I Don't Believe In Lying Back

"The horrible reality of suddenly being stone broke and homeless is more than most people in this country can handle. They will literally seize up and go mad. Your everyday Nervous Breakdown is nothing compared to the hopeless Craziness of a man who woke up in the morning as a Prince and went to bed as a Toad.

That is a guaranteed overweening shock to the Central Nervous System; if you don't go insane from suddenly having to see everything in the world from a point only two inches high, your brain will be churned into cream by having to crawl, head-first, with your eyes open, down a muddy hole in the ground, just to have a place to sleep.

Nobody could handle a situation like That. It is Unacceptable. It is worse than any dream that ever happened in the worst and most tortured hallucinations ever suffered by the most pitiful LSD victim. ... I spent a lot of time with Allen Ginsberg, and I have swapped gruesome tales over whiskey at night with William Burroughs, and neither one of them ever even mentioned a vision so horrible as being instantly changed from a rich and powerful human like Donald Trump into a common leaping toad."

- Hunter S. Thompson

Despite what assholes like Timothy Geithner claim, the recession is not over for a lot of people. Times are still tough, you know what I'm saying? Bad finances can lead to wallowing in a pit of despair, visions of a fate with No Fun.....the solution?

Gonzo birding. There, I said it. Has anyone ever combined these words before? I think that this is so......but I'm taking full credit. Who can stop me? With the financial behemoth known as The Human Birdwatcher Project behind me, I don't think I can be stopped. So welcome to the bright and explosive birth of the Gonzo Birding Movement.

Some well-read people can infer what this means. Gonzo Journalism was/is a movement that began with the late Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, where instead of attempting to objectively describe the action from a distance (which is, ultimately, futile), the journalist becomes directly a part of the story. Of course, anyone familiar with HST's knows that this is just the beginning....Hunter's "work" was hardly anything like what has been done before or since. Combining politics, prose, punditry, violence, and vast amounts of drugs, Hunter made a cocktail for immortality among writers around the world, not only in what he wrote, but how he lived.

But chances are you already knew that, didn't you? I feel like its necessary to rehash these points once in a while though.....it's kind of a bummer having all of your favorite writers be dead. At least that's not my case for music.


A Sanderling at Florida's Sanibel Island. Sanderlings are found at beaches on every coast in the U.S., and are generally the birds you see "chasing waves" in small flocks while feeding on the shore.

Isn't it great to know that you are witnessing history? The entire face of birding will be changed once Gonzo birding take root. Together, we will make birding fun again......we will no longer be policed by records committees or driven by nothing more than lists. We will no longer dress exactly like everyone else. We will no longer deny that we are nerds. We will no longer let this be the sport of aging privileged white people. We will no longer settle for just watching......



A young Wood Stork stretches out in the rain. Everglades National Park, FL.

Finally, Here's a great interview with Ian MacKaye (from Minor Threat, Fugazi, The Evens, etc), someone who has probably directly or indirectly influenced a great many of you whether you know it or not. Check it out!

The Sound of Young America

She's So Beautiful, She Keeps My Prescriptions Full

Ain't it nice when we can all get along? Suwanee Cooters with American Alligator, Wakulla River, Florida.

Even though I've been reduced to a state of deep catatonia for the past several days due to chronic health problems, I've been pretty stoked to be back in San Francisco. The birding isn't exactly top-knotch, but we can't have everything, can we? Regardless of this, I'm leaving tomorrow for Portland, Oregon, which has been hyped so much to me that I can't picture it being much more interesting or lively than a septic tank. To top it off, there are a few people that I harbor a deep hatred for who live there, who I will no doubt have to see and make awkward conversation with.....it's just my luck. But with my attorney present, as well as the one known as Breakfast Tits, The Red-headed Stranger, Shutter, and the Wandering Abysmaltross, how can I go wrong? So no BB&B for a little while, but enjoy your Thanksgiving and everything that makes life worth living. Call in sick, drink too much whiskey, watch some birds, and spend some money you don't have. Why not?

Happy Thanksgiving,

Seagull Steve and Felonious Jive

So It Seems The Well Is Running Dry

A Red-shouldered Hawk suns itself at first light.

Do many of you write? For shits and giggles? Probably not. Those that do can probably can do it with some artistic bent, either for poetry, music, etc. I wish I could do that.....but I generally can't stand all the lyrics I write. If I write a whole song, I'll usually want to keep about two (2) lines out of everything. I'm just not cut out for it, I suppose.

And so I am relegated to BB&B and the birdwatcher niche. With extremely few exceptions, birdwatchers are pretty poor writers. And those that do write with some style and flair have to do it for the mass market, so it leaves you wondering about his/her potential....but in the end you feel cheated, because you know the work is neutered, to some extent. The octogenarian demographic is not an edgy one.

