Athens is a great place for a medical student to be distracted. Even if immune to the temptations of the well-known nightlife, musical and sporting scenes in this town, the natural setting of Athens can get a student's attention during the day.
What do I mean by natural setting? While certainly a bustling city, Athens is surrounded by woods and farmland and has not quite been phagocytized by the Atlanta metropolitan area. Attractive natural settings like the Georgia Botanical Gardens and the Sandy Creek Nature Center are as accessible as Kroger and Publix. Sometimes the wonders of nature can be difficult to escape. My backyard, within the Athens city limits and near the medical campus, has hosted a wide variety of avian species - at least 21 since I started keeping track.
Visually appealing and aurally grating in similar measure, Blue Jays have a way of making their presence known that can test the nerves. Today, I sat at my desk trying to tune out a typical Blue Jay ruckus while I stared at a schematic of the clotting cascade. Then, all of the sudden, the Blue Jays started going nuts. I looked out my window in irritation and counted about five in the thicket that protrudes into my yard. As I peered, wondering why they had to be such jerks and contemplating banging on the window, I noticed some large yellow talons on a tree branch in the thicket and then spotted the rest of the raptor just as it launched out, Blue Jays in pursuit. I was able to get a good enough look as it did so to ID it (with the help of the Audubon Society website) as a Cooper's Hawk: chest markings much like a Brown Thrasher's, adapted for camouflage in thick cover, and a banded tail. Backyard species #22.
Brown Thrashers hang out in my backyard; I'll see one at least half the time I look out the window. During the occasional stressful day of my first year, I'd get a kick out of watching them peck the ground in what looks like stop motion animation/agitation. Fast forward a year and I'm stuffing crunchy peanut butter into a laundry pole for the woodpeckers before class. My habit of paying attention to birds that has developed may be blamed on Athens, myself or perhaps even the emergence of a physician's eye for details. But since I wish to use such an eye as a physician - and I'm not one yet - I now abandon that inquiry and return to the clotting cascade.
What do I mean by natural setting? While certainly a bustling city, Athens is surrounded by woods and farmland and has not quite been phagocytized by the Atlanta metropolitan area. Attractive natural settings like the Georgia Botanical Gardens and the Sandy Creek Nature Center are as accessible as Kroger and Publix. Sometimes the wonders of nature can be difficult to escape. My backyard, within the Athens city limits and near the medical campus, has hosted a wide variety of avian species - at least 21 since I started keeping track.
Visually appealing and aurally grating in similar measure, Blue Jays have a way of making their presence known that can test the nerves. Today, I sat at my desk trying to tune out a typical Blue Jay ruckus while I stared at a schematic of the clotting cascade. Then, all of the sudden, the Blue Jays started going nuts. I looked out my window in irritation and counted about five in the thicket that protrudes into my yard. As I peered, wondering why they had to be such jerks and contemplating banging on the window, I noticed some large yellow talons on a tree branch in the thicket and then spotted the rest of the raptor just as it launched out, Blue Jays in pursuit. I was able to get a good enough look as it did so to ID it (with the help of the Audubon Society website) as a Cooper's Hawk: chest markings much like a Brown Thrasher's, adapted for camouflage in thick cover, and a banded tail. Backyard species #22.
Brown Thrashers hang out in my backyard; I'll see one at least half the time I look out the window. During the occasional stressful day of my first year, I'd get a kick out of watching them peck the ground in what looks like stop motion animation/agitation. Fast forward a year and I'm stuffing crunchy peanut butter into a laundry pole for the woodpeckers before class. My habit of paying attention to birds that has developed may be blamed on Athens, myself or perhaps even the emergence of a physician's eye for details. But since I wish to use such an eye as a physician - and I'm not one yet - I now abandon that inquiry and return to the clotting cascade.
Emerson Floyd is a second-year Athens student who grew up in Macon, GA and is trying to use his time wisely.
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