The Birdy Bunch

When Larry Wilmore’s abruptly canceled Nightly Show ended this past Thursday,
I stuck around to watch @Midnight. Since the Presidential campaign and the Summer Olympics provide no shortage of springboards for Twit-friendly topical humor, I’m assuming we have the program’s two-week hiatus to thank for the evening’s mundane Hashtag Wars category: #BirdTV. Personally, I enjoy having an evergreen subject to riff on given that updates to the blog will remain infrequent for some months, so here, minus a few brainstorms that I’d seen others beat me to when I took a quick scroll through the feed on Twitter, are…

My Top Twenty-Five Avian Television Shows

25. America’s Got Talons

24. The Young and the Nestless

23. Feather Knows Best

22. Sesame Tweet

21. Harpy Days

20. Parrothood

19. The Eggs Files

18. Gilmore Gulls

17. Fowl Frontal

16. The Dove Boat

Ducks Uncovered

I’m about to call a moratorium on posts beyond what’s in the pipeline because there’s so. much. to write. The 11 o’clock edition of Action News tonight, however, ran a story that just screams to be blogged on, both for what it said and for what it left out.


Screencap © 2011 ABC/WPVI-TV Philadelphia.

The main thing that I was surprised anchor Jim Gardner didn’t mention during the story was that today was the birthday of John James Audubon — which I’ll admit I only knew thanks to the day’s Google logo.

And one reason why the omission is surprising is that the story was about some
ducks hatching outside a fast-food restaurant across the bridge from Philadelphia in Camden County. In case you didn’t know: Audubon, born Jean-Jacques Audubon in France, was a renowned ornithologist — Hello! — who became an American citizen right here in Philly during the War of 1812.