Quotes from Bob Tarte

Linda hadn't exaggerated her fear of the golden orb weaver spider. Up north at her cabin in Morley, I had once teased her by asking "Have we ever seen this kind of vireo before?" And then, instead of showing her a photo of a bird, I thrust a picture of the black-and-yellow spider at her. She shrieked. I laughed. Oh, the fun we had.

It might not have been Mike,' she said, 'but somebody left something somewhere.' I couldn't really argue with that. It was as succinct a summing up of the seeming randomness of events in life as I had ever heard.

Three rabbits, two cats, three parakeets, a dove, two parrots, three turkeys, two geese, a canary, and nine ducks at last count were just about what Noah had started with, and he never brought his animals into the house.

Pound for pound, these animals don't add up to much. Dog fanciers with a couple of Rottweilers trump us in terms of sheer biomass. But, when it comes to sheer insistence, even the largest, most unruly dogs—or for that matter, your average herd of cattle—are no match for our ducks, geese, parrots, parakeets, turkeys, cats, rabbits, and other birds.

Backyard ducks that supposedly "take care of themselves" require more maintenance than the space shuttle.

I heard experts claim again and again that owning pets reduces stress and might extend your life. I tried to remember that as I dragged a hose out of the basement to fill the ducks' plastic swimming pool in January weather so cold, the snow complained as I stepped on it.

Depending on how high I heaped the stones, each wheelbarrow weighed between 175 and 250 pounds. Once I managed to set it in motion, it was loath to stop without banging me up in some fashion, especially during the thrilling plunge down the backyard hill, when I switched roles from cart pusher to dragging victim.

I loved birds, and every bird was my favorite bird. But no bird was a better bird than a bird I saw with Linda.

I feared that it was only a matter of time before the kitty would stumble onto the secret messages that other strays had left

I needed to keep my ears open for signs of mischief from woodwork-destroying parakeets, or from quacks of distress from an outdoor duck that had fallen afoul of its flock.

At least our ducks and geese live in backyard pens, though trudging outside to fill their plastic swimming pools involves a trip through the basement, where two convalescing turkeys yip pathetically if I don't coo and hand-feed them grain.

That's because they're people, only smarter. They know us better than we know them, and a lot of them have a sense of humor. They're exactly like us minus our useless mental power and thumbs.

cat person" was pretty specific, suggesting a tame middle-aged eccentric who substituted interaction with pets for a healthy social relationship with other people. I resented that whole notion, because it described me perfectly.

We only had three, and the only reason that we had that many was due to a unique set of circumstances that had descended upon us like a dark cloud and could never occur again. At least that's what I told myself a few years before we ended up with six cats

I had discovered the "loop-back" phenomenon, and I had penetrated its deepest meaning, which boiled down to this: in birding, as in life, we don't so much find things as things find us.

Bill had always been a placid pond of a friend with a few boulders of madness lurking beneath the surface, but unlike me he knew how to keep the jagged edges out of sight.