Well-a Everybody's Heard About the Bird

I love starting these posts with back story. It always just sort of ... "happens". There is always something about my life related to what I am about to write about and I think it's only fair to show you my perspective before I write. I'll keep this one short and sweet:

I DON'T LIKE BIRDS. bird stories. birds.

Now that that is out of the way...

Wow. These are some awesome birds. I am not easily impressed by the flighty fellows. I used to have some parakeets and while they were cute and the whole "these things fly" concept never stopped blowing my mind, the kuaka- the godwits- are superheroes of the bird world. Regarding the actual piece itself, it is about as well-written as an essay on birds can be. A reader has a job to know when they dislike a piece or they dislike a topic, not just call it "bad". but I think that Don Stap did a good thing with this nature piece, even though I don't particularly appreciate nature writing. Especially about birds...
My main issue with the essay as a piece of writing is a general distaste that I have developed for simile.I do not appreciate most simile in writing, and Don Stap likes to employ this particular literary device often. While this is more of a personal taste, it alway reads to me as forced and explanatory when writers say things like:

" I wave my arms about with each step, as if I’m on a tightrope"
"godwit’s heart beating like a trapped moth"

nothing says "I promise I am a writer" more than the simile "as if I'm on a tightrope".

Most of the work is used to speak on the danger that this species of birds find themselves in. Many paragraphs are dedicated to the facts about their habitats and practices. This is clearly necessary for the entire point of the article and Stap wrote on it in the only possible way. He kept the factual part relatively simple linguistically with the purpose of just getting the information out there after the attempt to initially rope us in with his descriptive scene setting. Afterward, he returns to his English professor roots with a closing scene of him looking toward the night sky.

Comparing this piece to the Lehrer piece yields results that I am surprised with. I prefer this writing. Social sciences, such as psychological and personality studies, are one of the things I am most interested in, while nature writing bores me. However, Stap got to the point. He told the story of these birds without much extra fluff. Lehrer dragged his essay at least a page longer than it needed to be with completely unrelated detours into the history of the story's characters. In the respect of the reader who may not have previous interest in the topic or time to spend with anything but the story and maybe one or two brief detours, Stap is able to get his words across. Lehrer assumes that he has the reader for as long as he is writing, and it hurts his effectiveness.

Signed,
Cassandra Rose Blaise DeMarco