Comments on: Pivot point

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 15:14:45 +0000

I’ve never actually seen the Three Stooges, so I’ll have to take your word on that one.

By: poor_mad_peter

poor_mad_peter — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 14:50:47 +0000

I am tempted to call the woodcocks “Curlies”, because their mating call sounds so much like the “woop!woop!woop!” of Curly Howard of the Three Stooges.

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:37:43 +0000

marja-leena – That’s true for most birds. However, in some species of wrens, the female does what is called counter-singing – essentially dueting with the male. There are probably other exceptions, too, but I can’t think of any off-hand.

Theriomorph – Be my guest. (And yes, that was the prompt around which I built the post. You must be a writing teacher!)

Rurality – The one time I got a good, long look at one on the ground was when we were leading a large group of people around the property one drizzly September afternoon. Perhaps the bird was mesmerized by the presence of so many people, but we all got a good look at it before it flew.

David – Thanks, and thanks for taking the time to read and comment on that older essay, too. I sometimes feel sorry for all my older posts, which got stripped of their Haloscan comments when I moved off of Blogspot.

miguel – Interesting story. It would be nice to think that the birds are adapting to more heavily populated landscapes; they’re in decline in many areas due to so-called clean farming paractices, which leave so little brushy edge and old-field habitat.

That was probably a mockingbird you heard. They can range fairly far north in towns and cities, I think, taking advantage of the heat-island effect.

The plugin is WP AJAX Edit Comments. See my Credits page (which is linked from the footer) for links to all the plugins I’m using. (Well, all except one, Exec-PHP, which I don’t mention because it may consitute a bit of a security risk.) I’m glad you like it. It’s designed to make the blog administrator’s job easier, too, but the one thing I don’t like about it is that I can’t click on the names of commenters to go check out their blogs without first going to the comments section of the backend; if I click on a name here, it assumes I want to edit (and how likely is that?).

Laura – Are you getting the snow we’re having here? High winds might not dissuade the woodcocks, (see yesterday’s Morning Porch), but I’m thinking a snowstorm just might put a damper on things.

By: Natalie

Natalie — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:01:23 +0000

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By: Laura

Laura — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 04:56:28 +0000

This made me smile and want to get up early enough tomorrow morning to hear them for the first time this spring.

I’ve had a similar experience… flushing them in the daylight in swampy places… never quite able to get my eye on them fast enough. Such strange birds!

By: miguel

miguel — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 01:36:12 +0000

Dave, which WP plugin are you using for the readers to edit their comments? That’s so cool!

By: miguel

miguel — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 01:31:37 +0000

I saw my first woodcock ever on a late evening in the January of 2007 in, of all places to see for the first time a bird I’d been wanting to see all my life, in an abandoned parking lot while looking for an apartment near here. It stood there in the half light, neck craned, warily watching me approach, then burst into flight when I was just within the right distance to see it more clearly. It was a whirr of dark feathers amidst the rooftops and then was gone. Night herons, nightingales, woodcocks, and nightjars…all weird, shadowy birds.

One night I walked along the highway next to the Charles River in Boston and passed a lone dogwood tree from which emanated the beautiful, liquid song of some bird. I assume there are no nightingales in the Americas… so what was it that I heard that night? A catbird? Would you know? It was as if the tree was singing to me…

By: David Harmon

David Harmon — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:55:54 +0000

Very nice imagery, and ditto for your older discussion of woodcocks!.

By: Rurality

Rurality — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:31:23 +0000

“Would you throw your voice as far as you could, and then go after it, secure in the knowledge that what goes up must come down?”

So like a woodcock. That really made me smile! :)

They do their dance here as early as January. I’ve gotten close to several this year, but always unawares — we scare the crap out of each other, and I come away half exhilerated and half disappointed.

By: Theriomorph

Theriomorph — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:51:04 +0000

What if happiness were a pivot point you could occupy, even in the presence of unfulfilled desire?

Love this. And it’s a favorite game of mine, for writing prompts: the what if. Maybe I’ll steal yours.