Mum: Take any books you want.
Me: OK. Nice bird identification book.
Mum: Take it. We never look at that.
Fast forward about a year and a half.
Mum: We used to have a really nice bird identification book. I wish I could find it. Your dad and I would love to be able to identify all these birds that we see on our walks.
Me: blink
Mum: Sigh.
Me: Umm, you gave me that book.
Mum: Oh. Can we have it back?
Me: Sure.
Fast forward to two weeks ago.
Me: I need to get a bird book so that I can figure out what birds I have at my feeder.
Mum: We have a really nice one around here that we never use.
Me: blink
Mum: Here you go.
Me: Thanks.
Sigh.
By the way, it is a really good birding book. Color pictures, song identification info, habitat maps, and profile drawings for quick identification. My copy is from 1966 and sells for $65 on Amazon (crazy, there's apparently a collectors market for old bird books) but you can get a new edition for about twelve bucks...
and I will get a small commission. If you wanted a good bird book, now's your chance.
2 comments:
Thanks for this story Calvin! Reminds me of another Armerding mom I know... I hear frequent complaints about the missing Field Guide to the Birds so I will refer her to your Mom and see if, between the 2 of them, they can come up with a copy... It is probably lost in Dad's office somewhere.
Thankfully our book is called "A Guide to the Field Identification of Birds of North America" so there is no chance that this will result in an intra-family squabble over whose book it really is.
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