GREENE CO., MO. — Inspired by Lake Superior State University’s List of Banished Words, I’ve compiled (with apologies to the good university) a List of Words Banished from the Birding World for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness:

RELOCATED — Unless a birder captured the rarity under discussion and transported it to another location (which, aside from being illegal, could spark violent reprisals from other twitchers), he or she cannot correctly claim to have “relocated” the bird. On the other hand, maybe this explains why some people get all the good birds. You know who you are.

SP. — If you couldn’t identify it, then don’t report it. The instances in which “meadowlark sp.” or “Accipiter sp.” represent data of use to scientists or of interest to other birders are few and far between. Try harder next time, people.

WARBLERAMA — I’ll alert the media — or should we call a doctor?

MY FIELD GUIDE DOESN’T SHOW THIS BIRD — Yes, it does.

I KNOW PILEATEDS, AND THAT WAS NO PILEATED — No, you don’t, and yes, it was. You’re not allowed to talk for the next three days.

IBWO/IVORY-BILL/CONFIRMED SIGHTING/LEAP OF FAITH — This issue has stirred up more vitriol and hard feelings in the birding community than anything else I can think of. The slightest mention of the species is flamebait. Many civilized birders have given up talking about the situation, and I think everybody else should as well. Leave it to the folks who actually understand what’s going on. Hint: That isn’t you.

DIP/DIPPED — Far be it from me to criticize another dialect of our esteemed mother tongue, but this British-ism for missing a target bird has got to be one of the dumbest expressions I’ve ever heard.

X-BILL — This pseudo-abbreviation for “crossbill” is just plain annoying. By the time you actually find the key to make a hyphen, you’ve used up more time than you would have if you’d just typed it right in the first place.

BIRDERS FLOCK — No editor, it seems, can pass up this tired, sloppy pun in a headline about a rare bird and the people who wanted to see it.

FALLOUT — I’m placing a one-year moratorium on this word, which gets tossed around whenever somebody finds three Indigo Buntings in the same tree. In fact, evidence indicates that true fallouts rarely, if ever, occur these days as many bird populations continue to decline.

GREENE CO., MO. — A steady barrage of raindrops drove us would-be owlers back into bed early yesterday morning. Conditions had improved only slightly by about 7:30, when we started off into the dim, gray morning.

Bruce and I rode with Lisa, and it didn’t take us long to kick up a gang of juncos, white-throats, and cardinals. Rainclouds brushed the treetops on Bear Mountain, and we drove or walked mostly in silence, hoping to hit small pockets of activity: three Golden-crowned Kinglets here, a lovely Hermit Thrush there, and pileateds calling from deep in the forest.

When the birds proved exceptionally scarce, there were at least lush growths of lichen, strong old trees, or calling frogs to take our minds off the drizzle.

None of the roadrunner spots produced this year, but chickadee numbers climbed steadily, and juncos and white-throats grew in spurts. Lisa finally managed a sapsucker, and if our White-crowned Sparrows were actually seen in Arkansas, we had no doubt that they’d been inside the circle sometime during the day.

We saw robins and waxwings in good numbers through the day. Most junipers showed little or no fruit, but one big old tree was heavy with the bluish cones, and there the birds had come to feast.

We finished the day with raptors: a Cooper’s Hawk, two kestrels, and Black and Turkey vultures, and then we headed back for chili and a compilation. We’d seen just under 40 species, and we wondered whether somebody else had found the goodie we never quite managed to get.

But it wasn’t a day for exceptional sightings, and none of the other groups did too much better than we did. We finished with 77 species in the end, which is on the low side of normal. Red-shouldered Hawks seemed strangely absent, and Horned Grebes outnumbered pied-billeds 43 to 11. Ducks were scarce, and nobody had a roadrunner. The dependable vulture roost was a bust this year, and as expected, robins weren’t roosting in big numbers, as far as we could discover.

Yes, the day was wet and slow at times, but you know … I don’t think I heard anybody complain.

GREENE CO., MO. –

GREENE CO., MO. — There’s lots to see over at I and the Bird #39, so check it out (and have a look at some of Kevin’s gorgeous photos while you’re at it).

SPRINGFIELD, MO. — During eight months in Papua New Guinea, I visited parts of the nation that few other Westerners have ever seen. The problem was that I rarely had time to look for birds, except right around the villages or towns where I was staying. That, of course, is usually not the best way to see the really stellar birds that inhabit the islands.

So I decided, not knowing when or under what circumstances I’d return, that I’d take my final few days in the country and just go birding — really birding — and try to find some of the most spectacular birds in the world.

I emailed Kumul Lodge, asking if they had space for me at the last minute. They did. And so, from October 30 to November 3, I lived high in the mountains of Enga Province, where I birded, ate, slept, and birded again.

This is part one of that story.