Carolyn had several sparks — here is an early one:
I was watching the goldfinches, chickadees, etc. with my dad’s ancient binoculars and saw what turned out to be a large young cowbird begging and being fed by a tiny, very solicitous colorful bird. I got my color markers and drew exactly what I saw — a yellow bird with black head and yellow face. I dug out an old 1960s era book from the attic and saw that it was a Hooded Warbler. I have only seen one once since then and not in my yard. After seeing the picture and all the other birds that supposedly lived in my town, I got out of the house to look for them.
A Cowbird being fed by a Hooded Warbler sparked Carolyn’s birding. Here a Common Yellowthroat feeds two Cowbirds. photo by USFWS
Darin’s aunt launched him into birding:
I was fortunate enough to be “taken under wing” pun intended by my great Aunt Helen. I was about 10 when she told me she wanted to teach me about birds before I got into girls. She was a great lady and was once the “den mother” at Manometer Bird Observatory back in the 70’s. Some people might remember her, Helen Passano.
I grew up in Duxbury on a farm and we had a pond out front with a pair of Mute Swans. Their wings were clipped and I was around them all my formative years. I would have to go out in the winter and break the ice open to feed them cracked corn as a young boy. In the summers, Auntie Helen would write out test questions for me in regards to my adventures around the pond. I would have to draw ducks and other birds and answer specific things about them to pass. It was such a great learning experience. Then came that interest in girls she warned my about….and small block Chevrolets!
She was correct in her assessment, I am now in my mid forties and have passed on that love of birds to my wife Denise and my son Wil. We go on adventures about once a month all over Massachusetts. We keep lists upon lists and I really enjoy the time we all spend together. We even went to Machias Seal Island in Maine a few years ago and had our best birding trip we have ever had. The Razorbills and Atlantic Puffins so close you could almost touch them from inside the blinds!!! Absolutely amazing. They are both up to about 170 species on their life lists and they are constantly looking for a new entry.
I am so very lucky for my great Aunt Helen from 35 years ago.
Tom got started with NYC pigeons:
Having grown up for the best part of my early and teen years in a NYC Housing Projects in the 50s and 60s=2C we didn’t see much but pigeons.
But when I was around 12 I began to visit the American Museum of Natural History and found myself drawn to one diorama in particular and that was in The Great Hall of Birds on the first floor which I believe no longer exists in its original form.
A diorama, similar to this in the American Museum of Natural History, sparked Tom’s interest in birding.
There were the ropes and the rail of a wooden ship looking out upon a stormy sea and hovering just above was a great seabird – a great albatross – and it held me in awe. At the same time at home we had a large illustrated edition of The Rime of The Ancient Mariner.
Between these two visions I began to wonder how this bird could provide me with such a feeling of peace every time I saw it at the museum and then give me the creeps whenever I opened the book and saw the arrow heading straight towards it.
In any case, it got me noticing birds and I really wanted to see live ones. So I began to find pheasants at the local cemetery ( St Michael’s in Queens- the other kids used them as archery targets) and later got a permit to visit the Jamaica Wildlife Refuge near Kennedy Airport ( we still called it Idlewild back then) – a long subway ride away.
And it’s been birds since then wherever I find them. And the pigeons? I still delight in their iridescent necks when the sun shines.
Thanks for letting me share and thanks to all who share their sightings. I would have never seen a Tufted Duck or Northern Lapwing without your kindness.
Dee relates how she and Bob “simmered” into birding:
For my husband Bob and I, getting into birding wasn’t so much a spark as a slow simmer. We met in college and liked to take long walks. Along the way, we’d notice a bird here and there. Being curious, when we got home,we would try to look the bird up in a guide only to discover that, not knowing what features to look for, we hadn’t noticed the ones we needed to identify the bird. So… we started taking the field guide with us – only to discover that we couldn’t see the bird well enough to make out the characteristics we needed. So… we started taking along a pair of binoculars – only to discover that one of us would get to see the bird, but by the time the other one got the binoculars the bird was gone. So… we started carrying the bird guide and two pair of binoculars. About that time, we realized that instead of looking at birds while we were taking walks, we were taking walks to look at birds. We had become birders.
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Dana D was “oozed” into birding by a rustic island camp:
Now admittedly it is a long time ago now but I was blessed with having grandparents that read an ad in the mid 1920’s of a cabin for rent on a pond in Center Tuftonboro, NH. I am told that when the sun rose that next day (after they arrived in the dark) the magic of the pond captured them and a few years later they had built a cabin across the lake. I was also very fortunate that my Mother loved that spot and I remember the moment that school got out, my parents would pack us up and off we would go for the summer living the life of Huckleberry Finn. Those of you that have been there know that my side of the lake is much the same as it was way back when.
