Cassidy Grattan has been a scumbag ally and nerd colleague for years. Together, often with the Great Ornithologist Felonious Jive, we have sweated for owls at the Salton Sea, donned sky island dresses in southeast Arizona, waded through deep Olympic snows for Pine Grosbeaks, braved the charges of Wilson's Plovers on the beaches of Baja, and drank absolutely obscene amounts of liquor over the years. Cass is, without a doubt, one of the most singularly bizarre and unique birdcentric writers of our time. For years, he has been kind enough to donate his musings to BB&B, most recently on Cave Swallows and a certain mockingbird. With each passing guest post, our readers have gone from simply being impressed to craving his posts like depraved junkies. And with that kind of attitude, which I espouse myself, the only thing to do that seemed Right in light of our friendship and the building public fervor was to extend an invitation to officially join BB&B as a writer. You will be happy to know that he accepted.
You can read the newly updated page about The Cassowary and BB&B's other, less gifted authors right here. I will leave you with an excerpt of an interview he gave us, some years ago:
"Sure I've got problems. It has always been unclear to me the relationship between personal strife and birding. Perhaps the answer is too horrible to bear. I try not to think about it often. At it's most benign, birding is a reason to go outdoors and get some air, exercise your brain, and take pleasure in the splendor and beauty of it all. But perhaps it is all you have, and the addiction has known this the whole time. Over the years it has slowly and gently herded you into isolation and obscurity until you have nothing else BUT birding. Hopefully The Truth lies somewhere between these poles, perhaps on the pole...which is where Truth belongs."
- Cassowary
I has bourbon and binocs. Can I write some shit too? ;)
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