Stylist, USC Student Affairs -- --- Greg Pasquariello grp@unify.com Unify Corporation Be good and never poison people