[at-l] Any birders out there

[askowronek at mindspring.com (Amy Skowronek)]

On Oct 3, 2005, at 11:20 AM, Mark Hudson wrote:

> I'll bet it was a vertical reaction <g>
>
> On my AT hike somewhere in Va I stopped at a shelter for a morning  
> break,
> and there was a small pile of stones sitting in the front corner. I  
> hiked
> on and stopped at another shelter for lunch, and there was another  
> little
> pile of stones. Hmmm. The shelter I stopped at for the night had yet
> another little pile of stones, and a register entry about the  "#^% 
> $^&#$
> whip-o-wills".
> A couple of nights later, just as I was about to fall asleep, a  
> whip-o-will
> called directly in front of the shelter, and I'm thinking "Oh boy,  
> this is
> it"... it called once, only once, and stopped, and it was the only
> whip-o-will call I heard on the whole trail.


I took my dog to a dog-friendly campground in northern Maryland  
shortly after I first got her.  A whippoorwill set up right over our  
tent.  During much of the night, we were subjected to a duet - the  
bird would sing, and at the end of every verse the dog would "woof"  
once.   First it was annoying, then it made me giggle, then it was  
annoying again.  I tried holding the dog's mouth shut, yelling at the  
bird, yelling at the dog, pleading with the dog, shining a light at  
the bird, all in vain.

-amy