Basic Birding
I love watching birds, and I want to know more about them. What I want to avoid is having to learn about them, specifically by studying birds from books. I tried that last Fall, when I bought the smallest birding primer you’ve ever seen, about 3″ x 3″ square, called Birdwatching For Dummies. It’s got a large font size, generous line spacing, and only 120 pages. I am still only halfway through it, and I can accurately report that I haven’t retained a single piece of information from the first half. This is probably some sort of undiagnosed handicap of mine, but fortunately I have developed a couple workarounds.
Bodega Bay, it turns out, is a major stopover on the Pacific flyway, both for birds and for birdwatchers. My favorite method of knowing more about birds involves taking Vince for a walk down to the rail ponds or the bird walk park. Invariably I will spot some pretty bird, and then will notice someone with binoculars nearby. I approach the birder and ask what he or she is looking for. They tell me all about the species they’re hoping to sight, and then I ask some version of the question, “What’s that over there?” This is known by me as a twofer, a rare occasion to know something new about two or more birds at the same time.
My second favorite method of knowing more about birds is by making it up, also known as guessing. A case in point occurred a few days ago while driving Jojo to school on a beautiful sunny morning. We were heading east just past the town of Bodega, when looking to my left high atop a phone pole was a sight that could have come straight out of a National Geographic feature on ancient Egypt, or a book on mythology. A turkey vulture was perched on the pole, completely motionless, wings spread wide, with its back to the sun. It was a majestic, fearsome sight. Jojo asked me why it stood there like that, and summoning a thread of logic from some place not associated with Portents of Doom, I told her it was warming itself up by having the largest possible surface area of its feathers facing the sun.
Now this is a perfectly reasonable guess, but it still is just a guess and no doubt mostly incorrect. But it brings me to my third favorite way of knowing more about birds, which is by asking my brother-in-law Jon. He’s a smart guy and a devoted birder, and by virtue of having married into the family probably feels obligated to clear up my misconceptions about turkey vultures, or birds in general, whenever we’re on the same continent. The drawback to this method of course is that I have to remember all the random guesses I’ve made since our last visit in order to get them clarified point for point. Still, I find this an enjoyable and perfectly workable method.
In conclusion, if you want to know more about a subject but are basically incapable of learning it through traditional means, it’s good to have a back-up plan. Also, the most enjoyable thing about birds by far is having the time to just sit and watch them, unimpeded by demands of work, conversation, driving, or other activities. Some say the birds will even teach you themselves. That sounds like a thrill.
June 8th, 2006 at 4:57 am
I love your way of learning.
I am the same with trees. I remember when someone came over to England from the States, pointed to a native tree and asked me what it was. I examined the bark and then a leaf, then declared it was a tree!
The world needs people like you x
June 9th, 2006 at 7:44 am
You would love the mourning doves who have made a nest in my grape arbor. I know they’re doves because we used to have some in my yard when I was growing up and my mom told me that they were doves. They make a very distincitve sound, a sad sort of “cooo.”
June 9th, 2006 at 10:28 am
Ms Flowers, that might have been me asking about the tree! For some reason I am actually pretty good at retaining book learning about flowers and trees. The birds however elude me.
Hecate, I love the sound of mourning doves. It’s amazing how many birders don’t know the songs of the birds they’re spotting. Kind of like identifying a rose but not bending down to smell its fragrance.