geist

nice old ladies don’t chew

~ carin ~ 4 Comments

“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

just a minute

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

Here’s another one minute ‘movie’ feature, this time at Geist. Really more like sixty seconds captured on film.  I like the idea of stitching together a glimpse of the country this way—a kind of cinematic quilt. My favourite, without having looked at them all, is Albion, B.C., with the sound of the train passing by the ‘station’—all that split second excitement and possibility, yet leaving everything just as it was—leaving us to wonder: is that good or bad?

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