Hot Tongue, Cold Shoulder

I only asked for fifty pounds,
Of bird mix in a bag.
And now I’ve bought a feeder too,
Me wife, she’s gonna nag.
And then before I hit the door,
The feed man says, "Look here."
And now I got a birdbath heater,
Me wife, she’s gonna sneer.
I almost make it to me truck,
When I hear the cashier yell,
"One minute, sir. Our special’s on,
You need a birdseed bell."
So me, I goes back in again,
And gets a bell of seed.
I know when I get home with these,
Me wife, she will be teed.
But since I’m in such awful straights,
I might just get ’er all.
So I buy enough sunflower,
To last me through the fall.
Me wife’s a lovely woman,
And I don’t like getting her sore.
So I hide what I can, hang out what I must,
Then throw me hat in the door.
If it don’t come back, I’m pretty safe,
And I ease in real light.
But if she’s mad then be it so,
Me birds are worth a fight.
—Dick E. Bird

"Do Migrating Birds Get Jet Lag?"
No, birds don’t seem to suffer from jet lag. But then again they don’t suffer from airport delays, crowded seating, inedible airline food, or lost luggage either.

Human jet lag seems to be bound inextricably to passing rapidly through time zones. Birds usually migrate from north to south, often not encountering any change. Veterinarian Robert B. Altman speculates that if you put a bird on an airplane going east to west, it might feel jet lag.
But birds, unlike humans, don’t try to fly from New York to Australia in one day. Some migrations can take weeks. Birds don’t stretch their physical limits unless they have to (such as flying over a large body of water),. If they are tired, birds stop flying and sleep.

Humans are particularly susceptible to jet lag when they travel at night. As a rule, migration doesn’t upset birds’ natural sleeping patterns.

Of course, migration isn’t without some perils of its own. Some birds travel 10,000-plus miles during migration. Once birds arrive at their destination they often engage in a feeding frenzy. Birds will often double their weight in a couple of weeks as they get back into the routine of foraging constantly. Storing body fat before a long migration helps birds fuel their journey.