Of course, this allows us here at Team BB&B to grow and thrive so you are presented with the uberblog that you are reading right now. Surely, processing these golden words and looking at the flashy pictures is like getting a deep-tissue brain massage.



Flamingo, the "town" on Florida Bay in the Everglades, is a hotspot for southwestern birds. In a few days, I found a White-winged Dove, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, and this Bronzed Cowbird all within a mile of each other. Weird.

When I'm searching far and wide for ideas of content to toss into here, I am always predisposed to the negative, i.e. news and research that points toward the idea that we are all doomed, rather than more positive anecdotes about how the Ruby-crowned Kinglets have arrived, and oh, aren't they lovely! Ostensibly, reading this blog can give one the idea that the great ornithologist Felonious Jive and I are mired in a deep malaise, which we are fated to be rooted deeply into for the rest of our lives. And you know....who am I to argue with that? I only have a vague idea of how you, my cherished readers, perceive me. I certainly feel an impending sense of doom, especially lately.....not quite like the bullshit-ridden apocalypses that many major and minor religions portend, nor any kind of bizarre Beyond Thunderdome scenario.....it's hard to put my finger on it.



Willets. Can't live with them, can't live without them.

But Jesus, who wants to read about that? I certainly don't. What a bummer. I think that since I've been sick lately my mind is more skewed that direction than normal. We should talk birds, really. I've still got scads of pictures from the fall tour that I can put up, and today we have a selection from the Everglades. Numerous signs warn you that vultures will vandalize vehicles if left to their own devices, but they left the Honda alone.....maybe they were waiting for bigger prey.....maybe a Hummer?

To be honest, the 'glades weren't quite as crippling as I imagined they would be....this can be chalked up to the rainy season I think. The huge (maddening?) concentrations of wading birds that is a part of Everglades lore were not quite there, as they were widely dispersed. When a lot of water is available, that means prey is not as concentrated as it is in the dry season....I would love to see what the place looks like in February or March. But with lifer White-crowned Pigeons, Short-tailed Hawk and Sedge Wren in the park, what am I doing complaining?



Black Vulture with Turkey Vultures sunning themselves in the background.

That Ain't Nothing But My Hammer Sucking Wind!

Brown Noddies on Midway Atoll's Eastern Island. I do miss that place...

There are benefits to my lifestyle, you know. I have no real obligations, can go wherever I can afford, and can more or less can be paid to travel. I feel fortunate that I (usually) like my job, get to see and make new friends everywhere, both avian and human. One of the smaller benefits is that I get really good at applying at jobs....well, let me rephrase that. I do it so much that I'm kind of flippant when I do it, so it's not a big deal. I had a phone interview yesterday and I actually enjoyed it. Weird.

Right. Being a nomadic bird biologist, in terms of employment, is a good thing. I've applied to seven (7) jobs in the last month, and it will be eight (8) by the end of today. Not many people are lucky enough to have those kinds of opportunities out there.

Of course, there are downsides. I have no health insurance, am unemployed (this is mostly a good thing though), will never make a large income, am usually away from my loved ones (this will change shortly though), and its damn hard to have any kind of normal stable relationship with any particular lady. Having a room can be nice too, although I am adapting to life out of the Honda. It's definitely turning into a hermit crab situation (I'm the crab, the car is my shell, obvi), although I have yet to decorate it with anenomes. Kudos if you got that joke.

Today's wisdom comes from Dr. Greg Graffin, UCLA professor and singer of Bad Religion, enjoy.

The "come join us" attitude that seeks to attract followers, usually results in a rabble of weak people who think that their power lies in the large numbers of like-minded clones they have compiled. There is no strength in numbers however, if the people are glued together by a short-sighted, self-serving, fear-induced mantra that promotes factions and exclusionary principles.

Strong ideologies don't require a mob, they persist through time, and never go away, because they are intimately connected to our biology. They are part of what it means to exist as Homo sapiens. Punk typifies that tradition. It is a movement of epic proportions, that transcends the immediacy of the here-and- now, because it is, was, and always will be there-and-forever, as long as humans walk the earth.

The Only True Messiah

Saw this in Everglades National Park....took me back to my mollusking days in Trinity County. All hail the mollusk.

Hello (m)asses. How are the th(r)ongs today? Positive, I hope. Because there is so much catatonically depressing, soul-crushing shit that goes down every day, that it can be hard to stay afloat sometimes. Most people cope, either knowingly or not, by keeping themselves in the dark as much as possible....all the way from their own problems to global events. And who can blame them? Well....I can....but only to a certain extent. When such ridiculous entities like Glen Beck and The Tea Party and Sara Palin and The Church of Scientology are presented as being legit.....a lot of us don't even have a chance. When the people are groomed to think and behave like sheep, there will be no one left to defend us from the wolves*.



