The Name Conundrum

Allow me to give you a brief history of this podium for avian bombast.

In 2007, a nerdy fourteen year-old young birder created this site and began to write earnest chronicles of his local birding adventures. He named it “OCBirding,” short for “Orange County Birding.”

By 2009-2010, the blog had garnered something of a following and displayed increasing levels of grandiloquence.

In 2010, the author moved out of Orange County, rendering the title obsolescent.

It wasn’t until about 2012ish that the author finally realized that “OCBirding” was no longer an appropriate title. The lackadaisical author slapped the new name, “Not just birds,” onto the blog with barely five minute’s thought and returned to homework.

Now, in 2015, emancipation from school allows me ample time to fret over my blog. The insipid title offends me. So, after a full day’s contemplation, I hereby rechristen this blog “Obsessive-Compulsive Birding.”

There are lots of potential names out there. The Avian Confessions of an Ex-Nerd. Birding in Lotsa Places. Ornithological Warfare. Eat, Pray, Bird. You get the idea. I chose thus because:

1. Back in the OCBirding days, people jokingly joked that the “OC” stood for “Obsessive-Compulsive.” Take that.

2. The web address of this blog is ocbirding.blogspot.com, and I’ll be damned if there isn’t a better OC title than “Obsessive-Compulsive.” Hmm. Ornithological Crap?

3. I’m think I renamed the blog “Obsessive-Compulsive Birding” back in my college days. I’m just not sure. That’s why it’s not in the history.

4. Finally, my patterns of birding behavior are arguable obsessive-compulsive. I think about birds constantly and go birding all the time. And when I’m not birding, I’m worrying about the birds I’m not seeing. I’m not sure why.

The truthful nest

The bottom quarter of Sammy’s sweatpants were stained dark with dew and mottled with mud. He trudged ahead, cold, head scrunched into his hood, left hand pocketed, right hand cradling the GPS that guides us on our transect. A slender Red Maple branch, waylaid by his shoulder, sprang back and stung my cheek. “Ouch!” I cried.

            “Sorry, dude,” he mumbled. We walked on, pushing past brambles, cracking branches like bones, scuffling the leaf litter. My eyes slouched. Four hours of sleep is not enough…

            A feathered pinwheel erupted from the leaves underfoot. “Oh shit!” I hissed, flinching backwards. The olive pinwheel flopped away with exaggerated wing beats, chipping angrily.

            “Wait for it, wait for it,” said Sammy. He walked ahead and stooped, bending back some seedlings. “Ah-HA!” he yelled triumphantly. I walked up, bent over, and saw the nest—a straw-y cereal bowl submerged in leaves, invisible from overhead view. The three small eggs looked like someone had systematically sneezed fine brown snot all over them.

            I had never seen an Ovenbird nest before. I squinted at it and realized that it looks nothing like a Dutch oven. For over fifteen years I had blithely believed it looks like one. The reality of the nest at my feet confronted years of blind faith in the books. My heart sank. What other false facts are lurking in the literature? What other misguided analogies masquerade as truth?

            When I returned to my room, I gathered my collection of field guides and scientific journals and carried them to the fire pit. As the lying pages curled and blackened, I chuckled with glee at the incineration of falsehood. Take that, charlatans!