About Birding: Part II

Now for some other observations about birding.

Number two: Birders like accessories.

I'm not sure why this is the case. Could it be that they have more disposable income, given their age? Could it be that the neck strap on their pair of binoculars is excruciatingly painful, therefore making a shoulder harness absolutely necessary?

Does it matter? You can get one at Wild Birds Unlimited for $24.99. This is good to know. A time will come when I want to sell things to birders, so it's nice to know they like to buy things.

Now, if I can just spot birds. I had trouble with this while I was out, but I was using stadium binoculars, which have a magnification of 3-4X. According to the reading I've been doing, it's better to have something in the 7-8X range, like one of these.

Who knew?

Oh, another observation. Number Three: Biologists are geeky coolness. Our guide for the morning was Chris. I had a feeling if he weren't being a BIRD guide, he'd more easily do the kind of exploring I prefer, which means stopping for anything and everything that looked interesting. But while we were out, he identified plant and animal life, told us interesting facts about barred owls (their hearing is so acute they can hear your heatbeat from 5 feet away), and he explained why trees that are drought stressed will uproot in a heavy rain.

Besides, he knew a lot about birdcalls.

If you've never listed to bird calls before, I recommend two sites. One is the site hosted by Cornell University's lab of ornithology, called All About Birds. Cornell University is the organization that Wild Birds Unlimited partners with as well, and with the right software downloaded, you can listen to all kinds of birds.

Another features all the birds of North America - WhatBird.com. I like this one because it also has a bird identification feature, which lets you narrow down birds you've spotted by color, size, habitat, etc., in the hopes of locating the birds you saw on the trail. I haven't put this to good use yet, but I hope to in the future.

Finally, I want to mention that the Fernbank Science Center is pretty neat. If you live in the Atlanta area, it's a great place for kids, gardeners, and all budding or closet scientists. After the birdwatching, I relaxed for a show in the planetarium, to find out what was going on in the night sky. On Friday nights, if the sky is clear, they invite you to come to the Observatory. They do all kinds of exhibits on butterfly gardens, composting, the latest Mars mission and native plants and animals.

And if you aren't a closet scientist, maybe you should be. There's nothing like hands on experience to get you interested in your surroundings. There are worse hobbies.

--Laura

Zoo Atlanta's New Arrival

The entry on the Zoo Atlanta website couldn't have been more enthusiastic:

Saturday, August 30 10:10 p.m. A Cub is born!!!

On September 1st, however, some problems began, prompting the zoo staff to move the baby to an incubator. They were concerned that Lun Lun wasn't producing enough milk to sustain the baby.

By Tuesday however, the baby was reintroduced to mama and mama seemed really happy to see the cub, cradling it. And the cub has gained weight, which is an encouraging sign indeed.

Perhaps you wonder why I'm blogging about this. Well geez, look at the last baby we had at Zoo Atlanta, Mei Lan. Now that is stinking cute. I remember that when the experts from China saw Mei Lan, they commented that the panda would have good fortune because the face shape was so pleasing and round. Can you disagree? So, this month we've doubled the baby population. What's wrong with blogging about that?

--Laura

An Atlanta Night Out

This is the Terminus 100 building on the corner of Peachtree and Piedmont, named I assume because Atlanta was once called Terminus. I took the shot heading to an office party at Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian steakhouse. As a reward for being the second best account in the region, we got money for a party, so this place with its selection of 15 different meats was chosen for our celebration.

I like driving into Atlanta the back way. By this I mean I skip the interstate. I take Moore's Mill Road (named for Moore's Mill, which was established on Peachtree Creek by Thomas Moore in 1828), which runs through, in my opinion, some of the nicest property in Atlanta. Atlanta is a city of decadent greenery and pathetic streets, and my route through Moore's Mill, West Wesley and Peachtree Road is abundant in both. I do not pass by the aging luxury on West Wesley without the phrase "Gracious Living" coming to mind. There are areas in Atlanta just as lovely. But I'm familiar with this drive, which gets me into the city and beats I-20 any day of the week.

I'm not sure I've ever eaten where the final tab came out to around $100/head. But that was with drinks included. In addition to the meal, I had some sort of fruit cream for dessert, a brazilian lime drink, a dirty martini, a cappucino and two shots of patron. We were trying to spend what had been given to us, what can I say?

At this restaurant, there's no menu. There's an extensive salad bar with everything from smoked salmon and proscuitto to asparagus spears and heart of palms. You could make a meal with that alone, but you dare not. Because the table was also laid with small metal dishes of fried polenta, mashed potatoes and fried plantains. Then the servers, called gauchos, fly around the room at a dizzying and overwhelming pace, holding sharp knives and metal skewers of meat poised over shiny metal saucers. They cut portions at your table, or slide portions off the skewers to your plate. Of all the selections, I think the baby lamb chops were the best. Bright pink, they were cooked just enough that no blood was left on your plate when you cut them, but so sweet and tender that you could almost skip chewing. One of the husbands called them "stunning." I tapped Dan, my unofficial date, several times just to see if he was conscious. This would be a bad date restaurant, because men seem to be rendered incapable of conversation by the endless stream of meat.

As we left, I headed behind the restaurant, because I'd done self-park instead of valet. It was late and much of the wait staff was outside, talking in Spanish and smoking. Suddenly the fancy evening was over and I was transported, away from the sophistication of the restaurant, to a scene of working people whose cars cranked hesitantly and sounded poorly tuned. As I put on my seatbelt, I stared at a group of waiters standing in the streetlamp's light. I wondered if they resented how large parties like us lingered to the very end, or if, as my director implied, the tip we left more than made up for the tired feet and sore backs. And as I drove home through the tall buildings and outdoor patio restaurants which Atlantans love, I noticed many in black pants and white shirts, the standard waiter's ensemble, sitting exhausted on curbs, waiting for buses on what must be their busiest night of the week. I hope my director was serious and had tipped enough.

As I returned to West Wesley, I wondered what it would be like to live without want or a sense of dread over financial obligations. Not only this, but to perhaps to be "old money," where neither parents nor grandparents had known a paycheck to paycheck existence.

Another road you cross on West Wesley is Howell Mill. They say it's named after Clark Howell, who was a prominent turn-of-the-century name both in the Atlanta Democratic party and the newspaper industry, which at one time was the same thing. His daddy ran with men like Joel Chandler Harris, an industrious newspaper man before he was a folklorist. They say Clark Howell's run for governor near the turn of the century sparked the Atlanta Race Riots (not as much because of him, but because of his opponent, who won). During his career, he won a Pulitzer, hired other journalists who did the same, steered the Atlanta Journal Constitution for over fifty years and served on special commissions under two presidents, almost a third. He even founded a radio station at Georgia Tech, for giggles. It strikes me that when you come from a family like that, you never wonder, tucked behind your tree-lined drive, if you will have enough money to get your roof fixed.

It makes me wonder if maybe a few of the roads around Atlanta shouldn't be named for guys who make their living each night working until they're exhausted, take the bus home to save money, and still figure a way to pay the bills and do right by their family.