Big Dorkus and the Birdwatchers, or Shaking Hands with Disappointment

Back in the 90’s, as a still physically youthful dude, the word “Playback” immediately assumed Tom Petty’s freshly released Box Set of rarities and mainstream classics. Put out in 1995, I bought it without a blink of hesitation as I stumbled upon it at The Warehouse, the crappy chain music retailer located in the crappy strip mall that also offered a crappy Subway sandwich and a crappy twenty-five cent soft serve from the crappy, defunct pharmacy. To be fair to the pharmacy, a twenty-five cent ice cream is still ice cream; but, to be fair to the sandwich shop, a Subway sandwich is still an objectively crappy sandwich.

At that time, I worked overnight shifts with my friend, M. Then, M was a fellow admirer of Tom Petty; now, still a TP fan, he is also a lead animator for Pixar. Between his obsessive drawing of ants, his various animational lampoonings, and his incessant soapboxing on how perfect was the new film, Toy Story, and my night daydreaming about seeing the world beyond Poway, California, we somehow managed to be in charge of overseeing gigantic plastic injection molding machines that spit out weird things like medical pump attachments and tongue scrapers. We worked thirteen-hour shifts, beginning at 11:30 at night, and ending, somnambulistically, some time the next day. We two scruffed ruffian dreamers sat in a “clean room”, booties on feet, white lab coats, special nets for our beach-salted hair. Whether up close then, or from here, at a distance, it was all rather silly, putting us in charge of anything. And the work was meticulously tiresome. We did everything we could to keep ourselves awake as we “ensured” the quality of random plastics that smelled like the Star Wars action figures of my youth youth.

M and I had a rule: never rub your eyes, never, because if you did it was impossible to stop rubbing; this was an easy base to help us stay present to the tasks at hand (if one of us reached for the eyes, the other was obligated by friendship to slap the hand away). But, music, we found, was the best way to keep us upright. At least half the shift was taken over by The Cure’s Head on the Door or Disintegration or the Staring at the Sea Compilation, while the other half belonged to Tom Petty, his Heartbreakers, and my newly purchased “Playback”. And from those nights, all of the way until maybe 2012, the year The Ferry and I started getting particularly attached to the world of watching birds, I, unconsciously, presumed that Tom Petty had exclusive rights to the word, but here we were, here we are, in the world of birding wherein “Playback” holds its own completely separate meaning.

Not the only Playback? Say whaaaaat?

I don’t remember when, exactly, but at some point the avian-fond community decided that “Birdwatching”, as a name for their hobby, brought to people’s minds outside of their community a vision of old white men with white tube socks pulled up mid calf, khaki shirts tucked into beltless adventure shorts, and a huge dangle of binoculars around their necks: Total and Complete Virgin Dorkuses. So, in trying to rebrand this billion dollar industry, and with the wisdom of a wisdomless age, birdwatching transmogrified into birding. Armed with fresh verbiage, those virgin dorkuses would now present as James Dean-ed images, lithely hip, sun-kissed men’s men, those tube socks still there, yet now tucked hidden into full length adventure pants. Their once big geek binocular monstrosities now sleek, slimline field glasses hanging upon their manly heaves of chest. Should my facetiousness have failed to land, I open-handedly say that bird-lovers, no matter the attempts at rebranding, will never be considered universal sex symbols…

But whatever verbs or nouns we use to describe it, observing birds is popular. While the term “birdwatching” dates back to the early 18th Century, it really hadn’t taken off as a something to do until the 20th, most assuredly hand-in-hand with the advent of leisure. The Ferry and I are quite dedicated, but some others have made it an all-and-everything part of their lives. We consider it a hobby, a pastime, a way to be present in a present-absent world; others consider it a sport, and as with any sport, things can get competitive. With new technologies at our disposal, and with new ways to have an online superstar-esque presence, birding really can come with the eyes on vying to be the best, to have seen the most, to be the most remarked-upon. “What is your life list?” “Who is the leader of such-and-such hotspot?” “Did you catch the so-and-so rarity at such-and-such park this morning? Oh no? Yeah, we got it!” And with that competitive influx (all a side-effect of our beatifically capitalistic nature, to be sure), has come this overweening need to get a bird on one’s list, no matter the methods. Photographers tend to be the worst, though birders are far from innocent: we have seen people shaking trees to get nesting owls to open their eyes, or traipsing past “sensitive habitat: no entry” signs to get their precious view or photo. Some methods are sadly and openly halfsighted, but one common way, viewed by many as harmless, to get a bird on one’s list, is by using … “playback”.

