“…and they just kept it after becoming states?”
You need to read this, after the week you’ve had. God knows I did. Ladies and gentlemen, the problem that is our piss-poor collective decision-making process with regard to official state birds:
I drove over a bridge from Maryland into Virginia today and on the big “Welcome to Virginia” sign was an image of the state bird, the northern cardinal—with a yellow bill. I should have scoffed, but it hardly registered. Everyone knows that state birds are a big joke. There are a million cardinals, a scattering of robins, and just a general lack of thought put into the whole thing.
States should have to put more thought into their state bird than I put into picking my socks in the morning.
…and it just goes from there. There’s something nice about seeing somebody get a really good rant going, on a subject that you can easily understand, but have never really wanted to. And… yeah, I will admit that there does seem to be a lot of phoning it in when it comes to official state birds. Happy, Nicholas Lund?
Moe Lane
PS: The official state bird for NJ should be the seagull. There. I said it.