Re: Paul's 50 Years Birding!

PObrien776@aol.com
Sun, 9 May 1999 22:13:35 EDT


Gail,

It was a good day, no doubt, but I picked it 50 years ago.  On the day I was 
born there was a blizzard so severe that my mother couldn't get to the 
hospital, so our family doctor came to the house for the delivery.  Fifty 
years later, to the day, we had 27 inches of snow here.  I guess that's what 
they mean by a 50-year storm.  On my first day of birding there was a 
fallout.  Fifty years later to the day there was another.  Do I detect a 
pattern here?  In 1949 there were just two neophytes attempting to learn how 
to identify birds, Dick Wright and me.  We identified 44 species.  On Friday 
I had the company of my son Michael, Paul Pisano and Ottavio Janni (aka "The 
Brown-headed Nuts").  We got 200 species.  Talent helps.

I wish I had gotten started as early as they did, but I'm glad it wasn't 
later than sixteen.  Learning starts to get harder shortly after that age and 
goes downhill as far as the eye can see.  In fact, so do the eyes (and ears 
and everything else).   But it has certainly been fun.  It would be funner if 
I could just catch up with that White-faced Ibis.

Paul