“Poppycock!” she said.

Missy, a black lab, looked up from her desk and peered at Marica over the top of her reading glasses which were perched at the end of her long, dolichocephalic snout. “Marica! Please watch your language,” she said and winked. “But what’s gotten your knickers in a knot this fine morning?”

“Listen to this,” Marica said. “This is ridiculous. It’s from The Audubon Field Guide to Birds, very beginning of the Introduction. ‘Each year thousands of people take up the absorbing hobby of bird-watching, or birding. Regardless of their motives, their first goal is learning to identify the hundreds of species in their own area.’ Did you ever hear such poppycock?”

“Well, Marica, I’m not certain to what it is you object. I know you well enough to know there must be something objectionable in those two sentences—and quite possibly something highly objectionable— but for the life of me, I cannot fathom what it might be,” Missy sighed. She’d been making good progress on her new epic novel, tentatively titled Veiled Virtues (though she still needs to work out the Latin), and this outburst had all the markings of a rabbit hole that would consume the rest of the morning, if not the entire day.

“ ‘[T]heir first goal is to identify…’ how can the editors possibly know this? How can they, in good conscience, promote this kind of thinking?” Marica was becoming quite animated. “You’re first goal should be identification? Poppycock! This is not how you learn about nature!”

“Ruff!” Rocky, a Staffordshire terrier, agreed. His areas of expertise were far removed from bird-watching, but he thought Marica’s point generalized.

“And here’s another thing,” Marica continued,

“bird-watchers are instructed to ‘learn to note essential details quickly’ in the field. Naturally, there’s a list of essential details, and it goes on and on. But this is the worst part. It says to study the pictures before you go into the field. Have you ever heard such poppycock?” Marica was exasperated.

“Ruff?!?” Rocky had never heard such poppycock.

Probably the entire day, thought Missy, especially since Rocky was sympathetic to Marica’s view. “Marica, I’m surprised you’re taking this stand against research. My goodness! Look at all those open books and notebooks on your desk. You live to research. How is doing research before going into the field any different?”

“Ruff?” Rocky could not believe Missy didn’t see the difference.

“No. I just don’t see it, Dear Friend,” Missy said to Rocky. “Shouldn’t one know what one is looking for before going to look for it?”

“It’s not about research or looking for something, Missy,” Marica replied. “It’s about taking all of the fun out of learning—especially discovering Mother Nature’s wonders, and birds are certainly one of the most wonder-ful things in nature. One should come to know them, to get acquainted with them slowly, so as to fully appreciate them. I mean, there’s a reason parents don’t say, ‘Children, please attend to the creature with a beak that has an angulated commissure, and that also has a narrowly pointed feather lying on the outside of the wing next to the outermost greater primary covert.’ Where’s the joy in that? No, no. They say, ‘Watch the birdie!’”

“I’m beginning to grasp your point, but what’s the alternative?” Missy asked.

“Hang on. I have just the project to show you!” With that, Marica left the room.

Missy returned to her epic novel writing. Rocky picked up his dog-eared collection of British detective stories and settled himself in on a chair for some hard-case reading. From time to time, from remote corners of the house, they heard several colorful variants of “Poppycock!” until at last they heard, “Found it!” Rocky bookmarked his place, and Missy scribbled a few thoughts in her notebook before they turned to see Marica coming through the doorway with an enormous box labeled “Bunker Birding.”

“Took longer than I expected but I found it!” Marica said. She dropped the box on the floor in front of her chair, opened it up, and took out a small stack of photographs. “Oh look! Wobbly!” She held it up for them to see. “And Orange Head!  Oh! And here’s Vickie the Teapot!” she passed the photos around.

“Ruff?”

“Marica, I am not an ornithologist, but I am quite certain Vickie the Teapot is a mourning dove,” Missy said.

“Well, she may be a mourning dove today, but she was Vickie the Teapot in 2006.”

“Ruff?”

“Whatever are you talking about?” Missy asked. Definitely— all day. No getting around it, she thought.