Hi there,

Hi just saw this message in rec.birds, and thought some of you would
be interested in the challenge (I cannot really appreciate it myself, not
having a big knowledge about songs/habits of American birds...).

I post it without permission of the author, but I don't think that's a
big deal.

> From: fgt at cadre.com (Fred G. Thurber)
>
> Here are some more of my favorite quotes. See if you can
> figure out what birds are being described. Keep in mind that some
> of these accounts are from a bygone era, and the abundance of one of
> these birds has changed radically. None of these birds could be
> considered yard or feeder birds, but most are reasonably common.
> Have fun!
>
> -------------------------------------------------
>
>
> (1)
> We topped another rise and I pointed again to the farthest
> hill in sight. "Farther than that one?"
> Father laughed. "That hill is this side of Gary, and Gary is
> just about halfway there."
> So I watched the ______s on the fence posts at the sides of the
> road, saw the yellow of their breast and the spotted brown of
> their backs and the lengths of their bills. I watched the
> funny way they flew on their stubby wings. As I listened to their
> songs it seemed that they were saying, "This is the time to see the
> world!" and "Hello there, boy!"
>
> --Hal Borland describing his first visit (in 1910), with his
> father, to their homestead on the prairies of eastern Colorado
> in "High Wide and Lonesome", 1956
>
>
>
> (2)
> ...But as the the sun set that first night on Machias Seal,
> the fog brought quick darkness. Sitting on the rocks, we watched the
> lighting of the oil lamp high above us in the lighthouse tower...
> "Listen!" Allan caught my hand. "Listen to that bluebirdlike
> warble. It is the ________s. They are all around the lighthouse."
> ...Shadowy forms, small and graceful, were darting about in
> the beams of the light from the tower. They were giving strange cries,
> musical, quavering trills which were still low and guttural. Put to
> words, they resembled - "Pleased to meet you. How do you do?"
> In spite of our weariness, the invitation of those curious birds
> could not be ignored. We raced to the lighthouse and quickly climbing
> the winding stairs, we went out on the narrow, railed walk around the
> tower just below the light. The ____s were all about us. Now and then
> one would brush us with its wings. Occasionally one bumped with a dull
> thud against the glass enclosing the light. Apparently uninjured, they
> would flutter briefly and resume their wavering, mothlike flight.
>
> --Helen Cruickshank, "Bird Islands Down East", 1941
>
> (3)
> "Friendly, tolerant, gregarious birds, they like to roost each
> night on the same dead pine below. One by one they spiral downward
> giving transparent figures in the air while others maintained a holding
> pattern, sinking slowly gradually, as if reluctant to leave the heights
> toward the lime-spattered branches of the snag. ... Gathered on their
> favorite dead tree, heads nodding together, the ____s resembled from our
> vantage point a convocation of bald, politic, funeral directors
> discussing business prospects - always good, dependable."
>
> --Edward Abbey, "Watching the Birds"
>
> (4)
> It is a high, resonant single unvaried tone that fades at the
> end toward a lower register. It has caused panic, because it
> has been mistaken for the cry of a wolf, but it is far too ghostly for
> that. It is detached from the earth. The Crees believed that it was the
> cry of a dead warrior forbidden entry to Heaven. The Chipewyans heard
> it as an augury of death. Whatever it may portend, it is the
> predominant sound in this county. Every time the ____ cry comes, it
> sketched its own surroundings - a remote lake under stars so bright
> they whiten the clouds, a horizon jagged with spruce.
>
> --John McPhee, "The Survival of the Bark Canoe", 1975
>
>
> (5)
> After the arrival of the thrushes [thrashers] came the ______s,
> gushing, gurgling, inexhaustible fountains of song, pouring forth
> floods of sweet notes over the broad Fox River meadows in wonderful
> variety and volume, crowded and mixed beyond description, as they
> hovered on quivering wings above their hidden nests in the grass. It
> seemed marvelous to us that birds so moderate in size could hold so
> much of this wonderful song stuff.
>
> --John Muir, "The Story of My Boyhood and Youth", 1913
>
>
> (6)
> "A gentle hollow spreads before us for several acres literally
> covered with the ranks of the much desired, the matchless ___.
> As they stand in serried legions, the white mark on their
> heads gives a strange checkered weirdness to the phalanx; and we
> involuntarily pause, spellbound by the novelty of the
> spectacle."
>
> --Robert Roosevelt describing shorebird hunting on Long Island in
> "Game Birds of the North", 1884.
>
>
> --
>
> Frederick Thurber fgt at cadre.com
>

I'll try to monitor the outing of the answer on rec.birds...

Have fun

--
--------------------------------------------------
A bird in the bush is better than two in the hand.

Serge Le Huitouze Intelligent Software Group
email: serge at cs.sfu.ca School of Computing Science
tel: (604) 291-5423 Simon Fraser University
fax: (604) 291-3045 Burnaby, B.C., V5A 1S6 CANADA
http://www.isg.sfu.ca/~serge/