If you want to encorporate birds, then this is quite a cute card: http://www.notonthehighstreet.com/skyesthelimit/product/love-bird-valentine-s-card

It depends on whether she's traditional or not, you can never go wrong with flowers, I personally wouldn't go for the meal option, it's more the sort of thing you do on an anniversary, than valentines.
If there's something you know she really likes, like a dessert or meal you could make her that.

I don't know Zpyder's other half of course, but in my experience most PhD students are pretty attached to their subject. If wading birds mean enough to her to make her want to spend 3 years of her life pushing back the boundarys of knowledge about them with her bare hands and then writing a reasonably long book about it, they probably do mean something to her on a personal level.

If you're passable in the kitchen (by which I mean what you cook comes out tasting good and looking not a total disaster), the cook her dinner idea can work very well. Particularly for a newish relationship where you don't want to look like you've gone nuts over it

Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on January 19, 2011, 15:53:59 PM

I think it might have been last Valentine's me and the missus went to KFC 

Which I believe I paid for.

That sir sounds like the perferct date
Free KFC Bucket

I think it might have been last Valentine's me and the missus went to KFC 

tis cool if you're comfortable with each other that you don't need to go full out - pretty cool missus if she let you get away with KFC!

Though on the subject of lower budget valentiens day I had an idea a couple of years ago when discussing valentines with a friend (we never actually went through with this)

My friend had mentioned that weatherspoons was doing a valentines special and I started thinking WTF - how would anyone manage to get away with taking a girl to weatherspoons on valentines. Our conclusion was that any girl taken there would be less than imprerssed.

Plan was - go to weatherspoons & drink at the bar, scope out talent in the 'restaurant'/seating area, spot a couple of girls then wait until their respective partners have gone to the bog - approach and explain to them that you believe it is very tacky that their BF brought them to the 'spoons on valentines and you'd be happy to take them to a much nice establishment.

We went into weatherspoons, took a look around and scrapped the plan in an instant - to sum up the scene 'the bar out of star wars' is probably appropriate - in some instances it would be hard to spot which one was male and which one was female (perhaps the one with less tattoos?).

 go get an origami book - learn how to make a wading bird of some variety - when you're having a meal and she gets up to go to the bathroom grab a napkin, quickly construct said wading bird and place next to her plate....

or perhaps make a proper one out of origami paper and give it to her/stick on front of home made valentines card....

Haha, I'm currently in the process of doing senbazuru...making 1000 paper cranes, to give to her on her birthday on the 27th of Feb. I started a week in to the new year and am sort of at the 500 mark so far. I should add that this is something I know she'll like. Personality wise we have very similar traits and she likes origami etc. Also she's told me a fair few times that 27 is her fave number and as a result this is meant to be an epic year, turning 27 on the 27th etc. I figure a good way to start it off is to try and get 1000 cranes in her room when she's not there...

What I wanted to do I have had to put on hold till later in the year so I am currently unsure what I will do. 

Quote from: Dave on January 19, 2011, 22:10:29 PM

 go get an origami book - learn how to make a wading bird of some variety - when you're having a meal and she gets up to go to the bathroom grab a napkin, quickly construct said wading bird and place next to her plate....

or perhaps make a proper one out of origami paper and give it to her/stick on front of home made valentines card....

Haha, I'm currently in the process of doing senbazuru...making 1000 paper cranes, to give to her on her birthday on the 27th of Feb. I started a week in to the new year and am sort of at the 500 mark so far. I should add that this is something I know she'll like. Personality wise we have very similar traits and she likes origami etc. Also she's told me a fair few times that 27 is her fave number and as a result this is meant to be an epic year, turning 27 on the 27th etc. I figure a good way to start it off is to try and get 1000 cranes in her room when she's not there...

she sounds like a nut job