I found this link over at the blog of our friends at Holtzbrinck online... it is a birdPod, a newfangled way of identifying songbirds in the field for the truly dedicated. Their goal: "to facilitate the identification and learning of bird songs." To take an example from the website, if you want to find a California Gnatcatcher, just dial it in on the ipod, and there you have it!
I imagine it would make the "shuffle" function interesting... But I'm not really one to talk. My ipod has a Mets 40th anniversary CD of about sixty 10-15 second Great Moments in Mets History, so that between say, The Kinks and Slick Rick, you might have Tommy Agee making a great catch in the outfield for about 10 seconds. This seems to really annoy everyone but me.
At any rate, in the spirit of the decidedly new school birdPod, I thought I'd share a bit of the birdwatching section from the utterly old school THE WEEK-END BOOK. Starting off with a simple one, here's the blackbird:
The blackbird possesses an emotional quality quite different from that of the robin, being full of fears, suspicions and nervous reactions. He is almost as conspicuous about human dwelling-places, but never reposes in man the same degree of confidence. His loud chuck of alarm is a sign of his volatile and unstable temperament; anger, rufflement, uneasy protest change in a moment to the most taking airs of gallantry to his brown mate. In the air, over a short distance, his flight is weak and wavering, though he seems to gather courage and strength over a longer distance; and on the ground, where he proceeds by hopping and running as a thrush does, he makes a great show of jerking his tail and wings in a nervous and excitable manner. When the blackbird begins to sing in February his low fluting is unrivalled for its pure and mellow tone, and is deliveered with a leisureliness which draws out the full value of each note."Full of fears, suspicions and nervous reactions" and maybe just a little bipolar.
--John Mark
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