With either phone in hand, or with a blue-toothed speaker hanging from the front of one’s pack strap, an eager birder will play the sounds of a target bird. Birds, hearing a competing male, or a possible conjugal partner, are enticed to stop what they were doing (surviving in a harsh, harsh world) and come out to show themselves. The binoculared bystander may be all delight at having got the bird, but what has the bird received in return? An elevated heart rate? A momentary, and possibly dangerous shift in activity? Confusion. Sounds more like a US/Jamaica trade deal: not exactly mutual in benefit.

The compulsion to see a bird, particularly if you have come from miles away, is completely understandable. I freely admit this. But, what, for The Ferry and I is not understandable, is why we, as a culture, are so disturbingly allergic to disappointment. So, you drove all this way and didn’t see the Barnacle Goose. You took the afternoon off work and missed seeing the Fieldfare by a few minutes. Oh well. As far as I have always been able to tell, life is stretches of defeat sprinkled with moments of emotional and spiritual success, not the other way around. One would think, having been forced to be so accustomed to it, that disappointment would, at this point, be an expectation rather than an aberration. Maybe, again, this is all intertwined interminably with our landscape of pure, unabashed capitalism?

Within the birding community, whether to use playback or not is a contentious issue. Personally, it could be complicated, but with a bit of embracing the disappointment of not seeing , it becomes less so. When you play a bird’s song or call, it changes what it is doing to come and investigate. And while this may also take the human from passive observer to active participant, it takes the human to participant in what? A one sided moment? A US/Mexico trade deal? Perhaps if we go back to the idea of birdwatching versus birding, we may understand the issue of to playback or not to playback a bit better. Back then, in the virgin-dorkus days without the technological ability to use devices to attract one’s quarry, you either had to try your vocals with your own bird calls, or just simply be patient. Surely, before the invention of the sport of birding, people dealt with heavied loads of let-down: traveling distances with hope for a life bird, and leaving, having to be contented with the beautiful things you did see, rather than lament the things that escaped your eyes. This last place is where The Ferry and I feel more comfortable: wanting, of course, to have a great life-view of every bird, let alone a new bird, but also, in the failure to see, being able to find joy in just being able see anything at all. Sounds like lofty hippy stuff. Maybe. But how rock ‘n roll is the acceptance of being content, rather than the impossible goal of always being happy? Pretty rock ‘n roll.

In Peter Mathiessen´s masterwork, The Snow Leopard, he travels in the early 70’s into the depths of the Himalayas in search of the elusive and titular ghost cat. After months in harsh conditions, desperate to get but a glimpse of the mythical animal, he admits defeat, but also acknowledges the accomplishment of finding what he wasn’t looking for. From the book: “Have you seen the snow leopard? No! Isn’t that wonderful?”

For our modern society, this idea of traveling so far, putting oneself through so much, only to not accomplish the goal, well, this does not make a very sellable screenplay. But what if we were able to fail without that failure defining, in total, our ultimate objectives? Peter Mathiessen never set eyes on the snow leopard, but he saw the sunrise over the snow-saturated mountain peaks; he travelled with people, pious in their poverty, who taught him to look more thoughtfully at the road to inner peace.

As you, followers of our moderately sized road, might have gleaned, we have had our share of disappointment, but never did we let a disappointment seize the shape of the day. We have seen 532 species of birds this year, all without using playback, and we have “missed out on” seeing birds that we knew were nearby, and who just didn’t care enough to put survival on pause and come out of their safe hiding. Selfish little jerks, especially you, Virginia Rail! Early in our year, we saw reports from a young birder doing a Big Year, and from all of his reports were notes like “used playback and the bird came right in”. We birded the same locations, on the same days as he did, but we managed only 50 species to his maybe 65. Our list may have covered four hours; his, maybe one and a half. Did he see the burgeoning flowers? Did he acknowledge which were attracting what butterfly? Maybe not. Of course, we would have loved to see those species he got using playback, but for us that version of observing birds is more about the human, being able to tell others about your accomplishment, maybe to incite jealousies or to feel a justifiable sense of a “life well-lived”. Is it actually about seeing the birds, observing them, appreciating them as they deserve to be appreciated? It is hard to say, but, objectively, all signs point to “no, it is not”.

There is, of course, more than one way to live, and ours is admittedly the road less travelled. Being graceful towards a difference of opinion is, surely, an important life goal. It probably sounds spiritually elitist, particularly coming from someone like myself who is still a very obvious work in progress, but I really do believe that if we take the time to just be in a moment, to learn to shake hands in gratitude with disappointment, I think we will all benefit. In the appreciation of the failure to see, I really believe we can learn how to truly see ourselves, truly see our world, and to finally recognize how intricately tied we are to it.

Long Live Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers!

Mega Dorkus at Tom Petty Park, Gainesville, FL.