Who Watches The Birders?

gavin cardigan walked into Poor Yorick's Pub, hung up his fedora, and walked up to the bar.  "danny boy, i'm hungering for something but i have no idea what it is.  i hope you do, hoss."

his friend danny blake poured him a Bass and said, "i reckon it's for cowboy bacon chili fries.  if not, you're getting it anyway since that's all i've got."

gavin snapped his fingers and grinned.  "you hit the nail on the head, my friend.  that's exactly what i was craving."

he walked back to his regular table to join his friends but noticed an odd group of people at a nearby table listening to taylor young talking about an ugly bird.

"gymnogyps californianus, more commonly known as the california condor," taylor said, pointing at a poster of a pink-headed vulture.  "it was nearly extinct, and is one of the rarest birds in the world, with only 181 left in the wild."

"what's going on?  who are these people?" gavin asked sierra charles as he took the seat next to her.

"it's taylor's birdwatching group," she told him.  "he's leading the group out on halloween to look for a condor."

"taylor's a birdwatcher?  that doesn't sound very vampirish."

"that's a good thing," taylor's girlfriend, marian elfman, put in.  "i'm all for encouraging his non-vampire interests."  she frowned at the flock of freaky feather fanatics.  "although i might prefer his vampire friends."

gavin turned to see one of taylor's group, an intense young woman with multiple facial piercings, combat boots, and a tye-dyed t-shirt shaking her finger at taylor.  "we'd have to head down to big sur or pinnacles national monument to see gymnogyps californianus.  nobody has spotted one in the bay area for decades.  we should look instead for asia otus.  it's a good fit for halloween, too."

a slight asian man wearing a bucket hat adorned with an egg wisk and a feather looked uncomfortable.  "the long-eared owl?  why is everyone talking about such vicious birds?  can't we look for a pretty xanthocephalus xanthocephalus?"

taylor sighed.  "vinh, we went over this.  this is a halloween birding trip, so we want a bird that fits the season.  the yellow-headed blackbird isn't very halloweeny.  as for the long-eared owl, chaos, it's not challenging enough."

sierra snickered.  "taylor just said halloweeny."

"her name is chaos?"  gavin was puzzled.

danny arrived with gavin's chili fries.  "i'm surprised they're not going after vampire bats."

"it's not really a bird," marian explained.  "since it's a mammal, serious birders don't look for it."

"and birders seem to be serious people, indeed," gavin noted, scooting his seat a little further away from taylor's group.

a stout woman of uncertain age and accent wearing red-and-yellow striped wellies was poking at taylor's map.  "we need cliffs, man, if we're to spot a condor.  we should drive down the coast this way."

"is it legal to carry a machete around town?"  danny whispered, pointing at the blade slung across her back.

taylor gulped.  "y...yes, your ladyship.  you're probably right."

"ladyship?"  Mysterious Lurker suddenly popped in from out of nowhere...but whether is was from literally nowhere or literary nowhere, nobody was quite sure.  "taylor's hanging out with royalty now?"

"she claims to be royalty, the widow of an earl or something," marian told them.  "they're all kind of intimidated by her."

"well, taylor's only a count, right?  he's outranked."

"he's actually a viscount.  the UK doesn't have counts; they exist in the other european countries," marian informed.

"and the pasture," the Lurker noted.  "remember when taylor was inspired by marian's children's book and he decided to write his own?"

sierra laughed out loud (really, she did).  "Count Hoofula the Vampire Cow!"

"she sucked the milk out of people instead of blood," cardigan recalled with a grin.  "and said moo instead of boo."

marian wiped tears from her eyes.  "but she never could bite anybody because the bell around her neck always warned people that she was sneaking up on them, so she had to go buy milk at the store, instead!"

"i say there, would you mind keeping it down over there?  you're interrupting our meeting!" taylor scolded them.

that earned a chorus a scary moos.

that earned an indignant hmph.