Pete Dunneans

            Pete Dunne is an author who has written prolifically on birds; both as books and as columns in various birding periodicals. What I find special about Dunne is his droll sense of humor, which makes his writing both fun and informative. He has a way of capturing the essence of a species of bird in a manner that is both charming and memorable. His witty caricatures of a bird have a way of sticking in my mind, so that whenever I subsequently see or hear it, I cannot help but recall one of Dunne’s clever one-liners. It helps me remember some facts about the bird, but it sometimes also creates an image in my head that I can’t shake.

            For instance, Dunne has a delightful description of the mourning dove: as a “teardrop with a tail,” or a “pear on a stick.” And that’s exactly how they look! But he also describes them as having a head that is “small—almost ridiculously so.” As a result, I cannot look at a dove without thinking that it’s tiny head causes it to be a singularly stupid bird.

            Then there is his caricature of the hairy woodpecker as a “big-billed street brawler of a woodpecker, that would have no trouble peering over a beer mug.” See if that doesn’t stick in your head!

            Dunne describes the American robin as a bird with a haughty demeanor, whose flight appears as though it is “struggling somewhat from either towing a load…or perhaps running out of gas (and the engine is sputtering on fumes).” Or the American crow, which has a shaggy, “paunchy look” and that walks “with a strut or a sailor’s gait.” The crow’s raucous demeanor causes it to be “obsessed with driving away hawks and letting the world know the location of every roosting great horned owl.”

            Back to some amusing appearances: the blue jay is a “curiously-shaped bird that looks like it was assembled from leftover parts.” The Whippoorwill “looks like something took a bite out of it.” The Eastern bluebird in silhouette “looks like Winston Churchill leaning on a cane. Really!”

            Or some descriptions of odd behaviors: a flock of American goldfinches swirl around, the birds “shifting locations constantly, so that it seems more an exercise in quantum mechanics than a flock.” Or the blue jay again, who loves “mobbing actions, whether directed towards hawks, owls, cats, snakes, foxes, humans… and sometimes nothing at all!” I have several times been attracted by a noisy flock of jays that incessantly carry on—but whose target I’m unable to identify.

            One of my favorite birds to watch is the Carolina wren, who sings loudly and merrily, and perkily hops everywhere. Dunne describes this wren as a “portly, potbellied, humpbacked, medium-sized wren that moves in jerky hops from the overturned flowerpot to the creeping ivy to the top of the fence to the trunk of a tree to the suet feeder to the inside of the shed with the door ajar.” Just change the locations to objects in our yard and that’s exactly what the wren does! In fact, we have discovered Carolina wren nests in three different outbuildings—even one whose door was not left ajar, but the bird still found a way to sneak in!

Finally, a few more appearances that I cannot shake from my mind, whenever I spot one of these birds: the barred owl “looks like it’s wearing a shabby, stain-streaked coat with a closed fur collar.” Or the screech owl whose “expression ranges from oriental inscrutable (when sleepy and eyes are drawn down to slits) to really ticked off (such as when someone imitates its call).” Or the turkey vulture, whose profile gives “the bird a dejected brooding look. It seems clumsy, almost oafish, on the ground.”

            I have much fun reading Dunne and always look forward to one of his droll descriptions. But as I wrote earlier, he has at times imprinted his witticisms in my mind. I can’t help but imagine a cane-leaning Winston Churchill when I spot a blue bird or think about what leftover parts that blue jay was assembled from.