“Excerpts from a list of bird mnemonics, one of the many means employed by birdwatchers to distinguish one species’ call from another. The full list [of 94] can be seen here.”
Bittern, American bloonk-doonk
Blackbird, Red-winged konklaree
Blackbird, Yellow-headed don’t you dare
Bunting, Indigo fire, fire, where, where, here, here
Chickadee, Black-capped chickadee-dee-dee and cheeseburger
Dove, Mourning hoo-la-hoop, hoop, hoop
Flycatcher, Olive-sided quick, three beers!
Nuthatch, Red-breasted ink, ink, ink
Owl, Barred who cooks for you, who cooks for you all?
Rail,Virginia gidick, gidick, gididick
Sandpiper, Semipalmated tweedle dee dee
Sparrow, White-throated poor Sam Peabody
Thrasher, Brown drop it, drop it, pick it up, pick it up
Warbler,Connecticut whip it, whip it up, whip it good
Waterthrush, Northern nice old ladies don’t chew
~From GEIST 80, Spring 2011
There’s a bird in Saskatchewan that calls out, I swear, “I’m telling teacher on you!” I thought it was the meadowlark, but listening to an online recording, I find I’m wrong.
I’m adding that to my list of Reasons I Want To Go To Saskatchewan!
(Til then, how to find out WHAT bird this is? Hmmm. Shall we, uh, tweet the question??)
poor Sam Peabody is right outside my office window.
Outside mine is Cheerily, Cheer Up (had to check the list for this one); aka gardening robin chomping serviceberries… I’m taking his message to mean I shouldn’t fret over his eating them all… as in: you can go to the market and get more, can’t you? Well, then, cheerily, cheer up for pete’s sake…
He has a point of course.