You might be a birder if... (#5)

1. You spend most of the day on Saturday, after getting up at 4 a.m. making a five-hour drive, in near zero degree weather in snow and sleet with wet feet and inadequate clothing, looking for an unusual bird, and then exclaim "YES!" with a big grin on Monday morning when someone at work asks you if you had a good weekend.

2. Every time you practice your bird calls thinking that you are alone, someone pops up from out of nowhere.

3. The nastiest words in your vocabulary come out exclusively while birding.

4. In your worst nightmare, "Private - Not Trespassing" signs circle around your head.

5. When it come to chasing after birds, you sometimes, in fact regularly, walk the very thin line between courage and plain ol' stupidity.

6. You enjoy living, love your family and friends, have life insurance and worry about your health - but routinely attempt suicide every time you get behind the wheel of a car because you're always looking for birds and never at the road.

7. The roads around your favorite birding spot are completely covered with skid marks.

8. You fail to convince the retarded judge that "Because that #&*^%&^% scared away my possible ivory-billed woodpecker!!!" is an acceptable excuse for manslaughter.

9. There are more miles on your factory-new, one-week-old car than feathers on a flock of trumpeter swans.

10. No, you don't think all those little brown birds in the field guide look the same.

11. Getting out of bed fully energized at 4 a.m. is perfectly fine for birding but for any other reason, it's pure #@(&$.

12. You know more about optics than a lenscrafter, more about driving than a trucker and more Latin than the Pope.

13. That strange call that has a birder friend in a tizzy is nothing but his cell phone going off under three layers of clothing.

--- from Angie McBride, West Lafayette, IN