Feather Brained by Bob Tarte

Reviewed by Jeanne

Let me start out by saying I am a not a birder.  I can identify cardinals, robins, blue jays, and woodpeckers—providing the latter are pecking on wood when I see them.  That’s about it.  I admire people who at a glance or from six notes of a song can say with authority, “That’s a Greater Yellowbellied Sapsucker.”  Of course, they could be making all that up, because how would I know any differently? I was made aware of some birders’ obsessions in the book The Big Year by Mark Obmascik, but these were seasoned birders who had been identifying for years.  How on earth do these guys do that?

Fortunately, Bob Tarte came to my rescue with his book Feather Brained:  My Bumbling Quest to Become a Birder & Find a Rare Bird on My Own. Bob was not a natural birder.  At the tender age of nine in an effort to be cool, he set out for the park armed with a second-hand book on birds and a set of opera glasses. Let’s just say that first foray was less than successful.

A mere twenty five years later, Bob was ready to strike out again.  This time the impetus was due to an even rarer find: a red haired lady named Linda with a love of life in general and nature in particular.  He gets identification books, listens to recordings of bird song, and joins online birding groups where alerts are posted so members can rush to an area and maybe, just maybe, spot a bird for their life list. It becomes Bob’s mission in life to spot such a bird so he can alert the group and be the hero for once.  

The phrase “easier said than done” springs to mind at this juncture.

As with his earlier books (Enslaved by Ducks; Fowl Weather; Kitty Cornered), Bob writes with a self-deprecating humor.  Comparisons to Charlie Brown and his little red haired girl will not go amiss, although Bob also has to deal with Churchill’s black dog of depression.  His eye for detail and description is as keen as ever, even when prowling around a sewage pond for rare birds.  He’s accompanied on many of his expeditions by Bill Holm who, as Bob explains, “didn’t particularly like birds, but he liked them more than he liked people.” Bob’s strength as a birder is to identify birds by their songs, so he depends on Bill to spot the birds, point out his errors, and make unmerciful fun of him for being so wrong.  Even though some of the episodes border on slapstick in Bob’s recounting—I laughed out loud as he and Linda risk life and limb to check out an osprey’s nest built on a train trestle—the book was a wonderful look at how birders can be made, not born.  I found it reassuring as Bob misidentified wrens, grew frustrated at distinguishing calls, and sulked at birds that wouldn’t show up where they were supposed to be. 

But above all else, Feather Brained is a romance. Oh, sure, Bob learns to love birds and birding, but it is his love for Linda that shines through the pages.  They would seem to be polar opposites:  Linda is the free spirit who lived happily in a small trailer in the woods while Bob enjoys creature comforts like electricity and running water. Where Linda sees rainbows, Bob sees dark clouds with tornado potiental.  Love conquers all, however, and throughout the book Bob’s devotion never waivers, not through feeding mealworms to orphaned starlings, chipping away ice for the ducks, or being pelted with soggy monkey chow by a cantankerous parrot.  It must be true love.

And, hey—maybe I’ll take another look at that bird book I have in the basement.

Bob Tarte's website is http://www.bobtarte.com/

P.S. The Bristol Bird Club will meet at the library on Tuesday,  August 16 starting at 7:30 pm.  Their website is http://bristolbirdclub.org/ 

"Okay, I'm watching the bird.  Now what?" ~Melon

The Big Year

-->

Reviewed by Jeanne 

On January 1st, a number of bird-watching enthusiasts will decide to embark on a “Big Year.”  That’s when a birder spends an entire year trying to see as many bird species as he can throughout North America.  People have spent thousands of dollars and traveled thousands of miles in an effort to become the top birder for the year, an award that carries no prizes nor trophies, and which is done strictly on the honor system.  Sound crazy?  It did to Mark Obmascik, too, but he was intrigued enough to do a little research.  He concentrated on one almost mythic year in which three men set out to try to break the record.  The result was the book The Big Year:  A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession, a book not just for the birds—er, birders.

First Obmascik sets the stage by explaining that he wasn’t interested in birds when he started beyond knowing a few common species like robins or cardinals.  He thought bird-watchers were just a bit kooky, dashing off to inhospitable climes on short notice, enduring heat, cold, rain, and snow, just to see a bird. This impression soon gave way to a real appreciation of birders, especially the three men who set out in 1998 on their “Big Years.”

Sandy Komito was the record holder, a man who had seen over 721 species in a year.  He had shattered the previous record of 711, but he knew he could do better.  What was worse, he knew others could do better and he wanted to hold onto his record or even add to it. Sandy is one of those driven guys who has the focus and the money to do follow up on his ideas, though at times his personality made his quest a bit more difficult than it should be.

Al Levantin was an avid birder, but his job as an executive had kept him tied down.  Now he was retired.  He had time and he had money.  He’d waited forty years. Now he was going to spend a year chasing birds with his family’s blessing.  It was what he’d always wanted to do. . . wasn’t it?

Greg Miller was at a low point in his life.  He was employed, but his job was debugging code ahead of Y2K: tedious work. His marriage had fallen apart. He felt he had disappointed his family. He felt his life was drab.  The only time he relaxed and enjoyed life was when he was birdwatching, a pastime his father enjoyed.  No one had ever done a Big Year and held down a full time job.  Greg decided to be the first.  His gift of being able to recognize birds simply by hearing their song was a definite advantage and Greg needed all the help he could get. He was definitely going the no-frills route, living off jars of peanut butter and maxing out not only his credit card but his parents’ card as well.  He already felt like a loser in his father’s eyes because of his failed marriage; now he was driving them all into debt. 

The reader follows these three through triumphs, near-misses, disasters, and disappointments; through swamps where the mosquitoes are nearly the size of birds themselves, bouts of seasickness on choppy waters, trudging the tundra in Alaska, and a birdwatching hot spot near a garbage dump where a sense of smell is not an asset. There is a lot of humor in the book, but it’s not poking fun at these guys nor birders in general.  It’s more the slice of life humor, when Murphy’s Laws seem in full force as well as unbelievable good fortune. Not only is The Big Year a fun and fascinating look at a hobby loved by millions the world over, it’s a sort of rumination on following one’s dreams and the lengths to which one should go to achieve them.  Obmascik also manages to convey the thrill of the chase along with some fascinating information about birds and birders. Funny, thoughtful and informative, this is a book that even non-birders will enjoy.  I certainly did.  I even pause and look at my bird feeder a bit more often, and when I hear a news report about an unusual bird showing up somewhere I mentally picture excited birders flocking to the site to add to their life lists.

-->

Note:  the book was made into a movie starring Jack Black, Steve Martin and Owen Wilson.  While reviews were generally good, the actors’ reputations made the audience expect a slapstick comedy. There is a good bit of humor in the film, but it’s a gentler sort with far less pratfalls and jokes about bodily functions than some would expect. It’s more about defining one’s goals and finding out what is truly important. The movie took some liberties with the story—the characters were all renamed and some background altered—but the spirit remained true.