UP FROM THE EGG. THE CONFESSIONS OF A NUTHATCH AVOIDER - Ogden Nash

		Birdwatchers top my honors list.
		I aimed to be one, but I missed.
		Since I'm both myopic and astigmatic,
		My aim turned out to be erratic,
		And I bespectacled and binocular,
		Exposed myself to comment jocular.

		We don't need to know much birdlore, do we,
		To tell a flamingo from a towhee;
		Yet I cannot, and never will,
		Unless the silly birds stand still.
		And there's no enlightenment so obscure
		As ornithological literature.

		Is yon strange creature a common chickadee,
		Or a migrant from Picardy?
		You rush to consult your Nature guide
		And inspect the gallery inside,
		But a bird in the open never looks
		Like its picture in the birdie books--
		Or if it did, it has changed its plumage,
		And plunges you back into ignorant gloomage.

		That is why I sit here growing old by inches,
		Watching the clock instead of finches,
		But sometimes I visualize in my gin
		The Audubon I audabin."