Gray Partridge - A Nugatory Poem

Saturday off,
Marianne and I cheer.
Today a lifer!
Tonight, a beer.

We commence at Point Pelee,
Looking for rare.
Slaty-backed Gull
Or a Fieldfare.                                       (.........what? It could happen.)

{Poem interruption}

Our convo:

Marianne: Ahhhh a day off, clear skies, sun shining, goldeneye and mergansers doing courtship displays...
Jeremy: You're right, this sucks.
Marianne: Let's go to Brantford for the Gray Partridge instead.
Jeremy: Word.

{Poem resume}

No silver lining,
Something's amiss.
The inside of factories
Have more birds than this.

And seeing as we aren't seeing
A whole heckuva lot,
We floor it, leaving Pelee
W/ nil, nada, naught.

401 thru Essex
And Chatham-Kent,
To Elgin, To Oxford,
The next cement:

Road 403!
We're now in Brant,
To find the partridge,
And fail? We shan't.

Brantford Airport,
Home of the game,
Fields and tarmac;
The lands they lay claim.

We scan and we scan
And we scan and we scan.
We scan until we scan
Back to where we began.

But hope is not lost,
It's early just yet,
There are still many hours
Leading up to sunset. 

We meet other birders,
And happy are we,
The more eyes the better,
To find them, you see.

Back in the car
To try a new place,
Or perhaps see them roadside,
By God's given grace.

We see someone gesture,
We haphazardly park,
But there in their scope,
Is a single....Horned Lark!

We meet up with friends
And we chit and we chat.
About roadkill while frogs bark
And such stuff as that.                             (cheeky in-joke)

And that's when a vehicle
Pulled up to our group,
"We've not one, not two,
Not three, but a troupe!"

We're off in a flash to
House 197.
These birders weren't lying,
There are 2 more than eleven!

A baker's dozen
Right there in the field.
Conspicuous lumps,
No longer concealed.

Fat little footballs,
Lined up one by one,
Round faces merry
In the afternoon sun.

Soft grey on their necks,
With stripes on their side.
And orange on their face,
Like a spray tan applied.

And below, a dark U,
Upside-down on their bellies,
Which shook when they laughed,
Like a bowl full of jelly.                           (Clement Clarke Moore is spinning in his grave)

LIFER! We cried
When we entered the car,
To leave the airport,
And head to the bar!