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Birds on the Menu!
Order up! No "eating like a bird" at this little diner!
© Cuatrok77, CC
You're one lucky duck to have landed at our little diner. This is no fly-by-night joint. May we start you with a drink - a swallow of Old Crow or Wild Turkey, perhaps? You're just in time for the early-bird specials, when toucan eat for the price of one. The Four and Twenty Blackbirds Baked in a Pie were Eurasian Blackbirds. "Eating crow" also has its roots in history. And what's the problem with bird's nest soup? Find out in the Audubon magazine field notes.
BirdNote®
Birds on the Menu
Written by Ellen Blackstone
This is BirdNote! ( In Swifty Falcone voice)
[Sounds of a restaurant]
Welcome! You’re one lucky duck to have landed at our little diner. [Quack of Mallard] This is no fly-by-night joint. May I start you with a drink – a swallow of Old Crow or Wild Turkey perhaps? [Gobble, gobble]….
You’re just in time for the early-bird specials, when toucan eat for the price of one [Couviers Toucan].
The soup du jour is bird’s nest soup.
[Clatter of silverware. Cook shouts “Order up!”]
If you’re one who eats like a bird, you could peck at an appetizer. You shovelers will want something more substantial of course. [Call of a Northern Shoveler]
We have a chicken in every pot. [Domestic chickens] But which will you have first—the chicken or the egg?
Your goose is cooked, and it’s all done the same way. [Canada Goose] What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
For the main course, we have Four and Twenty Blackbirds Baked in a Pie.
[Boba-LEE-oh calls of Red-winged Blackbirds]
Hey! Don’t worry—we won’t make you eat crow. [Caw, caw]
And for dessert, our swan song [Trumpeter Swan].
Final tab? [Cash register ker-ching]
For you?—Chicken feed! [Buck, buck, buck, buck, buck]
You want more about where some of these terms originated? Visit our web site, BirdNote.org. I’m Swifty Falcone. Enjoy your meal!
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Most bird calls provided by The Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Mallard recorded by A.A. Allen; Northern Shoveler and Red-winged Blackbird by W.W.H. Gunn; Canada Goose by G.B. Reynard; Trumpeter Swan Gunn and Hartshorne.
Domestic turkey recorded by Martyn Stewart; domestic chickens by C. Peterson
Restaurant sound effects provided by Kessler Productions
Producer: John Kessler
Executive Producer: Chris Peterson
© 2014 Tune In to Nature.org July 2014 Narrator: Frank Corrado
ID#071406menuKPLU
Ellen Blackstone
Writer