Editor\u27s Note: Can you find the 83 birds concealed in this story?  Answers can be found in Answers and Solutions

Craig, Mary Stewart

English

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36 HE'S A DIRTY BIRD MARY STEWART CRAIG Pineville, Louisiana Editor's Note: Can you hnd the 83 bl'rds concealed in this story? Answers carr be found in Answers and Solutions. "I'm so blue, Jay," Billie cried, wrenched with tears. She was feeling very birdened. "I'm a raven maniac!" "What's a nice gull like you so bittern about?" Jay asked. "1 ' m in an aukward situation because of Bob White," she groused. "l'd like to knock the stuffin' out of that puffin. It's no myna thing, either." "What did that booby, that ... yellow-bellied sapsucker do now?" Jay asked, quailing at the thought of that loony, gooney nuthatch boyfriend of Billie's being such an albatross in her life. "That junco creeper must be stopped! You should have ducked when you sa w him coming." "Good grebe! 1 bet that coot condor out of a 11 her money again," Billie's friend Cooie hooted softly to Jay. "1 was rooked," Billie railed, a flicker of sadness in her beau­tiful bird eyes, "although I feel like a stool pigeon for talking about it. He asked me if 1 could sparrow little money. He said he'd pay me back. 1 swallowed his sad story, again." Cooie began to cassowary eye on her fine feathered female friend. "You silly goose, you're so cuckoo about that vulture that you're acting like a bi rdbra in. Face it! He's pheasant enough, but he's a nester, that's all there is to it!" she said, a little mockingly, as she craned her neck smugly. "When he told me once a gannet toucan live as cheaply as one, I thought he wa s proposing. Then I realized, a guinea might be pulling another one of his fly-by-night tricks," Billie said stiltedly. "Face the ing too many crowed. music, Billie. cockateels, Since he's the just Stork Club an unemplet him go for loyed singer," hav­Cooie "Well, he I but I guess s his a pretty voice is good warbler not orkestrel and a quality." fair humming bird, "The only function his mouth has is as a flycatcher," Cooie crit­icized. "He's always been the blackbird of the Bob White family. Somebody needs to snap, grackle and pop him good." "All you do is snipe, Cooie!" Jay shriked loudly. "Go fly a kite if you can't be more kind." rul ial Yot.: age cal owl I it 'I her fea Hor: " my whE " alo I on! em1­37 ory? ~ was ,used. myna now?" :hatch "That ~ you lin, " beau­lking said iiend. fou're : he's ingly, one, ht be tedly . hav­Cooie bird, crit­mily. kite ''If he gets what he deserves, justice will be swift. A cardinal rule is, keep an eagle eye out for anyone who wants a loan, espec­ially a fancy peacock like Bob White," Cooie said. "Where is he now?" Jay asked. "He I s such a road runner, 1 guess he flew the coop," Billie sa id. "Maybe he migrated with the Ba 1timorioles," Cooie cl ucked. "Boy! You gotta watch birds like him like a hawk." "Cooie, if you don I t quit parroting the same stuff over and over again, you're gonna egret it! You remind me of a magpie!" Billie called at the top of her voice. "What do you think, Jay?" "1 hate to say owl bet my bottom Billie started to it'll be his swan her two friends. feathers he took Hope it grosbeck "He was robin it, but Bobolink up with some other chickadee, waxwing on that." cry again. "If 1 ever catch up with that turkey, song. He'll be dried up pecker wood," she told "Well," she sighed, "Ibis hurry and replace some from my nest. My down is just about scauped. soon." your nest, too?" Cooie cried. "Yeah, and now it's time to pay the piper," Billie said sadly. "What's thrush?" Jay asked. "Ostrich my luck if 1 don't plover for some petrel to gas up my bird buggy soon," Billie replied. "What a lark! May I go with you?" Cooie chirped. "I'll show you where to go. You make a left tern down the road." "Towhee! What along." Bi 11 ie clacked on! From heron emu and me ~ II a mess~" Jay sympathized. "Guess I'd like to come her bill tog~ther with resolve. "OK, Jay! Come out, Cooie, it's gonna be just the th ree of us: A CALL FOR PAPERS Leonard Ashley, current president of the American Society of Geolinguistics, appeals to Word Ways readers to submit papers {of a length to be read in 15 minutes} to the confer­ence Geolinguistics in the 'Nineties, to be held at the CUNY Graduate Center on West 42nd Street m New York in late October, 1992. 300-word abstracts must be sent to Prof. Jesse Levitt, 485 Brooklawn Avenue, Fairfield CT 06432 by June 1. The conference proceedings will be publ ished. 

He\u27s A Dirty Bird

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He\u27s A Dirty Bird

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