Saturday, May 15, 2010

Birding Posts: The Final Movement






I'm at an age where life tends to be self-humbling. This can set you free. When I was packing for my trip to the New River Birding And Nature Festival, preparing to meet a bunch of people I'd only met on line, I was moved to do something about my Mom Jeans. I didn't even know there was anything wrong with Mom Jeans, and when I was brought up to speed, it did occur to me that I ought to be old enough to escape derision for wearing them. Still, I succumbed and bought a pair with a very modest lower-rise. Somehow I didn't notice till I got home that now my underwear was pooching out on top of them. Well, that's it. I'm not getting new underwear to bird in. There's a limit.

I needn't have fretted. Birders are nice people and they aren't going to look at your underwear unless you're perched in a tree forty feet up. Even then they're going to be looking for other identifying field marks. In my case, spots on the chest and a lack of eyebrows.

And while we're on the subject of all those people staring straight upwards into the butts of birds, isn't it time for another good Poop Post? Isn't this a narrative that should just flow? Since I began writing Murrmurrs, poop posts have showed up with regularity. I have a whole collection of Poop Posts piled up over there in the left margin, and those don't even include the ones that only mention poop in passing.

Bird poop is interesting in itself. Birds don't pee, they just produce uric acid and hitch it onto their poop, which together account for the white and dark portions. This way they don't have to fly lugging around a full bladder. They poop, pee, mate and lay eggs using the same hole. It's a one-stop slopping center. This combo pee-poop thing does make bird poop more decorative, which was never more clearly illustrated than recently in Texas when a single bird poop draped over the rear-view mirror of a car attracted a horde of Catholics who saw the Virgin Mary in the splotch. This is just silly. I took a look at a photograph of the poop in question, and it totally could have been Mary Magdalene.

The thing about a good Poop Post is it should come naturally. It should not be forced out. Fortunately, there was a lot of sign on this trip that it was meant to be. You all can go to Disneyland if you want, but I prefer to be in the company of folks who get down on their knees to speculate about turd origins. Here, Julie Zickefoose is conjecturing that the giant doody piles on the bridge might be otter poop. Isn't that exciting? Another of our guides, Jeffrey Gordon, contributed the fact that there is a name for otter poop ("spraint," which sounds painful). With just a little research, I discovered that spraint is best identified by aroma, described as ranging from freshly mown hay to putrefied fish. If Julie didn't get quite close enough for a good snootful, it can only be because she was unaware of this tidbit of knowledge. Because naturalists are brave and wonderful people. If I have a choice, and I do, I'm signing up with otter poop people.

In general, scientists are more interested in poop than anyone but your mother, and she's over it by now. Much can be learned from poop, even dinosaur poop. Scientists study coprolites, which are fossilized dung, for clues as to the diet and health of the depositer. Put another way, a coprolite is a turd that has turned to stone, which, if it's ever happened to you, is no laughing matter. For all we know, that's what did in the dinosaurs.

Still, I might have been able to resist the call of the poop post, if it weren't for the Friendly Waving Poop we all saw at Cranberry Glade. I had stepped over it earlier, and knew it was coyote poop, and when we came back around the same area later, one of the turds was waving at us. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that a handsome butterfly was feasting on the turd. So much for "pretty is as pretty does."

Five minutes later, we were in the Cranberry Glade Nature Center and came upon an exhibit that I am proposing as the official Murrmurrs Shrine. Please note that the exhibit is protected only by a sheet of Plexiglas, and one or more people had already been compelled to extract portions of the exhibit and stuff them under their shirts. See, it isn't just me.

And when a poop post is in the pipeline, it's best not to hold it in.

29 comments:

  1. Yes, don't hold it in, it might fester.

    I used to have many birds of wonderful hues visit my back yard, believe it or not, in the middle of Houston, Tx. I guess during spring migration, any port in a storm...at any rate, they seemed especially to like to poop on my husband's car. He turned to me one day after viewing his particularly well-decorated truck, and said, "Bird watching is not an unmixed blessing."

    ReplyDelete
  2. I am utterly fascinated....and it just cannot be. The subject of poop is far, far away from somethings that I would consider interesting. It's gotta' be you I figure.

    If ever I were to get an assignment to write about poop...I know I would sit there for ten minutes trying to figure out something. Then, I'm sorry, I would copy this post and turn it in. Automatic "A".

    ReplyDelete
  3. At least Jerry apologized. I'd like to thank you for inspiring in me...a much needed...moment.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I was on a river trip once when one of the guests refused to eat something that a butterfly had briefly landed on because, as you say, they get water or whatever from poop. I thought this was most extreme. I mean, really, how much contamination can a butterfly provide. they have teeny tiny feet.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Besides, small quantities of poop are probably good for you. No?
    I got an A+ in blood, Jerry, but I think poop is graded on a sliding scale.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am actually quite stunned at how little poop I saw, given how many birds I saw. Mind you, the poop that I did see was not at all little.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I once assisted a government agency in writing a watershed clean-up plan that dealt entirely with fecal and e. coli bacteria. Hundreds of pages of about poop, except we couldn't say poop. We had fun debating the merits of every euphemism for scat out there. Seriously, entire meetings were devoted to what words we could and couldn't use...

    ReplyDelete
  8. So, "I'm pooped" takes on a whole new meaning, and I'll not be telling the cat to scat anymore either.

