Bald Eagle  Yellowstone                      click to enlarge

At the beginning of the season, which starts in early spring, the songbird tryouts are held in Yellowstone National Park. Birds from all over the country fly in to audition and try to sell their stuff. It’s absolutely huge if you get picked to be one of the parks resident songbirds and the competition is incredibly tough.

This competition is a pass/fail selection process so each performer chooses their very best material to present to the judges. They only get one shot at this so the pressure is immense. The judges are unyielding in their quest for excellence and show the various tryouts little or no mercy in evaluating their performance. It can be brutal to hear their critiques.

The selection process is open to anyone who wants to try and the only requirement is that they be a bird. This young lady is back for her eighth straight year and although she is persistent that doesn’t increase her abilities. She has failed to be accepted each of the eight years despite several tearful attempts to sway the jury. The judges are looking for birds that sing melodious songs that are simple, easy to repeat, and identifiable. Ms. Maseve LaNez has never gotten past the first few stanzas of her perennial favorite “America the Beautiful” and she didn’t again this year. In fact one of the judges said she sounded like Tom Waits in a blender. Now I know that they have to be truthful, and well constructed criticism is helpful, but that is just plain mean.

The tryouts are over for the year and there were plenty of great selections to fill the resident songbird slots. As usual there is a fine representation of larks, warblers, trillers, pippins, syncopates, callers, rollers, and a new category this year, jazz scatters. There is however for the eight straight year, no large Bald Eagles singing “America the Beautiful” in our nation’s premier national park. At first you might think that just isn’t fair somehow, but then you haven’t heard Ms. LaNez sing it either. The Judges were right.