Now Hear These: Aggressive New Bird Calls
The Maggie Marsh Wildlife Area in northern Ohio, located on the shore of Lake Erie
between grainy Lamb Beach and soggy Turtle Point Marina, offers a mixed terrain of swamps,
woodland, and ravines, all ideal for birdwatching.
However, birdwatchers at the Midwestern locale report that some birds have modified
their natural calls to express an aversion to being watched. At the same time, the winged
creatures are taking assertive steps to ensure their privacy.
The birds, a few species anyway, seem to be auditioning for roles in a remake of Alfred
Hitchcock’s horror movie The Birds, in which our feathered “friends” gleefully attack humans,
pecking them to pieces in scene after scene. There are worries that this behavior may spread to
birds around the globe, and that the situation in Ohio may be the start of a fearsome avian
revolution.
We hope not, but here’s what birdwatchers in Ohio are experiencing:
The Northern Yellow Warbler now flies right in the watchers’ faces, and its familiar call
of pleased-to, pleased-to-meetcha! now sounds uncannily like I’m-coming-to-tear-the-hair-off-
your-heads-and-pluck-your-eyebrows-out-by-the-roots, jerkwads!
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The Carolina Wren, known for its innocent call of tea-kettle, tea-kettle, now dive-bombs
birders, craps on their cameras, and taunts them with cries of nyah nyah nyah, get-lost-you-
assholes! or what sounds close to someone saying those words.
Some say that the Barred Owl’s call of who-cooks-for-you, who-cooks-for-you now
clearly states peck-out-their-eyes, peck-out-their-eyes, I-saw-two-of-them-littering!
To a lot of folks, the chick-a-dee, chick-a-dee chirp of the American Goldfinch sounds
more and more like into-the-swamp, into-the-swamp, I will lead them into-the-swamp. To this,
the irritated finch often adds over-the-falls, over-the-falls, watch me lure them over-the-falls!
Instead of the familiar tu-wit tu-woo, the Tawny Owl has begun to twitter a sound that
many hear as I-despise-your-guts, you-filthy-trespassers!
By growing agreement, the Black-capped Chickadee’s hospitable soundalike trill of
cheeseburger, cheeseburger has morphed into crap sandwich, crap sandwich, eat a crap sandwich
you featherless buttinskies!
Peed-in-a-bush, peed-in a-bush, one of them peed-in-a-bush, pipes the Common
Nighthawk that formerly sang only peent, peent, peent, say a concerned group of nature lovers.
A respected member of the Lake Erie Birdwatcher’s Society, who prefers to remain anonymous,
states that one chatty Nighthawk, calling itself Raymond, perched on his shoulder and whispered
in his ear: Nice ear you’ve got there, pal. I’d hate for you to lose it, but you better stop peeing in
our habitat. The bird then flapped off, pinching the member’s earlobe in its beak.
Any number of witnesses swear that the male Northern Bobwhite has modified its call of
bobwhite, bobwhite to peep: douchebag, douchebag! The female Bobwhite, clearly more upset
than is mate, manages to tweet: it fries my eggs and broils my gizzard that these landlubbers
traipse in our woods all day long like they own the place!
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Wildlife officials are concerned that this new assertiveness may only be the start.
Birdwatchers report that some birds now espouse a political wokeness that observers may or may
not find disturbing, depending on their politics:
The Eastern Bluebird’s cheer-cheer-cheer, cheer cheerful charmer now sounds uncannily
like tax-the-rich and abolish-ICE, tax-the-rich and abolish-ICE! Missing from the bird’s new
song is any mention of cheerfulness.
The jay-jay-jay of the common Blue Jay has become the militaristic chant jay-jay
LGBTQ, jay-jay LGBTQ! If that isn’t the cry of a fluid-gender Blue Jay, what is?
The pleasant coo-oo, coo-oo of the Mourning Dove now bears a strong resemblance to
coo-oo go-green, coo-oo go-green and defund the police! That’s either one sharp dove or a real
birdbrain…your call.
And then on the less than woke or still asleep side, the Olive-sided Flycatcher’s aria of
quick-three-beers, quick-three-beers, now goes drill-baby-drill, drill-baby-drill!
It is impossible to know how long these new avian warbles will last, or how many birds
will be affected, but short of a ban on birdwatching combined with widespread political reform,
they may be permanent adaptations. We’ll have to wait and see, and hope in the meantime that
nature doesn’t mimic Hitchcock’s The Birds.
END
Michael Fowler writes humor and horror in Ohio, USA. He has recent posts at Little Old Lady Comedy, Defenestration, and The Freak!