Ornithology Quotes

“There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.”
― Robert Lynd, The Blue Lion; And Other Essays

“But in the early 1970s, we were not birdwatching. We were birding, and that made all the difference. We were out to seek, to discover, to chase, to learn, to find as many different kinds of birds as possible — and, in friendly competition, to try to find more of them than the next birder. We became a community of birders, with the complications that human societies always have; and although it was the birds that had brought us together, our story became a human story after all.”
― Kenn Kaufman, Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder

“What melody will our rivers remember if songbirds forget how to sing?”
― Sheniz Janmohamed, Firesmoke

“The average sparrow is something of a bore and the trouble is that all sparrows are average.”
― Will Cuppy, How to Tell Your Friends from the Apes

“[Audubon's works are] the most splendid monuments which art has erected in honor of ornithology.”
― Georges Cuvier

“There are still many unsolved problems about bird life, among which are the age that birds attain, the exact time at which some birds acquire their adult dress, and the changes which occur in this with years. Little, too, is known about the laws and routes of bird migration, and much less about the final disposition of the untold thousands which are annually produced.”
― Paul Bartsch

“Where did you hide your Mockingbirds?" he asks.
"Ornithology," she replies.
"You hid TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD with the bird books?" I ask.
Elena shrugs. "I was being ironic.”
― Paul Acampora, I Kill the Mockingbird

“Did ya know that female birds only got one ovary?"
"What're ya talking about?"
"See. These drawings and notes show that female birds only got one ovary."
"Dang it, Joe. We're not here for a biology lesson. Get back to work."
"Wait a second. Look here. This is a male peacock feather, and the note says that over eons of time, the males' feathers got larger and larger to attract females, till the point the males can barely lift off the ground. Can't hardly fly anymore."
"Are you finished? We have a job to do."
"Well, it's very interesting."
Ed walked from the room. "Get to work, man.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“Facts swooped like swallows, darting across her mind; there was a rush of pride in things still remembered. Singing was limited to the perching birds, the order Passeriformes. Nearly half the birds in the world didn't sing, but they still used sound to communicate- calls as opposed to song. Most birds had between five and fifteen distinct calls in their repertoire; alarm and territorial defense calls, distress calls from juveniles to bring an adult to the rescue, flight calls to keep the flock coordinated, even separate calls for commencing and ending flight. Nest calls. Feeding calls. Pleasure calls. Some chicks used calls to communicate with their mothers while they were still in the egg.”
― Tracy Guzeman, The Gravity of Birds

“She knelt and scooped sand in her hands, sifting it through her fingers, examining organisms left squiggling in her palm. He smiled at the young biologist, absorbed, oblivious. He imagined her standing at the back of the birding group, trying not to be noticed but being the first to spot and identify every bird. Shyly and softly, she would have listed the precise species of grasses woven into each nest, or the age in days of a female fledgling based on the emerging colors of her wing-tips. Exquisite minutiae beyond any guidebook or knowledge of the esteemed ecology group. The smallest specifics on which a species spins. The essence.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“Father has good reasons on his side, since few people can afford to go through life listening to the birds sing, and the sooner the little boy starts his “education” the better.”
― Eric Berne, Games People Play

“The chicken lives as if in a dream. She has no sense of reality. All the chicken's fright comes because they're always interrupting her reverie. The chicken is a sound sleep. . . . The chicken has plenty of inner life. To be honest, the only thing the chicken really has is inner life. Our vision of her inner life is what we call "chicken.”
― Clarice Lispector, The Complete Stories

“I felt sad for a parakeet the other day. He sings so much. Probably just wants a girlfriend.”
― Dmitry Dyatlov

“And he is an owl
He is an owl, "Man" tattooed in his armpit
Under the broken wing
(Stunned by the wall of glare, he fell here)
Under the broken wing of huge shadow that twitches across the floor.

He is a man in hopeless feathers.”
― Ted Hughes, Wodwo

“The public space of the museum is not my favorite, loud and full of tourists and school groups and hungry hordes. Their curiosity is endearing---they're acolytes for the natural world. And the marble gleams with architectural detail and precious objects all around. But on these, my gray days, entering the building carries the weight of death: all the specimens, thousands of carcasses of every species, stuffed or otherwise retrieved from oblivion so we can know them, yet all dead. The birds I draw and paint, all dead. On these days, my only defense is to imagine every pinned butterfly taking wing, every stuffed marsupial waking up, every preserved plant specimen blooming and carpeting the marble floor like a time-lapse forest, and every bird coming to life, flying up to the dome and away. On the days when the fog comes and hooks into my gut like a sharp-toothed parasite, these visions can save me.
The steadier, more consistent salvation, of course, is the work. I can lose myself for hours drawing, for instance, the common loon, with its inky head, white banding at the neck, and an intricacy of pin dots and fractured rectangles cascading across the wings. With the right precision, I can bring the deadness of a bird skin to a striking facsimile of life.”
― Virginia Hartman, The Marsh Queen

“To regain my equilibrium, I head for the corridor of bird skins. These are not taxidermied birds, not cute in any way. Still, it comforts me to open the wide, flat drawers and see them there, even if they are tied at the feet and devoid of the life conveyed in the average field guide. Ornithologists, it turns out, are both preservationists and murderers, learning how to scoop out a bird's innards and keep the feathers on. But as a bird skin, if properly prepared, can serve as a reference into the next century and beyond. Like this drawer full of cardinals: juveniles, males, females, specimens with winter plumage, summer plumage, and every variety within the varieties.”
― Virginia Hartman, The Marsh Queen

“The word "gizz" would shock the Tallahassee Ladies Guild, but despite its homonym, it's a common usage among bird artists. Like "gist," but with more substance---a life force, the spirit that reaches beyond the brushstroke to the vitality of the bird.”
― Virginia Hartman, The Marsh Queen

“Delores, the Wise Woman of Botany, told me while I was in Washington that every seven years, employees of my pay grade are entitled to a sabbatical, and I'm two years late in taking mine. She helped me fill out the form. I listed my purpose: "to study the birds of the southeastern United States with an emphasis on the marshlands of Florida."
Hugh Adamson sputtered an objection, but he couldn't do a thing. Apparently, the sabbatical is a long-standing Smithsonian policy that would actually take an Act of Congress to reverse. I didn't write on the form of my other intention: to freelance, get my name out there, and see whether Florida is where I belong.”
― Virginia Hartman, The Marsh Queen

“The next time you see a wee chickadee, calling contentedly and happily while the air makes you shiver from head to foot, think of the hard-shelled frozen insects passing down his throat, the icy air entering lungs and air-sacs, and ponder a moment on the wondrous little laboratory concealed in his mite of a body; which his wings bear up with so little effort, which his tiny legs support, now hopping along a branch, now suspended from some wormy twig.

Can we do aught but silently marvel at this alchemy? A little bundle of muscle and blood, which in this freezing weather can transmute frozen beetles and zero air into a happy, cheery little Black-capped Chickadee, as he names himself, whose bravery shames us, whose trustfulness warms our hearts!

And the next time you raise your gun to needlessly take a feathered life, think of the marvellous little engine which your lead will stifle forever; lower your weapon and look into the clear bright eyes of the bird whose body equals yours in physical perfection, and whose tiny brain can generate a sympathy, a love for its mate, which in sincerity and unselfishness suffers little when compared with human affection.”
― William Beebe, The Bird: its Form and Function

“Florence embodies what it means to love nature. We mustn't just enjoy the wild places and creatures that have our hearts. We must stand up, share what we know, and act to protect them.”
― Jess Keating, Birdlore: The Iridescent Life of Florence Merriam Bailey