By means of Mike Lubow
An award-winning ingenious director, now retired, Mike Lubow has channeled his love of birding, nature, the Colorado mountains, and writing into his first novel, The Thought Folks. A nature-inspired journey romp, the e book is garnering reward for this professional and witty storyteller. Lubow additionally contributes to the birdwatching neighborhood as a workforce author for the preferred weblog, Two-Fisted Birdwatcher, the place he stocks his insights and reviews in ornithology.
We’re in Southeastern Florida. It’s now not a holiday. C’mon, the season’s overdue summer time. In different phrases, scorching, humid, in point of fact scorching, and prone to have a typhoon. However this isn’t in regards to the climate. Our seek advice from is a circle of relatives amassing. However this isn’t about that both. That is—what would you are expecting, making an allowance for the place you’re studying this—a couple of chicken.
A Southeastern chicken. A chicken of the semi-tropics we name Florida, and the flat-out tropics we name anywhere close to there the place a chicken can fly. And we see a chicken. Ok, for the instant, all else is out the window, off the desk, now not price losing phrases over. What we need to center of attention on is that this chicken noticed in scorching humid Florida.
However earlier than we get to the I.D. right here’s a a laugh reality: the chicken isn’t at the wing, now not in a tree, now not in water, now not in a palmetto or shrub, now not at the floor, no, the chicken is becoming a member of us for breakfast. It’s in a cafe. An indoor eating place. Sitting on a chair at a close-by desk.
People are having breakfast. (Eggs make an ironic look, however they’re overlooked through this chicken). The item you’d almost definitely need to know, making an allowance for you’re somebody who reads this chicken stuff, is: what sort of Southeastern chicken was once it?
Possibly you’re hoping it was once a Painted Bunting. The jackpot of Southeastern chicken sightings, however you assume: get actual. That wildly coloured chicken is simplest going to be noticed within the wild. So what was once it?
May just it’s a Hudsonian Godwit? They do display up alongside the Atlantic coast all through fall migration. However now not the case. We identical to pronouncing that title. Hudsonian Godwit. (And it’s in fact on our existence listing).
May just it’s Miami’s personal nationwide chicken, the state chicken of Florida…the Mockingbird? Sitting in a cafe mocking us. However no.
How about an American Coot. Neatly, the eating place did have some coots, however of the human selection. Yeah, and it wasn’t a gull, or a Booby—Blue-footed or some other sort, even supposing South Seaside is close to.
It wasn’t a Merlin, a Pied-billed Grebe, or Peewee. Now not a Boat-tailed Grackle, Scrub Jay, Swallow, or Oriole, nor any one of the vital myriad warblers that flock up our box guides and existence lists. No. So what was once this attention-grabbing restaurant-going wild Southeastern chicken?
Resolution. Commonplace Area Sparrow. The sort we see up north, and all over else. 12 months ‘spherical. A chicken this is not anything to jot down house about. One of the vital commonplace birds in The usa, and almost definitely the entire international. That little brown and grey area sparrow. So what’s the large deal?
It was once sitting on a chair.
In a cafe.
And it was once a chicken.
When you revel in this visitor put up, Mike Lubow has written a singular titled “The Thought Folks) which is to be had on Amazon.
Picture through Chris Peeters, taken from Pexels, a supply of loose inventory pictures