In one pass across Florida on Alligator Alley I could have passed Boy Scout Bird Study Merit Badge by just identifying all the avians populating that narrow corridor.  In addition I identified far more housing developments and condominiums, apartments, shopping centers, banking institutions than the visible spectrum of life in Florida.

If I remember correctly at that time there were 20 different bird species that had to be correctly named and described.  I know I saw great blue herons, small egrets, large egrets, chicken hawks, black crows, vultures and swallows. There were also seagulls, pelicans, pigeons, doves, ducks, geese, small black red beaked ducks, small herons, sandpipers, one bald headed eagle, storks, “snake birds”, and two additional ones I need to look up in my bird book that seems not to be where I saw it last.  Those two were a tiny stunted one with a tuft of feathers sprouting behind its head and a large white black headed fowl with black edges on its wing tips. A common bird I have been trying to name is a perky crow sized brown backed bird with a light orange brown chest.

I know I saw more than twenty different birds but our bus was going so fast I couldn’t record them all.

When I was a scout in New Jersey in the first half of last century I mastered all the merit badges needed to become a “Life Scout”.  That was just next to the top rank of Eagle Scout.  All I needed to make Eagle were bookbinding and bird study.  Book binding provided a challenge because I was now interested in other things and bird study was sort of impossible being limited to robins, swallows and little brown wrens in the city.

I make sure to look at the bird population wherever I happen to be. For a while, living across from a pond in a stream system in Long Branch we were invaded over the years by a population of Canada Geese who no longer stopped over but stayed to live and raise families and problems of geese poop all over.  These were aggressive flock members who took over the University’s great lawn as well as the properties of adjacent housing.

I’ve been forever sorry I hadn’t the will-power and determination to keep my eye on the prize – the main chance – and get that top honor and rank. The scouts taught me a lot and most of the knowledge I have about nature and animal life I owe to their teachings.