Cardinals Paint the Snow

Okay, I've always been a sucker for a pretty face, and have made a fool of myself enough times to think it's a gift, and remain a fool, as I seem to be very good at it.

With every ounce of respect to my new pedestal dwellers, the Eastern Bluebirds, I was walking through the pine woods on the new trail when I saw a Northern Cardinal thirty yards on, below eye level on a deadfall branch, and was renewed in the glory and majesty that is a most regal red cardinal in the snow.

And there were others about, maybe to remind me that every one is a snowflake, with distinctive coloring, yet another proof that unless creationist god attends the birth of each male cardinal, Darwinian selection is at work, constantly searching for that most perfect of reds.

I saw a male last week almost burgundy, beautiful, but not even near that royal scarlet, or blood red, either. And he had a mate, which shows who was doing the selecting, not creationist god, not Darwin himself. Because with nearly every species in birdworld, the male is most glamorously appointed, while the female is often bland, and nearly indistinguishable to all but the most intent observers.

Girls rule, boys drool. Many stag beauties, but the drab females are all mated up, with much local fighting for the subservient position.

And that burgundy color? May persist, may not. Because just like you and me, baby birds get a full set of X's, half a set of Y's. Again, girls rule, boys spit in the ocean.

I once read that some birdwatchers in England (okay, never "birders" here. Sounds like hunters) would travel to the US to see a cardinal in the snow, as there are no such creatures in the U.K.

Some more about "birding". Kenn Kaufman makes this point in "Kingbird Highway" about his thumb ride crisscrossing America to establish a new record for species identified in a year: that he never actually "watched" the birds.

I can't help but believe his epiphany came when a late-season spring ice storm wiped out a sizable percentage of the Myrtle Warbler population on the Outer Banks of North Carolina as he stood most helplessly by. Whatever, subsequent to his "record year" of bird logging, Kenn began to observe, and become a sanctuary manager, producer of a top-shelf field guide, and a collaborator with others in print.

As mentioned before, "birding" is mostly checking a list, with distinctive calls or songs serving with visual recognition as positive identifications.

I had a friend, a wildlife biologist, who was paid to drive a prescribed route and count species at prescribed locations. This was useful, as someone paid him to do this chore.

Birdwatching?

Hardly.

And birders who recognize songs or calls and check a list are not birdwatchers.

I have had two hanks for years, one red, one blue. The red one has considered its lot in life, and disappeared. So I found "bandannas", and bought a four-pack.

My affair with snotlockers may be disgusting, except this: when I got these hanks (sorry, bandannas, or, rather sorry bandannas) home, I looked at the label: "Falls Creek".

Except there is no location on the label, only "Made In China", and the same on the bandannas: "Made in China".

It is so easy to admit I know nothing about International Trade that it seems I'm proud of my ignorance.

Of course I'm not. So will someone tell me when we began to allow China to free-market in the US? I surely missed that boat. And Google was no help, identifying "Falls Creek" as a Chinese Company.

Again, I've never known any country could free-trade on US markets. So we pick somebody, and it's fucking China?!

We have hogshit better regulated than goods from China. And they can hang a rack of snotrags, and much other shit, too, in the Marion Meijer? WTF?

Something I've noticed these last several days is a few American Kestrels overwintering. And an oddity: in the summer, unless you drive by at 80 mph (and who doesn't?) kestrels leave the wire, circle, and return, usually to that same spot. In the winter, they sit tight, one with back to the road scanning a snowy, picked cornfield, with stalks up, and two others watching the road, the last couple days.

One hand says the short flight would warm one up.

The other sees a waste of heat, of energy.

Whether intuitively, instinctively, or knowledgeably, birds and animals manage energy so much better than we, one wonders why we abandoned research.

It was because no one listened.