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    The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America
    The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America
    The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America
    Ebook177 pages50 minutes

    The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America

    By Matt Kracht

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    About this ebook

    Perfect for the anti-aviary (or bird fanatic with a sense of humor), this snarky illustrated handbook is equal parts profane, funny, and—let's face it—true. Featuring 50 common North American birds, such as the White-Breasted Butt Nugget and the Goddamned Canada Goose (or White-Breasted Nuthatch and Canada Goose for the layperson), Kracht identifies all the idiots in your backyard and details exactly why they suck with humorous, yet angry, ink drawings. Each entry is accompanied by facts about a bird's (annoying) call, its (dumb) migratory pattern, its (downright tacky) markings, and more. With migratory maps and tips for birding, plus musings on the avian population and the ethics of birdwatching, this is the essential guide to all things wings. No need to wonder what all that racket is anymore!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChronicle Books Digital
    Release dateApr 2, 2019
    ISBN9781452177397
    The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America
    Author

    Matt Kracht

    Matt Kracht is an amateur birder, writer, and illustrator who enjoys creating books that celebrate the humor inherent in life's absurdities. He is the author of the bestselling The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America and its sequel, The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of the Whole Stupid World. Based in Seattle, he enjoys gazing out the window at the beautiful waters of Puget Sound and making fun of birds. He also likes bees. Like, a lot.

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      Book preview

      The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America - Matt Kracht

      176

      Introduction

      Quite a few people have asked me how I came to write about birds, and this is the story I tell them:

      I was first introduced to bird watching when I was in the fourth grade. My teacher was an amateur ornithologist and a total nut for birds. Our class went on bird watching field trips. We read about birds. We watched nature documentaries about birds. And we each had to write a Bird Report about a specific bird over Christmas break.

      I argued for the black-capped chickadee (I liked them, and they’re everywhere in the Pacific Northwest where I live) but was ultimately assigned the golden-crowned kinglet. These things are nearly impossible to spot: they’re tiny, they hang out in the deep woods, and they don’t want to be anywhere near a fourth grader.

      I spent countless hours in the cold, dripping November woods and the knee-high grass of marshy fields with the dew soaking through my shoes trying to spot a golden-crowned kinglet so I could write my observations for the report. I never saw one. Maybe I saw one once in a tree. But it might have been a pinecone. Impossible to tell at that distance.

      The Bird Report was the first real report I ever had to write. It was also my first experience with crushing academic anxiety. On the last day of Christmas vacation, I cried because I didn’t know how to begin writing about a bird I had never seen in reality. Vacation was over, there was no time left, and I was paralyzed by impending failure. In the end, my mom made me hunker down and do it anyway.

      When I was finished, I had a blue cardboard report binder titled, Bird Report, which held the meager collection of handwritten pages and drawings that I was able to eke out in one long evening of despair spent with an encyclopedia and a field guide borrowed from the library. It was C- material at best.

      Fast-forward three and a half decades. Life is great and I’m taking a nice New Year’s Day walk with my wife along the shore of the Puget Sound near our home. The air is crisp, the water is lapping at the shore, the wind is rustling in the trees, and the sun is shining. Then I see it—not three feet away in the bushes at the edge of the woods—unmistakable: The Golden Crowned Kinglet! I couldn’t believe it. It was literally within arm’s reach.

      I froze and pointed it out to my wife. "Look, I whispered loudly, a golden-crowned kinglet!"

      I carefully pulled my phone from my pocket to snap a picture of it—proof of achievement for an assignment I suddenly realized had felt incomplete for nearly forty years. But that tiny little fucker would not stop jumping from spot to spot, barely landing in the branches of a bush for a split second before it flitted away behind a leaf or into some tall grass, each time before I could find it and my camera could focus on it. It was like trying to capture photographic evidence of Bigfoot.

      Pretty, my wife said when it finally flew away into the trees, and we walked on.

      "You little son of a bitch," I thought. The rest is history.

      Section 1:

      How to use this book

      If you are new to bird watching, you may benefit from familiarizing yourself with this guide and its different parts, especially the part with the birds in it. In addition to a drawing of the bird, each entry includes a description of physical appearance and notes on its behavior, calls, and general disposition. These are intended to aid not only with proper identification, but to help you on your way to a deeper understanding and appreciation of how truly horrible these tiresome little creatures are.

      Beyond the descriptions of birds, you will find information in this book covering many topics of interest to the bird watcher, including the history of bird watching, methods of identification, where to look for birds, tips for bird watching, seasonal bird watching and, if you are inclined

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