LJ Idol Week 6 - Urban Legends

[walkertxkitty]

Florida has alway been a land of legends, and I don't mean Disney World. Disney World may have put us on the map as far as the rest of the nation was concerned, but long before there were rumors of alcohol serving clubs in the Magic Kingdom, whispered accusations that Disney never allowed deceased guests to be declared so on their property, and

Comments

[browneyedgirl65]

I have several birding friends who would just kill to be in your shoes! That's quite a story -- and sounds like a lovely patch of land you're on.

One note: the most illusive of legends -- I think you meant elusive?

[walkertxkitty]

Nope, it's a pun...I say "illusive" because I still can't prove it's a Lord God bird! For all I know, it's an illusion of some sort.

[puppetmaker40]

I hope you get your picture. That is a fascinating tale indeed. It would be nice to find out that these birds were not pushing into extinction.

[walkertxkitty]

I'll keep trying. I would strongly suspect that there is a viable population still out there (though according to the articles they're looking more toward the panhandle). This is some of the last remaining Florida scrub and wet prairie in existence. In many cases it has never been touched. I have trees on this property which are probably two to three hundred years old and when, out of curiosity to see if we could get a better date on the age of human habitation, we dug down we couldn't find any human refuse at all --- no rusted tin, no pop bottles, no cellophane wrappers.

So there's hope for these guys. We even have Florida panther out here, even though the only "official" populations are in the Everglades. A few years ago there was one --- untagged, a three year old male --- which was hit by a car and killed in the next county over. One untagged critter usually means there's others.

[je_reviens]

I must say, there is one part of this entry that causes me to doubt all the rest of it as being "strictly" non-fictional:

that's exactly what I said: "Lord God, what a bird!"

You've posted many many many times about your pagan beliefs, your Georgian line of descent, and you are always careful in your writing to refer to Goddess only.

Of course, I don't know you in person. Perhaps you walk around saying "Lord have mercy" and "Jesus Mary and Joseph". Certainly I have been known to do so. Maybe you did say it, bc people sometimes talk differently than they write, I don't typically see a lot of swear words in your writing and maybe you swear like a trucker IRL.

I don't care personally what you say, when or where...I am just saying, that little tidbit makes me wonder how much artistic license is in the LJ Idol entries.

[walkertxkitty]

Old habits die hard. I was in my mid-twenties before I began exploring paganism and I was raised Catholic. Simtra still has strong Catholic influences to his beliefs as well. So no, it's not unusual for someone in this house to say "Lord have mercy" or other variants. Being pagan does not exclude me from using common invectives in every day conversation.

And actually, in real life I swear worse than a trucker. Since my father was in the infantry and my grandfather was in the navy, I picked up quite a few colorful words and phrases from them. When I'm in polite company or writing, I try to tone it down but if I'm alone or among good friends the colorful colloquialisms appear.

I'm told, regardless of religion, that those who encountered the ivory billed woodpecker often said similar things. It's on Audubon society records s the bird's official nickname with that explanation for the reason.

It was known as the Lord God bird long before I ever uttered that:

Finding the Lord God Bird"

Ivory Billed Woodpecker

"Ivory-bills

[je_reviens]

Well you'll have to do an entry sometime about all the colorful swearing you know... maybe you can give me some new ideas!

[fidgety]

I've very tired right now and would like to say more, but:

I loved your entry.

Hooray for birds!

And, hooray for you for becoming a friend of Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers everywhere!

[walkertxkitty]

Thanks for reading! I just wish I'd known what I was looking at when I first saw him. We had the camera that day and he was clearly visible.

I'll keep looking,though, until I get a good sighting. Luckily our land is in no danger of being developed; it backs up to state recreation land...and no one wants to live in a swamp, really.

[n_decisive]

What an awesome take on this topic! I can't wait until you finally capture one on film.

Any chance of setting up a video camera to watch a place he/they have been seen before?

[walkertxkitty]

We're working on it. The feeding site is necessarily about fifty feet from the house so that the birds will not be disturbed by our dogs or cats. Unfortunately, that would mean stringing cable and we've yet to find a way to keep the foxes from digging it up (they apparently think something good to eat is cached there, they also dug up our satellite line and the well line).

From what I've seen, all attempts at remote viewing of the birds has failed but maybe we'll get lucky.