My brother belongs to a strange group known as birders. Together with his three friends who are likewise into the hobby of birding, they march on landfills, and hike through the wooded lands, each of them armed with a pair of binoculars (双筒望远镜), a digital camera, biscuits, and water. One of them carries a telescope which comes in handy in case they want to take a look at a bird up close.

Understandably, their clothing is light; their shoes are designed for comfort, and they never fail to bring with them hats. Moving at a slow pace, they go in search of birds. And, yes, they carry a field guide --- a manual for identifying birds.

It is interesting to note how my brother and his co-birders go through their hobby: first, they look for a bird (either with the naked eyes or with the help of their binoculars); when they find one, they identify it; they then write it down. In case they are unable to determine the bird’s identity, they search for it in the field guide. If the bird is not in the handbook, they take down notes, make a rough drawing representing the chief features of the bird, or even take a picture of it to be used as a future reference.

A device, called the National Geographic’s Handheld Birds Personal Digital Assistant, is available for those who plan to take up birding in North America. This handy device is a digital field guide containing more than one thousand five hundred visual representations of birds. It has a searchable database of over eight hundred North American bird species.

For those seriously considering birding as a hobby but having second thoughts for fear of catching the terrible bird flu, it is important to know that you can take up the hobby and be safe from the fatal disease if you strictly observe the slogan of birders worldwide: just watch, don’t catch.

David and Alicia Tschirhart adored their Yellow Lab, Marley, but they never knew just how much, until that day back in 2014 when they were hiking with him in hills near their San Diego home.

“Alicia went off the path to grab a walking stick to help through the path,” David recalled. “And Marley all of a sudden darted (猛冲) from me and he started clawing the ground where Alicia was reaching for a walking stick. And I didn’t know what was happening. Alicia kind of fell back. When I looked more closely, I saw that it was a rattlesnake,” he told journalist Tracy Smith.

Rattlesnakes are common on these trails, which are very steep and miles from any hospital. And the Tschirharts didn’t have cellphones with them. For Alicia, who was four months pregnant, a snake bite could have been a disaster. Thankfully, 12-year-old Marley scared the snake away, and a few months later, the Tschirharts’ first daughter Maddie was born.

But by then, Marley had been diagnosed with cancer, and by Thanksgiving weekend 2014, it was clear the end was near. And their love for Marley was so strong that they couldn’t really let it go. So, the Tschirharts turned to ViaGen Pets, of Austin, Texas, a company that has cloned hundreds of pets for a multitude of grateful owners.

For as much as $50,000, the company will culture the cells, create embryos, implant them in a surrogate (代孕母亲), and deliver a clone of your loved one.

Marley’s clone, Ziggy, an energetic yellow ball. But to David and Alicia, he’s nothing less than Marley reborn. “He is exactly the twin of Marley,” said David. “So, he’s in, I guess, the same environment. So really, he’s become the same dog.”

And while pet cloning is still debatable, it can mean, for some at least, that with the right amount of love, science and money, you never really need to say goodbye.