A lesson in managing expectation

[sholio]

Yesterday I went for a long walk on the creek in the spring sunshine. (The fact that you can still walk easily and safely on the creek ice is one of the many symptoms that we're stuck in Narnia this year: always winter, never Christmas!) Along the way I heard a birdsong I've never heard before, which made me pause to try to figure out what was making it -- I'm always interested in seeing something new. And it was a really odd song, a cheerful twitter that would occasionally shift to a low raspy tone. Eventually I located the culprit, a northern shrike perched in the top of an aspen on the bank. (Here is a singing shrike - it shifts to the raspy note at about 0:39.) I was ridiculously excited about this, since I knew that shrikes are all over Alaska but I'm not sure if I've ever actually seen one, and definitely not here.

So I had to share this exciting discovery when I got home.

Me: I saw a shrike today!
Husband: What's a shrike?

I was prepared for this, so I launched into an explanation.

Me: It's a small predatory bird, about the size of a jay -- here, I can get the birdbook and show you a picture --
Him: Could you be a little less specific? Okay, it's a bird. Got it.

Undaunted, I showed him the picture in the book.

Him: Okay, so it's a gray bird.
Me: ... yes, it's a gray bird.

He finds my fascination with plants and animals completely baffling, because to him there are few things less interesting than identifying songbirds by sound or figuring out the finer points of distinction between willows and alders. (But it's fun!)

On a completely different subject, I cannot get over how strange and wrong it feels to reblog uncut spoiler posts about the new Iron Man movie on Tumblr. I know it's how things work over there and people filter things via tags, but it feels like the worst kind of fannish etiquette failure to me. (If you want to follow me there, my tumblr is icefallstudio. The original idea when I created it a year or so ago was that I'd post my art there, but that hasn't really happened - although it may eventually! - so at the moment I'm just using it for reblogging IM3 squeeflail.)

Comments

[mrkinch]

How cool! Not much of a song, but it would certainly get my attention as unusual. There are shrikes a bit east of here but I never see them either. I keep hoping that one of the birding by ear field trips will bring me to one.

[sholio]

It was pretty nifty, especially since I'd always hoped to see one, and then ... there it was! Good luck finding one yourself. :)

[schneefink]

Shrikes are cool!
And thanks for the warning, I'll unfollow you on Tumblr until I've seen IM3. I'm too lazy to figure out how to filter via tags (and I shouldn't have to /entitled whining ^^)

[sholio]

Shriiiiikes!

Yeah, unfollow without prejudice. :) I'm sorry about my tumblr becoming a spoilpocalypse -- the nature of Tumblr doesn't really allow for anything else! It does feel very weird; I feel like I'm being a terribly negligent fan, but there's not really a way around it if I want to reblog spoilery stuff.

[schneefink]

Tumblr seems so terribly inconvenient to use for me. I couldn't even figure out how to use normal html tags, I wouldn't even attempt cut tags. Argh. But I couldn't resist all the pretty pictures in the end ;)

[starwatcher]

.
*g* I once said to my sister, "Listen! There's a mockingbird!"

Her response was, "How can you tell?"

*facepalm*

I also try to identify birds unknown to me; I keep a field guide in the glove box of my truck for 'emergency' identification. Unfortunately, I sometimes can't visually locate what I'm hearing, so some calls remain a mystery, but I know most of the birds in my area.

I can't listen to your shrike -- the sound is out on my computer. But I can leave you this tidbit: I once watched a roadrunner drive off a ground-bound crow. (I don't know why the crow didn't fly, but it was looking kind of bedraggled.) As the roadrunner feinted and charged, driving the crow back and back, it made a distinctive, staccato clattering sound with its beak; I think it was banging -- vibrating, really -- the edges open and shut. Very memorable; I heard it several years later and immediately said, "Whup, there's a roadrunner mad about something!"
.

[sholio]

Oh, that is so cool! :D

I just find the natural world completely fascinating. It's so full of hidden awesome! And trying to learn about it, and learn to recognize various creatures in it, is part of how I relate to that awesomeness, I think.

[mrkinch]

Gah. Of course we have loggerheaded not northern shrikes.*facepalms* And not luck yet, even on that.

[sholio]

Still a shrike, though! I'd never seen either one.

Good luck in your shrike-hunting!