A poem by Ogden Nash
Up From the Egg: The Confessions of a Nuthatch Avoider
Bird watchers top my honors list. I aimed to be one, but I missed.
Since I'm both myopic and astigmatic, my aim turned out to be erratic,
And I, bespectacled and binocular, exposed myself to comment jocular.
We don't need too much birdlore, do we, To tell a flamingo from a towhee;
Yet I cannot, and never will, unless the silly birds stand still.
And there's no enlightenment so obscure as ornithological literature.
Is yon strange creature a common chickadee, or a migrant alouette from Picardy?
You rush to consult your nature guide and inspect the gallery inside,
But a bird in the open never looks like its picure in the birdie books -
Or if it once did, it has changed its plumage, and plunges you back into ignorant gloomage.
That is why I sit here growing old by inches, watching the clock instead of finches,
But I sometimes visualize in my gin the Audubon I audubin.
- Ogden Nash