It’s 11 O’Clock. Do You Know The place Your Pink-eyed Vireos Are? – 10,000 Birds
I haven’t watched nightly information shortly, really, by no means actually watched it as a child both. Nevertheless, I bear in mind it, even when not for any of the information objects. As a child, I had extra essential issues to consider than native happenings being divulged by somebody in a swimsuit. If a reporter would have rambled on about fishing or fowl migration or the largest, oldest timber within the space, I might have been all ears however no, I don’t recall any reporting on such esteemed topics as these.
What I do bear in mind is Irv Weinstein, Buffalo’s favourite information man. He was effectively preferred, was a part of our group and seeing him on the TV display screen was an important piece of rising up in 80s WNY. I can nonetheless image him sitting there, sporting some 80s or late 70s swimsuit and tie and carrying glasses. His nightly information present would begin with both him giving the digital camera a severe look and declaring, “It’s 11 o’clock. Have you learnt the place your kids are?”, or, the identical curious proclamation being issued by some disembodied and equally severe voice. Both approach, it made an affect, at the least on me. I might assume, “Nicely, how would you not know the place your kids are? It’s so late, I imply, how might a child not be at house and already in mattress, or at the least in pijamas making an attempt to sneak a peek at late night time TV?”
Because it seems, from the 60s to the 80s, a variety of information stations posed that query however they had been in all probability referrring to “children” a lot older than my pre-teen self. The apply appears to have began with the arrival of nightly youth curfews in giant cities, maybe geared toward stopping riots. Since this evocative phrase turned out to be an efficient consideration getting assertion, it was nonetheless used lengthy after the curfews had been lifted. Every time I heard the nightly query, I used to be puzzled and couldn’t assist however think about some drugged out or drunk father or mother staring on the TV display screen and abruptly realizing, “Oh crap! Irv’s proper! The place the heck are my children!?” They might sober up and with nary a change of their crumpled and stained live performance tee-shirt, would leap into motion. They might run upstairs to verify their children had been in mattress and if not, would seize their jean jacket and run to the Buick. They might yell their child’s names out the window as the large, inefficient automobile combed the streets, yelling for Jamie or Tony or Heather.
After they lastly discovered their misplaced progeny they’d slam the automobile into “park”, leap out and with the door nonetheless ajar and the automobile nonetheless rumbling softly, would run to their kids and embrace them with aid. The father or mother would say, “Thank God you might be alright! If it weren’t for the information reminding me, I might have misplaced you!”
There can be crying and tears of happiness below the pale mild of the road lamp. The child can be grateful they’d been discovered, after which they’d head again house as one completely satisfied household. If the child had been a birder, although, they could have mentioned, “You already know the place I used to be! It’s fall migration and I obtained birds to take heed to. Fall migrants! Warbler chips and sparrow seeps, Bobolink notes and faint yellowleg whistles. Sure, it’s 11 o’clock however I’m questioning the place my birds of summer time have gone. You already know, all of these Pink-eyed Vireos and pewees that sang from the inexperienced woods of June? All gone now. The place can they be?”
If there was such a child, and if anybody else was questioning, I might inform you the place the vireos and pewees are, particularly the Pink-eyed Vireos. Proper now, based mostly on current birding, a heck of a variety of them are in Costa Rica. The previous week, whether or not birding dense and mossy foothill rainforest or woodland patches close to city zones, Pink-eyed Vireos have been a relentless presence. See a small pale fowl flit into view? Yep, that’s one other vireo, Pink-eyed and the twelfth of the morning. What’s that pale fowl with this bunch of tanagers? Oh proper, extra vireos. And people ones close to the Blackburnian? Pink-eyed once more.
I’m not complaining, I like seeing each single one. In Costa Rica, Pink-eyed Vireos may not sing and so they gained’t do a manakin dance however they’re nonetheless cool birds nonetheless; birds that entertain stunning northeastern woods with lazy phrases, small birds that fly all the way in which to the Amazon after which again once more. That appears past unbelievable and filled with perils and but they do it. Costa Rica is simply the half approach level, I’m glad to see them, completely satisfied to see Pink-eyed Vireos discovering meals in protected forests. If these vireos and I might discuss, I might inform them to provide my regards to the cover timber of the Amazon, to watch out and to make it again north and say good day to previous maples and beech timber close to Lake Ontario.
Extra might be passing by way of Costa Rica in the course of the subsequent month, hopefully heaps extra. I stay up for seeing them as they fly my approach, all a number of million of them.