{"id":108759,"date":"2026-01-16T07:31:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T12:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/?p=108759"},"modified":"2026-01-16T07:31:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T12:31:55","slug":"the-old-coot-is-a-birder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2026\/01\/16\/the-old-coot-is-a-birder\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old Coot is a birder?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Merlin Lessler —<\/span><\/p>\n

There was a bird on a rooftop across the street from me in Florida yelling, \u201cBlow-Ah, Blow-Ah.\u201d It was a call I\u2019d never heard before. It looked like a crow, but I know what a crow sounds like, and that wasn\u2019t it. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019m sitting on the porch. I use the \u201cbird sound\u201d 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\u2019m not a proper mate and flies off to tell its friends to stay away; it\u2019s just an Old Coot calling, not the Coot Bird. (Coots are dark, chicken-like water birds.) <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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. <\/span><\/p>\n

She thought it was the only one around. I pulled out my \u201cMerlin App\u201d and scrolled down to the screech owl section and tapped on one of several available calls.<\/span><\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t 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\u2019d overdone it. A single screech from Carol, not the owl, got me to shut the thing off.<\/span><\/p>\n

I felt the same fright as she did; it was like being in the Alfred Hitchock movie, \u201cThe Birds,\u201d 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. <\/span><\/p>\n

Anyhow, back to the bird that was chirping, \u201cBlow-ah.\u201d It flew off before I could get the \u201cMerlin Bird ID\u201d App going to identify what it was. I tried artificial intelligence on Google; it wasn\u2019t sure, but thought it might be a \u201cFish Crow,\u201d and then suggested I install the Merlin Bird ID App. <\/span><\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t say it, but I could sense it and hought it was appropriate for me, since I\u2019m a bird brain. <\/span><\/p>\n

Comments? Complaints? Send to mlessler7@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Merlin Lessler — There was a bird on a rooftop across the street from me in Florida yelling, \u201cBlow-Ah, Blow-Ah.\u201d It was a call…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":82349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Old Coot is a birder? - Owego Pennysaver Press<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2026\/01\/16\/the-old-coot-is-a-birder\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Old Coot is a birder? - Owego Pennysaver Press\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Merlin Lessler — There was a bird on a rooftop across the street from me in Florida yelling, \u201cBlow-Ah, Blow-Ah.\u201d It was a call...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2026\/01\/16\/the-old-coot-is-a-birder\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Owego Pennysaver Press\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/The-Owego-Pennysaver-49179420591\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-01-16T12:31:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.greenstreetdata.com\/PS\/owego\/files\/2020\/11\/Old-Coot.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"225\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"225\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"psadvert\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"psadvert\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2026\/01\/16\/the-old-coot-is-a-birder\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.owegopennysaver.com\/PS\/2026\/01\/16\/the-old-coot-is-a-birder\/\",\"name\":\"The Old Coot is a birder? 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