But this is the spot where the wonders of the spot just oozed out and enchanted me. I am not sure now if it was the loons that swam by, or the majestic Scarlet Tanager or my favorite Black-throated Blue Warbler or the Pileated Woodpeckers that first captured me or whether it was that whole experience that propelled me to ask my parents for a bird book for my 8th birthday. I like the ooze idea! Now the place is mine and Bob and I spend most of the summer there still entranced by those same experiences and working hard to preserve them.
Common Loons swimming by the camp were part of Dana’s “spark.” photo by mikebaird
We still have to go by boat – we do have a footpath but is like island living. We still have no electricity and a little house in the woods, and a spring further back in the woods for drinking water . In the old days we cooked with wood on a big old stove and had to haul in ice for a frig.. Now the “modern” things we have consist of propane tanks that power a frig, stove and a few lights, and recently a solar panel that runs a little demand pump which allows us to have lake water coming out of a kitchen sink and will charge those modern things like my computer and a cell phone.
This influence has propelled me for the rest of my life sustaining a passionate interest in birds – I have been very fortunate as no matter whether I was working at a Mass Audubon summer camp, at Cornell getting to know Allan and Kellogg, teaching biology in India, travelling around the world, or just watching my bird feeders here in North Andover, I know that my disease in incurable and I will always be caught in this wonderful web.
Dick H (VT) was another who started birding very young and has continued for many decades:
Was born and brought up in Winchester, MA and since the age of 8, 1940’s, I asked for Birds of North America, can’t think of the author, and liked to sketch from the pictures in the book and from real life. Even then, I had to know the names. When I went fishing at Big Winter Pond, would sit for long periods just watching the birds and testing my knowledge of them in my head. But, as a teenager, I was more interested in sports and not into birding as such, I simply got enjoyment from being outside and knowing as much about the natural history around me as I could at that age. What sparked a passion for birding as a way of life waited till I was visiting our family place in Maine for a week in May in the late 1950’s. I saw for the first time a gorgeous male Blackburnian Warbler singing from a spruce tree just outside the house where we were staying! I would watch in awe! Oh my, that was the moment!! I was bound and determined to learn the Warblers and set out with my Petersen’s to experience as many as I could find at that time.
The Blackburnian Warbler was a “spark bird” for many, including Dick H. photo by Matt Tillet
Went to different local habitats in the area. I have never looked back, have loved every moment, from banding in the 60’s and 70’s, going after rarities, being involved with Christmas Counts. Now that I’m retired and live in Vermont, keeping records of whatever I see on our property is fun for me. Beyond going out west or to Churchill, I have been fortunate enough that because John Kricher, don’t think he knows this, but through him and his books got me interested in tropical birds. That has led to trips to Africa, Brazil, Panama, Venezuela and Australia. Many thanks John!!
Jim’s dad was his spark:
My spark was my dad. I was blessed with a father who liked to be outdoors (mainly fishing) but happily supported his son’s obsession with birds. The gasoline to that spark was a very active local birdwatching club. Before I was a teenager I had visited many famous birding spots in England including the Isles of Silly. I progressed to twitching which was great fun until I discovered the opposite sex. Bird photography is the latest iteration of my life long passion. In 2010 I was finally able to take my dad to Scotland to finally see our nemesis bird, a Corn Crake.
Lesley’s grandfather provided the spark:
For me, it was my loving grandfather who adored the outdoors . Although I was born and raised in Marblehead, MA, we had a summer home on a mountain overlooking New Found Lake in NH and it was here that my granddaddy took my brother and myself fishing and hiking in the woods where he would point out the birds, wildlife, and wildflowers. He gave my brother and myself a set of 2 books of birds, they were large books, one was Songbirds and the other was Water Birds and they were filled with the most beautiful colored photos of birds that I longed to see , but the best part of these books was they each came with these flexible plastic records that had all the songs of the birds. This was pure magic for me and although I could not have been more than 8 to 10 years old I was totally hooked, I listened to the records and committed so many songs to memory and was completely enchanted when I found, through song, my first Baltimore Oriole in my very own neighborhood. I can still remember seeing that first flash of brilliant orange and even found their sling like nest in a big old Elm tree… ya that was like 50 years ago.
