The Old Coot is a birder?

By Merlin Lessler —

There was a bird on a rooftop across the street from me in Florida yelling, “Blow-Ah, Blow-Ah.” It was a call I’d never heard before. It looked like a crow, but I know what a crow sounds like, and that wasn’t it.

I should know; after all, the Cornell Ornithology Laboratory has a free bird-identifying app named Merlin, just like me. I have the app on my phone; I use it quite often, like when I’m sitting on the porch. I use the “bird sound” function to call birds in the vicinity to come to me. I pick one of several mating calls, and soon enough, a bird flies over but quickly figures out that I’m not a proper mate and flies off to tell its friends to stay away; it’s just an Old Coot calling, not the Coot Bird. (Coots are dark, chicken-like water birds.)

It is a fun thing to do, but it can get out of hand, as it did one evening at our friends Paul and Carol’s house in the early evening while we were sitting in their lanai at the back of their home. Carol said a lonely screech owl flew over and sat on the fence next to where we were sitting. It was quite regular; it came every night. Just one owl, all by itself.

She thought it was the only one around. I pulled out my “Merlin App” and scrolled down to the screech owl section and tapped on one of several available calls.

It didn’t take long. First one owl came by, then another, and then another. One flew into the screen around the lanai, then did it again. Being the jerk that I am, I’d overdone it. A single screech from Carol, not the owl, got me to shut the thing off.

I felt the same fright as she did; it was like being in the Alfred Hitchock movie, “The Birds,” where the whole town was trapped in their homes by angry swarms of birds that attacked and tried to kill anyone who ventured out the door.

Anyhow, back to the bird that was chirping, “Blow-ah.” It flew off before I could get the “Merlin Bird ID” App going to identify what it was. I tried artificial intelligence on Google; it wasn’t sure, but thought it might be a “Fish Crow,” and then suggested I install the Merlin Bird ID App.

It didn’t say it, but I could sense it and hought it was appropriate for me, since I’m a bird brain.

Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com.