    ReplyDelete
  9. In studying the gross antics of our feathered friends, there is also the issue of regurgitation which is a truly disgusting way of feeding your young (fussy eaters, take notice). My wife has stooped to studying "owl pellets", dissecting the dried "barf" revealing bits of bone and fur to determine what the predator was eating. Fortunately the emphasis is on DRIED pellets. [still, the thought of it makes me gag]

    ReplyDelete
  10. Robert, I like your wife. Susan, your cat will scat without your even telling her to. Kat, I sure hope you included "Number Two" in your report. Littleorangeguy, I saw that poop too, and it wasn't mine. I always flush.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I'm fascinated with animal poop too, though I like to call it scat so it doesn't sound so icky. I especially like to see the coyote and raccoon scat on my property -- it's interesting and it makes me feel like I've got a healthy little ecosystem going here. Like when my babies produced nice poopy diapers, which made me happy they were getting fed nice healthy meals. Bird poop, however ( in my humble opinion), does not reach this level of interest. Maybe because I get the TX variety which looks like pancake batter with fresh blueberries oozing juice. Frying on my car hood to a hard shine.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks for giving us the poop on ... poop.

    ReplyDelete
  13. My favorite moment in Paris was when my husband and I were relaxing in a park near the Eiffel Tower, and saw everyone feeding the birds. My husband said "Don't feed the birds, they'll poop on your head", and within a millisecond a bird flew over and pooped all over his face. Priceless. Thanks for bringing back this wonderful memory Murr!

    ReplyDelete
  14. You may have read about "calling in" birds earlier? Your husband called in bird poop. He has no one but himself to blame. Dreamfarm girl, I can't help but think of how my (sainted) mother came THIS CLOSE to using bad language when the birds went straight from the neighbor's mulberry bushes to her white sheets snapping on the line.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I'm with the otter poop people too. (Though you have to admit that freshly mown hay to putrefied fish is quite a range.)

    ReplyDelete
  16. I once parked my car under the shade of a tree for a few hours. It must have been the resting place for a flight of some small birds. When I came out I could hardly open the door and when I did I couldn't see anything until I made a small hole to see through the windshield and the smell was over powering. When my husband and I took it to the car wash it took two scrubbers with brushes to get it clean enough to get onto the automatic thing that pulls it through those big elephant size wash rags. Then we turned around and did it all again and it still smelled like a chicken hatchery. Since then I have been shat upon my head by a passing crow. That was all before I had heard of the great significance of bird poop.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Best poop post yet. I don't laugh easily in the morning but this brought tears to my eyes. When I got to the birds' one hole remark I lost it.

    Go, Murr!

    ReplyDelete
  18. You're absolutely pooplendiferous!!! <3

    ReplyDelete
  19. Excellent post on a most interesting subject.

    The study of bird poop is quite active and even enjoys its own lingo. The "Virgin/Mary/Magdalene" splay, for instance, looks like a somewhat unusual splerd. And I will anticipate your reasonable object that "Splerds seldom show any difference between their inner and outer envelopes," and grant that this one definitely seems to do so; but the general outline still places it in the splerd category -- at least to me.

    I suppose it could be a schplutz, but the bottom looks too even to me. ("Anatomy of the Splay," from The Museum of Non Primate Art (MONPA).

    Love your poop posts, especially when they include elements of art and religion.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thank you, Frankly, for a most informative comment. The outer envelope only appears to be in a state of diaspora, due to age and weathering. The important thing is, it's holy.

    Radweavr, if my car got so encrusted I couldn't open the door, I think I'd have it towed off. Then again, I'm not that religious.

    ReplyDelete
  21. A most learned enlightenment as always. I shall now seek out bird poop and learn what I can. I may be arrested, but I shall be wiser for it.

    ReplyDelete
  22. When I was an intern at the NMNH's fossil prep lab, one of the volunteers gave me a sample of fossil coyote poop. He told me that he had taken to whacking all suspected coprolites with a stick. If they rang like stone, he collected them. This practice began after he picked up a less than fossilized sample...

    ReplyDelete
  23. Oh yeah, butterflies and poop quite a common occurrence. They also like carrion for some reason. Red Admiral in your pic.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Red Admiral pic courtesy of Molly Daly, thanks. I took pictures too, but I didn't get as close. Mme. DeFarge, you are guaranteed not to be arrested for seeking out bird poop. In fact, it's a good way to get some "alone time."

    ReplyDelete
  25. I'm generally repulsed by poop, perhaps because of its inherently poopy qualities: A tendency to smell, and to attach itself to things you'd rather not have it attached to, like your car or your head. But I'll admit that one of the longest articles I ever got paid to write was all about poop. I clearly recall quoting a poop expert who said that human poop should be the consistency of toothpaste, although browner and much less tasty (I'm guessing). Something I'd never considered before reading this post, however, was that there might be link between poop and God. That has many profound implications, including this one: We never should've eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, because if we hadn't, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion now.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Oh yeah, butterflies and poop quite a common occurrence. They also like carrion for some reason. Red Admiral in your pic.

    ReplyDelete
  27. You're absolutely pooplendiferous!!! <3

    ReplyDelete
  28. Thanks for giving us the poop on ... poop.

    ReplyDelete