Hi Tweeters,
Scott Downes (see below) tells us he has gotten "this jinx bird off his
back" after his seventh chase for a Tropical Kingbird. I hardly think
driving around on paved roads searching for a bird qualifies for that bird
to be a "jinx bird". Just consider my nine or ten (or perhaps even twelve)
serious struggles through extreme forests of thick lodgepole pine and
subalpine fir with innurmerable downfalls that gave me countless scratches
and bruises in search of a Spruce Grouse. That constitutes a serious
attempt to find a bird. I have earned the right to call Spruce Grouse my
jinx bird. Driving around drinking coffee or sodas (or perhaps hot
toddies), munching on doughnuts and listening to NPR doesn't even compare.
We need to contact the ABA's (American Birding Association's) rules
committee for their specific defination on jinx birds. I am sure they can
clarify this for us.

This also brings to mind Charlie Wright's e-mail last year in which he said
he had gotten his jinx bird, Black Swift, off his back. Charlie isn't even
old enough to have a "jinx bird". To qualify as a jinx bird, a birder has
to have been chasing a bird for at least ten years. For Charlie to have a
jinx bird,he would have had to have started birding when he was two.
Really, now, can a two-year-old be a serious birder? Not by my defination.

We are in a day-and-age when, in baseball games, a batter charges the
pitcher when he has been nicked by a pitch, basketball players throw
temper-tantrums for minor infractions and who wants to even bother to
account for the behavior of football players. Let us not allow birding to
fall to those depths. We have standards to live up to. I challenge us all
to do it!

Denny Granstrand
Yakima, WA

Scott's e-mail:
>>Hi tweets,
>>Despite the weather being less than ideal the Tropical Kingbird was
located early in the afternoon, around 1pm or so I think along the willows
of Lk. Minard near the Tonquin ave bridge on the Marine View Dr. side. The
weather stopped raining briefly while I viewed it but the bird never left
its perch during the 5 or so minutes I watched so, probably hunkered down
for the weather.
>>Also of interest to watch was a group of 3 River Otters under this bridge
fishing and interacting with each other.
>>Glad to finally get this jinx bird off of my back! This was the seventh
time for me trying in Washington, persistence pays off eventually...
>>
>>Scott Downes
>>downess at cwu.edu
>>Ellensburg WA
>>
>
* * * * * * * * * * *
* Denny Granstrand *
* Yakima, WA *
* osprey at nwinfo.net *
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