Word: warblers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Last year, after seeing two birds I could not identify (a great blue heron and a yellow warbler), I went out and bought A Field Guide to Birds. Since then, my social life has become a shambles, my budget goes to the sport, and my mother refuses to drive with me because I watch for birds instead of watching the road...
...most birds (California, Texas and Florida), followed by forays onto the big-time birding circuit: southeast Arizona for Mexican specialties, the Dry Tortugas for noddies and boobies, Alaska for arctic and Asian species. The final step is the long trip to see a single bird: Michigan for Kirtland's warbler, Calcasieu County in Louisiana for the black francolin, a grueling five-mile trek up the Chisos Mountains in Texas for the Colima warbler...
...some 550 species in the state. Racing from site to site by foot, van and plane, the four were really humming. From the great crested flycatcher all the way to the least grebe, they totted up tally after tally. The black-bellied whistling duck, the Swainson's warbler, the pileated woodpecker, the Caspian tern, the chachalaca and the dickcissel were all sighted, and all, says Peterson, were "old friends either by sight or sound." In the end the total was 235, beating the old mark by four species. Peterson's advice to would-be birders: "Three things...
...sing much better than a shower warbler," carped one drama critic. But on creaky knee and in creakier voice, Joe Namath scored big with his audience in Li'l Abner. Making his musical debut at Atlanta's Civic Center, the former New York Jet nimbly slipped through some opening-night tight spots. When upstaged by a squealing pig, he simply outbellowed the boorish ham. Later, when his pitch wandered way offsides in a love duet with Hee-Haw's Misty Rowe as Daisy Mae, off-Broadway Joe just laughed along with the twittering crowd...
Christmas came and passed, and Vardaman was still three birds short of 700. Then came word of sightings of three more varieties: a skua in Ocean City, Md., a stripe-headed tanager in Miami and a golden-crowned warbler in Brownsville, Texas. Vardaman dashed to Ocean City on Dec. 28, spotted the skua and was on his way to Florida and Texas when he learned that the birds had flown. He was still tempted to check for himself, but decided otherwise. "To hell with it," he says. "It was New Year's Eve, and I was dead tired...