With a hat-tip and head-nod to Mary Whitsell and her Resident Alien post, A Case of Mistaken Identity...I share:Northern Arizona — From my porch I watched a row of birds dashing single-file about as fast as their short legs could carry them across a corner of the yard and I asked my (then, new) girlfriend if she could ‘see the partridges from where she’s sitting?’
‘You mean the quail?’
‘Quail? No. The little bobble of feather-tuft on their head...like an antenna...I'm pretty sure that makes them partridge.’
‘Nope, quail.’ The smile in her voice contrasted with the (new to me) question-at-your-own-risk tone I immediately perceived as a challenge (which I've never learned to completely stop questioning, but I've certainly learned to respect...maybe 85% of the time).
‘I’ll bet you an hour back-rub that those are partridge.’
‘Deal.’
It only took a few minutes of research for me to learn that, although both are in the pheasant family, she was right—they were quail. Why was I convinced they were partridge? I blame the producers of the 1970's TV show The Partridge Family. In the producers defense, the California Partridge has a tuft on it’s head like quail, so maybe the “Come on now, and meet everybody...” little family of bird caricatures shown during the “Come on get happy!” intro-credits aren't completely to blame for the back massage I had to give.
Silence is so accurate. — Mark Rothko
2 comments:
See, I always thought those were antenna as well. Quail: half-bird, half-insect, half-partridge. That's Bad Biology!
Also, Shirley Jones was one of the original MILFs. It has to be said.
(I tried to comment on this a couple of weeks ago and your blog wouldn't let me!)
For ages, I was convinced that palmetto bugs were cockroaches. I was awfully glad to learn I was wrong.
Post a Comment