Word of the Day: ingurgitate

ingurgitate (v)

To gulp or swallow greedily.

"I was beginning to think that my taste-buds had been ruined by the horrors I've had to ingurgitate during the Siege....Incidentally, did I ever tell you of the book I want to write about taste?"
--Robert Baldick, Dinner at Magny's

We have a bird feeder hanging from the apple tree in our back yard. The free food has attracted flocks of small, ravenous birds (chickadees and sparrows, I think), as well as the occasional red cardinal and blue jay. They literally fight over the seeds, and ingurgitate so fast that they end up dropping a lot of them onto the ground, where fat squirrels scarf them up. It's quite a pig-out session, until the neighbor's cat strolls through the yard; then they all scatter until he/she leaves. I wish I had a video camera and could capture these wildlife vignettes. To me, it's more entertaining and edifying than, say, Jersey Shore.