Not everyone will drop what they're doing and jump into the car at this news, but here it is:
If you're in the Herald-Tribune circulation area, you are a short drive from a really good chance to see a rare fork-tailed flycatcher.
Yes, a fork-tailed flycatcher.
Most people are now thinking: "A what?" But not all. Some are thinking: "Wow, usually I'd have to go to Central America to have a good chance of spotting that species. I could add it to my list! I'm there."
Actually, most people in the latter group — serious bird-lovers, that is — already know that an apparently off-course member of that species with an overly long forked tail has been seen almost daily for the past few weeks, hanging around near a Ruskin strawberry farm.
An irritated farmer has been shooing birders away to keep them from trampling his crop into jam, but most birders have been able to focus their binoculars on the flycatcher without trespassing.
I mention all this because it seems there is money in birding. Birders who flock and migrate every year to look at birds, especially special attractions like the aforementioned flycatcher, spend money like any eco-tourist.
If you saw "The Big Year," or happen to know some birding fanatics like those in the film, you already know there is a subspecies of human being that will go to great lengths, and spend big bucks, to see a bird they have never seen before. Or maybe just one they haven't seen lately.
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