Lesser Black-backed Gulls on the beach at Virginia's Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge. I saw more of these on that beach than I'd seen in my entire life.

Well that's a little heavy for so early on a Wednesday morning. I'm in Ventura, listening to the scrub-jays holler to eachother in the backyard. My fall tour isnt over yet, but I think its safe to say that Ive done most of the birding I'm going to do. I snagged 11 or 12 new birds, which brings my total of lifers up to 25 or so since July. Combined with all the new birds I saw on Midway Atoll earlier this year, I've seen more new birds this year since.....uh.....well, I don't even know. I'm pretty stoked about it though. The only last American "frontiers" that have a lot of new birds for me are in Alaska and the East Coast's offshore areas. But who cares? Bird-frenzies are best kept to one's self.



Anhingas are one of the characteristic birds of Florida. They don't have waterproof feathers so they are always hanging out and sunning themselves in between fishing trips underwater. Rad birds.

And then, it's probably best to go south. See what Mexico has to offer. Ride fast, live slow. Learn the way of the ground-cuckoo, which spends its life rolling around in the dirt and skulking around in the brush. It's a humble existence, punctuated with eating various lizards and insects. But that's what they are cut out for....they wouldnt want it any other way. What am I best adapted to?

Wow, this isn't really going anywhere today. I have a job interview in a few hours, which I'm not looking forward to. It's interfering with my unemployment.



Common Moorhen. There are scads of them in Florida. Not as sexy as Purple Gallinules, but they get pretty close sometimes.

* = Killing wolves in order to protect private property (livestock) is completely heinous and will be (and has been) a primary factor in the de-listing of any populations. Ranchers do love to shoot them, but I suppose they would prefer to do it legally......

Begging For Tips Is Begging Just The Same

One of the friendly faces in Florida's Big Cypress Swamp.

EL PASO, Texas. My fall tour is coming down to the home stretch.....I'm perched at the western edge of Texas, bound for Flagstaff, Arizona tomorrow night. It will be a long and perilous drive, fraught with stress because I won't be able to pick what music to listen to, with the glut of great new music that has come out lately (see the list over on the right there). At the moment, Strike Anywhere is really leaving an impression....its a breath of fresh air, after being in the south for so long. I also managed to catch Dead To Me and Banner Pilot in San Antonio last night, which is the first show I've been able to see since NOFX back in February. The new Dead To Me jams sounded pretty sweet.



A late-afternoon thunderstorm rolls in over the mangroves at Sannibel Island, Florida. You can see why people have an interest in dying here.

To my colleagues in Tallahassee, College Station and the legendary Schertz, I am deeply indebted to you, and I will repay my debt in blood.....or beer. Thanks again for having me over. The great ornithologist Felonious Jive sends love as well.

Bird Of The Day: Red-tailed Hawk. Yeah I didn't get out of the car much today. Tomorrow should be better though......




What is this. A kettle? Is this a kettle of storks? Or a flock? Whats the minimum number of birds that can constitute a kettle? Well, here's some Wood Storks in flight over the Everglades, at any rate.

Broadcasting Our Grief, Our Imaginations Atrophied

Yeah that's right. I was a flounder for Halloween. A flounder in College Station, Texas, home of Texas A&M. It was pretty well-received until I tore it off in a frenzy. We flounders are wide, which makes it difficult swimming through hundreds of scantily dressed girls who look like they are on their way to a porn shoot.

My fall tour has been a huge success, and I'm stoked I've been able to see some good people across the south. I'm cutting down on the birding aspect and have been concentrating on working more with bastards and birds, although I did manage to fit in some birding yesterday west of Aggieland, adding Orange-crowned Warbler, Neotropic Cormorant and Franklin's Gulls to my trip list. I found out my colleague Lee Vining here in College Station has actually conducted research similar to what we do here at BB&B, except her work is real and I specialize in wild accusations, rambling screeds, general tangents, conjecture, and other forms of Fear and Loathing. Yes, she is the first person I've met who have researched birdwatchers themselves outside of their spending habits. Expect a scandalous interview in the near future.

Tomorrow its off to Austin and recounting glory days on Midway Atoll. Word.



Rolling down the Wakulla River, south of Tallahassee, Fl. This is a good spot to see mermaids, although some find that they are not as good-looking as one might expect.




A Yellow-crowned Night-Heron lurks in the mangroves at Ding Darling NWR, Fl.