Read this sentence from the article:
you may be thinking that looking at birds is silly, but just think about the numbers of the recent record holders and the commitment it takes to get these numbers.
why would the author suggest that looking at birds is silly?
to create a sense of doubt in the reader
to distance himself from what seem to be rather strange people
to show readers that some people do not think birding is interesting
to suggest he has never birded himself but might someday

Which line in this excerpt from the great gatsby by f. scott fitzgerald contains a simile? about half way between west egg and new york the motor-road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. this is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air. occasionally a line of grey cars crawls along an invisible track, gives out a ghastly creak and comes to rest, and immediately the ash-grey men swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight.