Sunday, November 05, 2006

101 Ways to Help Birders

We were sitting around the BINAC family table on this lovely, peaceful Sunday afternoon, with our dog Pluto and our pet rabbit Vanilla, thinking about something we did in 1972 that we're sure would be quite interesting to all of you, eating our organic oat bran cereal and drinking our shade-grown coffee, lamenting the sad state of affairs in the cold, cruel world of bird blogging. Those darn bloggers are just so gosh darn mean it almost makes us want to cry. Why can't we all get along? Everyone is so childish. You try to be nice and sweet and kind and loving and all you get for your trouble are vicious insults. Why, we even tried to offer some assistance to a lady birder from Minnesota about where to report a rare bird and she got all grouchy and stuff and called us bad things (such bad language!) even though we didn't deserve such cruel and ruthless treatment. We were just trying to help. Why does she even ask for advice if she doesn't want to take it? Was it some sort of juvenile prank? A cruel trap to bait us into responding (who would ever fall for that;)? Why does she hate us so much when we're only trying to help? Why is everything so dark and cold this time of year? Why is the Blogger spellcheck so hard to use? Why can't the Bears win every game? Why can't we see a Green-tailed Towhee in Illinois? Why, why, why...(sob)...why, -- waaaaaaaaah!

But no matter how mean and cruel people are to us, we have to dry off the tears and move on.

We owe it to our readers.

We spent the whole morning online trying to Google a way to find the Minnesota RBA just in case we ever see a rare bird up there. We finally figured that out after a few hours, and noticed that there was some sort of book holding up the corner of our computer desk. We picked up the book and oh no -- we forgot to mention our new book, "101 Ways to Help Birders!!!" You can find this book at Amazon.com, it was released six weeks ago and is currently ranked as the #12,293,456 best-selling book at Amazon. (#234,564 in Sweden--yeah!) We would like to give our readers a bit of a preview of this book. Remember, this book is available at Amazon.com, Buteo Books, Borders.com, and eBay. Here is an excerpt of the first five chapters of the book, which is currently available at Amazon.com:

Chapter One: If you see a rare bird, call the local RBA or contact the local internet birding list.
Chapter Two: If you see a rare bird, call the local RBA or contact the local internet birding list.
Chapter Three: If you see a rare bird, call the local RBA or contact the local internet birding list.
Chapter Four: If you see a rare bird, call the local RBA or contact the local internet birding list.
Chapter Five: If you see a rare bird, call the local RBA or contact the local internet birding list.

If there is any interest, we will past Chapters 6-101 later, after we have a nice dinner of wild(Barnacle) goose, mashed potatoes, and gravy.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Chicago can't win because the Vikings are God's Chosen Team. Silly rabbit; everyone knows that (except, perhaps, the Vikings ...)! In the context of your NFL affliation ... now everything else makes sense ... !

Anonymous said...

Where can I find a copy of your book? If you knew who Laura Erickson was and what she has accomplished not only as a birder, but as a kind human being, you might not feel so smug. Birds bring me joy and pleasure; I am sorry that they seem to bring competiveness and pettiness to you.

Birding is NOT a crime!!!! said...

We are now taking shit from a Vikings fan? No way! Dolphins fans, sure, they beat us. Colts fans, sure, they're still undefeated. But Vikings fans? What is the world coming to?!?!?!

Birding is NOT a crime!!!! said...

Jane, go out to your local Borders or Barnes and Noble and you should be able to find our book.

But what does our book have to do with that mean lady? Did she write a book too or something?

Anonymous said...

What is the title of your book? I will check it out the next time I go to Border's.
Laura was my former teacher - 30 years ago- and she passed on her love of birds to me, so I guess I was taken aback when I read your blog this morning about her. This was my first time at your site, so I must give you the benefit of the doubt and assume your writing was an attempt at wit? Or was that your plug to buy her wonderful book?
Let me know your book title....

Birding is NOT a crime!!!! said...

The book is called "101 Ways to Help Birders." It's a small paperback book. It might be easier to ask for our co-authors, Thomas Lee, Vincent Neil, and Nicholas Sixx, who are all from the Los Angeles area and get top billing because they are more well-known. But if you search enough you ought to be able to find it.

Anonymous said...

Oh BINAC...that was priceless. I didn't know your co-authors were birders. But in all seriousness, you ought to write that damn book because way too many birders have yet to get that message. Nothing like hearing about stuff after the fact because someone couldn't take two seconds to make a phone call or send an email.

Anonymous said...

BINAC was the last time you found a bird that was worth reporting to a RBA? OHHHH that's right you hire local experts to hold your hand to show you lifers--my bad! Sorry

Illinois Birder

Birding is NOT a crime!!!! said...

Last night.

Reported it to your wife.

*ba-ding*

Thank you very much, there's a two-drink minimun tonight.

Birding is NOT a crime!!!! said...

Actually, to be serious for a minute...just a minute...Illinois Birder (the Illinois Birder from BirdForum?)may have stumbled onto an interesting topic for a new post: when do you hire guides, and why?

If we're not too lazy we'll get something up on this in a couple of days. Or not.