To:Marty Cassidy
Is the song you were thinking of "Mud Shark", by Frank Zappa?
To:M.Price
I too, sometimes have difficulty spitting out certain bird names in the presenceof outsiders (gai-jin?). I do a little birding with my fourth grade students, and its a challenge to say "Bushtit" without hearing a lot of snickering.
Once, at Nisqually, while peering through a thicket at a woodpecker, some passers-by asked what I saw.
I explained that I wasn't sure if it was a Hairy or Downy woodpecker and I was trying to get a better look. As they disappeared down the trail I heard a few guffaws.
Of course, they may have been laughing at something else.
It was a Hairy woodpecker.
Michael Brown
mbeb1215 at delphi.com
Puyallup, WA