Lesley still remembers the oriole’s nest, like this one, from fifty years ago. photo by Dendroica cerulea
So when I started to become serious with photography 10 years ago, it was just so natural for me to choose birds as one of my main subjects. My world has been so magical since resuming my love of birds and nature the last 10 years. I have seen birds that I never dreamed I would and so many right under my nose. It is a joyous journey and I am so happy to be on it.
And Fred, inspired by Miss Dickey, has used her as a model to pass the spark on:
I remember no spark. The interest was always there in all kinds of nature. There was no one bird or one event that started me on my path. I think I was born with it. But it wasn’t until I was 8 in 1964 that it really started to grow.=A0 That was when my parents signed me up for the bird club at Children’s Museum in Jamaica Plain, taught by Miss (Miriam E) Dickey. She fed the sparks into flames which have burned intensely ever since. She fed the desire to learn as much as I possibly could and helped me to see as many birds as I could. The first bird I identified on my own was in the big sugar maple tree in front of the house in West Roxbury shortly after starting in the bird club. A beautiful bird with iridescent purple and green on its feathers, a bright yellow beak, and fluttering its wings as it sang the most amazing complex song. It was the song that grabbed my attention and drew me outside from the bedroom. I memorized the bird, studying it with the binoculars my grampa had given me. Then I ran into the house and identified it from the posters hanging on my wall. My first bird. A European Starling. I was so excited. And so amazed that it was from Europe. The next time in bird club, Miss Dickey told me it wasn’t rare, which was a disappointment,but she did not squelch my enthusiasm, and congratulated me on my identification. Miss Dickey led us on weekly walks at the Arnold Arboretum or around Jamaica Pond and through Sargent’s Estate. Every Saturday AM during the school year. Amazing.
Miss Dickey was a model for me. I am very thankful for her. I have taught grades 3 and 9-12 for over 30 years. Inspired by her I have tried to plant new sparks, and fan already-existing ones into flames in my students and teen bird club members, by getting them out there into nature to experience it first hand, hoping that they will form a heart-connection with nature and a great curiosity about it. It is a real joy to see this passion for birds (or any kind of nature) take off in their hearts and minds and faces, and sometimes careers.
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As we read the stories from birders, many were sparked by a mentor — an older friend or a parent. Others were converted by the flash of a Blackburnian Warbler or Northern Cardinal. Still others were young nature lovers who evolved into birders. Doug C. has been thinking about this and summarizes it like this:
I find this particular thread on how people acquired their passion for birds to be extremely interesting. I have always been curious how others got into birding and have asked many. Over the years, I have decided that this acquired passion can be placed into one of three general categories. To paraphrase William Shakespeare, people become dedicated birders by being born into it, or achieving it, or having it thrust upon them.
Some have been toting binoculars since they could walk and have gotten field guides as one of their earliest remembered gifts. photo by USFWS
Some of us are born to birding. We are born into a family that is already seized with this passion. Some are the children of professional ornithologists or naturalists. Some are children to parents who are already dedicated amateur birders.Because these people have been studying birds all through their peak learning years, they are often the most accomplished among us.
Some of us achieve birding. My Lois is one of those. A new feeder in the back yard brings in birds one has never seen before and curiosity takes over. When a person enters birding by achieving it quite often results in it being difficult to know the exact moment when the passion took over. They start trying to find out what the yellow bird picking at the thistle is, and before they know it they are standing in the rain at the Pipe line road in Panama. The transition is slow but sure and ones’ life has changed.
Gerry Cooperman and I fall into the third category. We had birding thrust upon us. His conversion took place 9 years before mine but is eerily similar. The bird he saw through the scope was in a plowed field and was a Killdeer. My experience was also through another’s scope and it occurred on a beach and was a Ruddy Turnstone. In both cases it was a revelation. We stepped away from the scope knowing that our lives had changed in a fundamental and profound way. We were blind but now could see.
An interesting note on my first birding encounter was that the two birders who took me out for the first time at one point became excited and directed me to look at the bird in the scope. “Look at the bill” they encouraged me, “Look at that big black bill.” It was a rather plain looking plover and although I knew it was exciting by their reaction, I didn’t think it matched my stunning Ruddy Turnstone. The Turnstone turned me to birding but I also got a Wilson’s Plover as a bonus that I have only appreciated in later years.
