I stood still to avoid frightening the bird away, so that I could hear its distinctive call (which I later learned is called the "kent call" by ornithologists). And then I heard it ...
kent ... kent ... kent ... kent ...
I actually got to see one of the last ivory bill woodpeckers in existence.
I told a group of ornithologists I came across in the woods that day about my find. They didn't believe me. I wrote to the author of a magazine article on the ivory billed woodpecker about my find. No response.
Heh-heh-heh HEH heh!
My bird encounters weren't limited to the woods of Maryland. A few occurred right here in exotic Magnolia, New Jersey.
One late Fall morning in the 1980s I was on my way out to my car to represent someone in court. The air was very still, and snow flurries were coming down. I heard some rustling in the leaves to my left. There, in my front yard to my left, inside my fence, was the biggest pheasant I had ever seen.
I took a single tentative step in its direction. The thing was startled. It flew over the fence, landed in Warwick Road, it flew up into the air again before a car could hit it, and made it to the access road to the Little League ballfield. I ran into the house to get my camera, a Pentax K-1000 SLR, but when I came out the pheasant was gone.
My next interesting ornithological encounter was when I was taking an early morning walk before work one Fall day. As I walked down Jackson Avenue from my house on Warwick Road toward Camden Avenue, I saw that "Zimmo" -- my name for Mr. Zimmerman on Jackson Avenue at Camden Avenue -- had left-out a large live animal trap overnight ...
... and that he had managed to capture a groundhog in it, and perched on top of the cage were two huge bald eagle youngsters -- probably from the Petty's Island brood in the Delaware -- trying to figure out how to get INTO the cage to eat the groundhog.
I tiptoed up Zimmo's walk to quietly knock on his door to let him know that he had a wonderful miracle of nature on his lawn on the Camden Avenue side of the house. But I guess it looked too much like I was stalking to the eagles, who flew away as I reached Zimmo's porch.
My last and greatest ornithological encounter occurred as I was walking down Warwick Road toward the Wawa store. When I crossed Madison Avenue and was in front of Olivo's house, I happened to look left and glance up to the roof of Trinity Lutheran Church and -- there it was! I couldn't believe it! A great horned owl on the church's roof, as still as a statue, poised to take-down whatever prey it might happen to see with its sharp eyes.
I hurried home to get my binoculars to get a closer look. In short order, I was out there on Warwick Road in broad daylight, my powerful binoculars from Edmund Scientific focused on the mighty bird.
I didn't notice that Rose from Phillips Avenue was walking down the sidewalk behind me.
"Hi, Pete!" she said. "Why are you looking at my church with binoculars?"
"Rose!" I answered, "How are you doing! This is really incredible! Trinity Lutheran has a huge adult great horned owl perched on its roof, probably looking for some small animal to pounce on!"
"Uh, Pete," Rose said to me quietly, "That's a plastic owl, for scaring away other birds."
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