Well, last time I wrote about the things people do without surfing thinking I would be actually participating myself…little did I know I would be sitting on a flat spell from hell entering it’s fourth week (I think). Now I know how heroin addicts feel coming down off the shit…not really…I just felt like saying that. Anyway, here we are in Southern California amidst a “La Niña” effect and nothing in site. Rad. As we speak, it’s raining again which is great news for this years pool party season. Make sure and get that rig in tip-top shape.

Anyway, it’s time to start thinking about new hobbies. Seriously. What will happen when the water gets so polluted that we can’t go in the ocean anymore. Wavepools? See, pool party season will take on a whole new meaning. I’ll be wearing the “Kiss The Cook” bib and barbecuing right next to the funnest righthander in Montana. Maybe not.

So, being the brilliant thinker I am I came up with a new outlet for all the surf photographers who are getting fingered by the bad waves like me. It’s bird watching! You think that’s funny? It’s not. Last week I was at my local beach when I saw a bunch of interesting looking people looking interested at the very, very dirty creek that runs out where we surf every day. We call it the sewer. I’ve seen baptisms, weddings, bum fights, and all kinds of weirdness happen next it to it, but these people had binoculars, big camera lenses, and camouflage gear. When asked what they were doing they said that during the annual San Diego bird count they came across a rare Northern species of bird that’s a 1000 miles too south and hangs out with us at the beach.

“Wow, how cool,” I thought. I began looking for it thinking it had some kind of crazy white fur and a cackle and dove down into the water like a missile. Even though the bird watchers were snobby I began looking too. They, like me, f…king hate it when people see your lens and come up and ask what and who your shooting. So I did it to them anyway. Come to find out it was a Rusty Blackbird. Cool, right? I got into the search. It was like looking for feathered treasures.

I was still looking for a cool looking black bird, but didn’t see it and turned back to looking at shitbag surf. Then, about an hour later, I saw the frenzy. Dudes were losing their cookies shooting photos at the tables everyone eats at next to the sewer. “What the heck are they shooting?” I thought. “Oh, they’re practicing on the menacing little blackbirds that eat the crumbs from the giant breakfast burritos people can’t finish. Wait, Blackbirds. They’re shooting those?”

Our little wayward rusty-backed buddy was partying with his cousins, kind of like going a thousand miles inland to party with some inbred relatives. But the thing that confused me was it “was one of those.” When I told my friends they said, “Oh really, one of those?” Not what I thought it would be. You know? But now, all the bird watchers are coming to our beach to see the Rusty Crumbcatcher or it’s new scientific name Breakfastus Burritus.

So there, a very uninteresting story about a very uninteresting hobby that can be a great outlet for surf photographers when the surf gets very uninteresting. Pray for surf.