Subject: Re: WARNING, bad joke. RE: Pishing
Date: Feb 13 10:21:02 1995
From: Dennis Paulson - dpaulson at ups.edu


>I'm reluctant to post this to the full forum, but here it goes. Reading
>the thread on "pishing" and knowing that the birds may be responding
>because they are irritated does that mean they are "pished off"?
>
>No flames, I did warn you.

Ted, I think your joke is great (I'll confess to having used it in my
never-ending attempts to shock people just a little), but I have to add
that I don't think birds respond because they are *irritated.* That's a
human emotion that for the most part I wouldn't attribute to birds. Maybe
a red-tailed hawk becomes irritated when a crow dives on it again and
again, but I kind of doubt that even. Think of the things we do when we
get irritated, and try to imagine a bird doing them. They have a hard time
using a typewriter, so they can't write letters to the editor. They don't
keep dogs, so they can't kick the dog. All they can say is "peeeeeer" or
"peep peep peep," no vocabulary for cursing (maybe that's what irritates
them the most.....).

Birds come to see where the potential predator is; I think that's the alpha
and omega of it.

Dennis Paulson phone: (206) 756-3798
Slater Museum of Natural History fax: (206) 756-3352
University of Puget Sound e-mail: dpaulson at ups.edu
Tacoma, WA 98416