...you breast feed your young daughter in a locked hide while watching birds. -- Joan Thompson
... someone is trying to sell you some swamp land in a 3rd world country and you actually are interesed! --Bill Kossack
...you want badly to sign onto *every* RBA list on internet, but you don't because of the frustration level of reading about birds you want to see, but can't. --Ken Gale
---when your early-rising non-birding spouse awakens you at 4:00 AM to tell you that there is an owl (Great Horned) on the rooftop next door, & you happily thank him for doing so! (my father's comment on being told this incident was, "You two deserve each other!" --Linda Lee Baker
...you cut up your old field guides to make flash cards, but then use them so much that you learn the characteristics of the cards intead of the birds (e.g. "a left-facing flying duck is a female Lesser Scaup")
...(similarly) you listen to bird tapes in your car so much that you learn to identify the Rock Wren as "the bird after Yellow Breasted Chat"
...you insist on correcting people who say "sea-gull"
...the most prevalent feature of your wardrobe is bird tee shirts
...your friends say that you are starting to look like a bird--David A. Jaffe
... your rheumatologist gauges how well/poorly you're doing by the amount of time spent birding! --Noreen Palazzo
... you are with Joan, in this locked hide, and are still watching birds... ;-) --MICHEL BERTRAND
- when you and your spouse are all dressed up to go to a symphony concert, the phone rings and the spouse comes back with the command: put on your wellies (rubber boots) there is a Purple Gallinule down at the marsh. (You make it at least for the second half of the concert).--Theo Hofmann
…When your kids call your car a "BIRDMOBILE" because the trunk is filled with all the things you might need at a moments notice for a rare bird chase. --Joyce A. Hoffmann
...your car sports bird related vanity plates. --George Dremeaux
1) Your parents take you to show you the burial plots they have purchased and you are very pleased to see that there are 10-12 1sandhill cranes wondering among the grave sites. "Oh, Mom & Dad will surely be happy here..."
2) While spending Christmas with your family in Florida you, your husband, and 8-year-old son head for Merritt Island NWR while your sisters and their partners head for Epcot. ... and you know that YOU did the sane thing! --Mary Kimberly
--- on a business trip you tell your coworkers you are going to look for the blue-footed booby, and have to bring in a field guide to prove to them you are not making this up.
--- you carry binoculars in both cars in addition to a pair in the kitchen to watch out your window as you eat breakfast as well as the "good" pair tucked away in your backpack.
--- you have coworkers calling you on the phone to come by their office to id a bird out their office window.--Kathy Neugebauer
-- you scrounge around to find a baby monitor to set up OUTSIDE to listen to the birds in the kitchen.
-- And you've given one to a sister for her birthday present and convinced a second sister that's what she should do with her baby monitor now that she doesn't need it for her youngest child.
-- You know your friend is one also when he's excited to recieve a used baby monitor for his Christmas present.--Vicki Williams
... you take your binoculars and field guide to bed with you, so you can identify the birds you see in your dreams. --Melinda Stamp
....your license plate IBIRD matches your e-mail address.
....you are divorced because your spouse said "It's either me or the birds" and of course you chose the birds. --Joyce A. Hoffmann
...your teenage daughter says "Daddy, how come on the three times we've ever been to Texas we never have time to see the Alamo, but we always have time to visit those sewage ponds (Hornsby Bend)?" --Chris Hepburn
... you raise mealworms just to feed birds!!--Laura Erickson
...your most significant relationships are with people you unexpectedly yet repeatedly encounter along otherwise deserted roads.
...your idea of an good time is writing documentation for the rarity you saw last weekend.
...you get up earlier on weekends to go birding than you do during the week to go to work.
...you subscribe to birding periodicals originating in countries other than the one in which you currently reside.
...your idea of recreational reading used to be novels and poetry but is now treatises on seabird identification.
...you check out an eligible person's optics, not his or her physical attributes.
...you hear a crime story on the local news and say, "Isn't that where we had the Lincoln's Sparrow that time?"
...you're hopeless at remembering people's names, yet you know the scientific names of all birds ever seen in North America.
...you're driving down a country road on a summer day, the radio on. The windows are rolled down and a brisk breeze is blowing past the car. The car is making all its habitual noises. You and your companion are chatting about your favorite albums of all time. An airplane drones overhead. You and your companion suddenly say, "House Wren!" in unison, then both of you realize that you didn't consciously hear the bird. You both have just entered the Birding Fanatic Zone.--Jennifer Hanson
--you don't close your garage during freezing weather so the birds can sleep in your coolers stored there. The loss of heat is phenomenal.
--you don't let your kids wear the knitted hats hanging on the hooks in the garage because the birds have built nests in them.
--you don't close the garage door in the spring because the birds are nesting in the garage door closing mechanism.
--your car has bird droppings all over it every morning -- oh well! --Marilyn B. Shuping
... you rise at 3:00am, meet a friend for breakfast and then drive three hours to Bodega Bay go get on a fishing boat by 7:00am. You get sick four times on the way out to the Cordell Banks. You see six Laysan Albatrosses, two Pomarine Jaegers, and scores of other great birds at close range when the deck hand begins cleaning the fish. However, this process makes you sick again. On the way back to Bodega Bay you get sick three more times. In the car on the way home you and your friend discuss what an outstandingly wonderful day it has been. --Michael Marsh
...after a six inch snowfall, you won't shovel out the driveway, or the front steps, or the sidewalk, or the back steps, but you shovel off half the patio in your bathrobe and boots in subzero windchill to spread seed on the cleared space because your juncoes are hungry...Julie Stielstra
...going off to Anguilla for a week on Saturday and my housesitter has detailed instuctions on bird care.--Jean Martin
-- when you explain to the immigration official that the Salton Sea is a booby trap. (True story with Guy McCaskie's english accent and Pierre Devillers' Belgian accent, Lee Jones and I stayed quiet in the back seat while the official politely asked us to pull over so he could check our papers.)
-- when on the day you meet your future spouse you invite her to the dump to count gulls on the Christmas Count and she accepts.(Well she was looking at the Skylark on Pt. Reyes when we were introduced by a friend -- and we did find the Glaucous Gull!)
-- when you move down the street you take your yard list with you and continue to add to it.--Ron LeValley
...When you stay at a Bed and Breakfast but don't stay long enough to eat the breakfast. -- Joyce A. Hoffmann
...you're schlepping through the swamp in search of waterfowl, the mosquitoes are biting like crazy and on the way out someone in the group says "Watch out for the poison ivy!"
...at the end of the trail, everyone checks each other for ticks.
Both incidents true. Pat Tagle Maurin
Panhandle Bird Club Main Page