You might be a birder...

You might be a birder if your neck hurts except when you're looking up.

You might be a birder if you've never seen a seagull.

You might be a birder if more than half your male friends have beards.

You might be a birder if you think Peterson is a book.

You might be a birder if you want to see just one more warbler before lunch.

You might be a birder if you have a permanent depression above the bridge of your nose from pressure against your eyeglasses.

You might be a birder if you think LBJ doesn't stand for Lyndon Baines Johnson.

You might be a birder if you understand why you need to see some warblers today even though you saw 31 different kinds of them yesterday.

You might be a birder if your spouse doesn't understand why you must keep a yard list, a county list, a state list, a U.S. list, a lower-48 list, a Canada list, an ABA list (whatever that is), a world list, and an escrow list.

You might be a birder if you can make three different words by rearranging the letters I-P-H-S.

You might be a birder if you're not a birdwatcher.

You might be a birder if there are days when getting up at 4:30 a.m. is something you've looked forward to.

You might be a birder if you've taken a leak behind a tree.

You might be a birder if you're all the time wanting to stop the car, and your riders are saying "What are you stopping for?"

You might be a birder if you know what a Boney is.

You might be a birder if covert doesn't mean undercover to you.

You might be a birder if you know the difference between ABBA, ABA, IOU, AOU, RTP, ABC, DEF, and XYZ.

You might be a birder if you've ever seen a Butterbutt.

You might be a birder if you know where to go to find a Tamaulipas Crow.

You might be a birder if your Email address contains the name of a bird.

You might be a birder if your children are named after birds.

You might be a birder if watching movies you notice those Wood Thrushes singing in the middle of the night in Africa.

You might be a birder if you know birds named after Lewis and Clark.

You might be a birder if you have a fascination for boobies.

You might be a birder if you know all ducks don't quack.

You might be a birder if you can name two ducks that quack.

You might be a birder if you think pelagics are cool.

You might be a birder if you know pelagics are cold.

You might be a birder if you know what a four-year gull is.

You might be a birder if you know the real name for shopping center pigeons.

You might be a birder if empids bug you.

You might be a birder if you can say exactly where you saw a dozens of lifebirds but don't recall exactly where you first met your spouse.

You might be a birder if "nemesis bird" means something to you.

You might be a birder if you know what Phainopepla and Pyrrhuloxia have in common.

You might be a birder if you know what bird says "I am so la-zee."

You might be a birder if you know the highlight color of most wood warblers.

You might be a birder if you know the name of the last Passenger Pigeon and what year it died.

You might be a very old birder if you saw the last Passenger Pigeon in the year it died.

You might be a birder if better hearing makes your "Top Five Wish List."

You might be a birder if you grow weary of seeing Red-winged Blackbirds.

You might be a birder if "today's trash bird" means something to you.

You might be a birder if you're familiar with MODOs.

You might be a birder if you look forward to hard northern winters so you can get frostbitten while looking for northern owls.

You might be a birder if you can find Pt. Pelee, Pt. Reyes, and Cape May on a map in less than five seconds.

You might be a birder if you think a bird with a crossed bill isn't necessarily a mutant freak.

You might be a birder if you've got better things to do than attend your own birthday party.

You might be a birder if you know what leaves, rocks, weeds, shadows, signs, paper, cow pies, snags, stumps, clumps, and chipmunks have in common.

You might be a birder if you'd fly across the country to see a gull--the right gull.

You might be a birder if you bought your three-year old binoculars for his birthday.

You might be a birder if you think kettle can be a verb.

You might be a birder if you're happy with your exit pupil.

You might be a birder if you've been to the World Series but never saw a strikeout.

You might be a birder if you think Wandering Tattler is a real bird.

If you answer yes to any of these questions:

Someone yells "Duck!", and you look up and shout "Where?"

Vacations are planned to maximize the number of life birds.

You criticize television programs and commercials that depict a bald eagle but play a red-tailed hawk call.

People stop and stare when you pish at the shrubbery at the local mall.

Lunch breaks find you driving to check out your favorite hot spot.

Your spouse says,"It's either me or the birds,"and you have to think about it.

On sunny days you hop in the car, crank up your tape of bird calls, and drive like crazy to the nearest mountain where the thermals are great for soaring hawks.

You pay a neighbor kid $20 to roll on a carcass and lay still while you search the sky for vultures.

You try to talk your kid into going to college in Belize so that you have an excuse to go and bird there.

It's a northeaster, the rain is horizontal, a small craft advisory has been issued, but it's birdathon and you need to up the day's list.

A machine squeaks at work and you describe it to maintenance as sounding like a black-and-white warbler.

The first time you meet your future in-laws you demonstrate the courtship dance of the woodcock, replete with sound effects.

You spend fifteen minutes preparing dinner for your family, and thirty minutes mixing and placing seed for your birds.

You wake up your spouse at 5:30am and exclaim, "Is that a phoebe I'm hearing outside the window?"

Preparing for trips to visit out-of-state relatives involves contacting local birders, securing local bird lists, and buying the appropriate Lane's Guide.

You identify calls of birds in the soundtracks of television shows and movies.

You're willing to fight with anyone who criticizes your optics.

You participate in hours-long discussions about the pros and cons of using a certain field guide.

You lose friends, and perhaps even your spouse, from fighting over the pronunciation of "pileated."

Your spouse thinks "DEEP WOODS OFF" is your cologne.

Your pants are permanently wrinkled at the ankles from being tucked into boots.

You thinking ripping open owl pellets is NOT gross.

You have been seen looking out of restaurant windows with your binoculars.

You don't think of elections when you hear the word primaries.

You cringe when friends tell you they saw a ruffled grouse or a seagull.

You identify the anatomy of your Kentucky Fried Chicken.

You call the Hot Line but aren't looking for a psychic.

You refer to a good day of watching TV and don't mean television

Your children haven't had new shoes in two years but you own a Swarovski.

You have actually BEEN to the Brownsville Dump.

You are sure that in Heaven there are six months of May and six months of September.

Answering "yes" to any of these questions qualifies you as a birder.