[tn-bird] Re: Stirrin' up terns
- From: Robert <rwf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 02 Sep 2002 09:07:36 -0500
James Brooks wrote:
> The funny thing is that in China or Morroco or Mexico, passersby
> ask to look in your scope and line up to do so. At a roadside
> marsh in Mexico between Puerto Vallerta and Guadalajara,
> Audrey Hoff and I one time found ourselves conducting a field
> trip on birds to an entire class from a girl's school, and we
> all paused for photos. By comparison, Americans have almost no
> curiosity.
That reminds me of something that happened. Last friday, a birding
friend and I went to the banks of the Mississippi River to use my
new spotting scope to look at shorebirds on the sandbars.
When we got to the river, there were police cars everywhere. A man
was perched on a concrete piling, just below the bridge. He was
pumping his fist at the cops above him and threatening to jump
into the water. It would be a death leap of more than one hundred
feet to the water, so I was glad I had my scope.
We set up my Manfrotto tripod right behind the television news vans
and quickly zoomed in on the jumper. The fellow looked disheveled
and angry. A set of handcuffs dangled from one of his wrists.
People said the criminal had stolen a car and police had chased him
to the bridge. A crowd gathered around us to watch the looming
spectacle of a man about to destroy himself.
Next to us was a small girl standing with her mother. The little
girl had no hair at all. My chatty friend quickly learned that the
nine year old girl's name was Hannah. She was probably receiving
chemotherapy for cancer at St. Jude Childrens Hospital in downtown
Memphis. The medical treatment would have made her lose all her hair.
She and her mother were curious about the commotion and so had
joined us below the bridge.
My friend whispered something to me, so I lowered my spotting scope
and focused it carefully on the perpetrator on the bridge. My
friend asked if Hannah would like to look at the jumper thru my
scope. "Sure!" she said.
Hannah moved behind my Nikon 80 mm spotting scope and peered up
at the desperate man. "Wow," she said. "You can even see the
handcuffs." She was impressed with the scope's magnification and
with the clarity of the image.
We let her mother have a peek, then packed up and drove north to
Shelby Forest State Park, to get on with our intention to look
at birds. We learned later from the news on TV that police
negociators had talked the man down from the bridge and arrested
him.
Robert Fowler
Memphis TN
Reference links:
http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=15&n=3893784&e=767893&s=25
http://www.WMCTV.com/Global/story.asp?s=917693
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