Stuart W. was one who began young and has been at it, off and on, for six decades:
Where does it begin? One of my earliest memories is being held up by my mother to see a bluebird or robin’s nest in a tangle of leaves next to the back door of our house in Plymouth. Then, as a little boy, I chased robins across the yard with a salt shaker because I’d been told I could catch one if I could only put salt on its tail. We moved to Sudbury when I was ten, during an invasion of Evening Grosbeaks that lasted a couple of years or more, and they would mob the feeder I had outside my bedroom window (I also remember a one-legged Chickadee that showed up for at least two years running.) The next year, in 1959, my father drove me to Concord to see the Hawk Owl that appeared in a mid-town parking lot that winter – the last life bird of the great Ludlow Griscom. It’s been an erratic trajectory, but one I’ve been on for sixty years.
Walt W. likewise has a lifetime of observing nature, the wonders as well as the environmental changes:
Walt has a 1947 Peterson field guide that he used as a youngster in Ohio.
As a child growing up in Ohio in the ’40s, I was lucky in having fields right behind my house. My lifelong interest in nature was sparked one day as I sat spellbound in a school auditorium watching a live snake show! While I began my nature interest by collecting snakes & other reptiles, my fascination with nature eventually spread to the rest of the natural world, including birds. (I still have a rare 1947 copy of Peterson.) For many years I kept a diary of my nature observations & jaunts which included pencil sketches in the margins.
Although I moved to MA many years ago, I still return occasionally to my Ohio hometown & there to revisit the center of my youthful world–the woods, creeks, & pond at the local golf country club. Little did the golfers realize what a natural paradise existed beyond the greens & fairways! I mapped & named the places where my discoveries were made–Snake Bank, Turtle Peninsula, Oak Ridge, Salamander Creek, Fern Glen, etc. Although much has changed in the years since I roamed this wonderful place, there have been occasional delightful surprises during my visits.
On one return in the summer of 1993, I discovered, to my considerable distress, that a maintenance road had been cut right through the middle of “my” beloved woods (a big island of trees surrounded on all sides by the grassy fairways). But a pleasant surprise awaited me that day! I quote from my notes: “In & around a clearing along the road where tall dead beeches & debris piles existed, there was a concentration of birds: a Wood Pewee singing from an exposed dead branch; a Carolina Wren calling loudly while searching through the low cover; a flock of both adult & juvenile American Robins on the road itself; Common Grackles; a raucous Blue Jay; American Goldfinches; an American Crow; a pair of Mourning Doves also on the road; Tufted Titmice; a flock of Cedar Waxwings taking flight. The highlight was a family of Red-headed Woodpeckers! The adults were working the dead trees, periodically calling & carrying food to the dark-headed young following them.” Unfortunately, sometime later the entire woods was replaced with a practice green! A sad ending.
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Here are the next group of stories from the Massachusetts birding community (extended) about what was the spark that made them birders.
Catherine (NH) was hooked by a booming Bittern:
I was fortunate in that my Dad has been a lifelong bird watcher, but I don’t recall his ever pushing my siblings or me to follow his bliss. Still, there quite a few species to be seen around our home, and I was given an antique hard-covered child’s first book of birds when I was around 6 or so. My folks had a sunflower seed feeder hanging above the front porch, but I read in my book about getting some strange substance called suet (which I pronounced as you would a man’s business attire), and asked my folks if they knew where we could get some so we could see woodpeckers.They obtained suet and hung it from on old onion bag and soon we had hairy and downy woodpeckers at our feeders.
From age 6 or so, birds were my winter pastime. I enjoyed watching our feeders on snowy days and became familiar with the birds that stayed or arrived with the snow. In those days (late 50s early 60s), we’d have evening grosbeaks every winter – great flocks of them that came and devoured mass quantities of sunflower seeds. It’s been decades since I’ve seen flocks like those.
The spark, though, didn’t hit me until one early morning in the spring when I was eight. Our home was abutted by two abandoned pastures, and beyond them was a small pond surrounded by a sizable cattail swamp. Every spring a pair of bitterns would set up housekeeping in that swamp, and our early mornings would be punctuated with the male’s strange, booming call. I knew it was a bittern, because our Dad had told us so years ago; and I knew what a bittern looked like because I’d looked it up in our Peterson field guide.
But that spring morning, as the male was thundering away in the swamp, I decided that I was going to go see what this bird looked like when he was making his weird music. I wanted to SEE what he did to make that sound! It was a much harder (and soggier) undertaking than I’d imagined it would be, and I spent a good twenty minutes jumping from cattail hummock to cattail hummock – trying hard (and failing) not to muck up the new sneakers that were supposed to last me at least until the end of summer. I was so intent on where I was putting my feet that I came on the bittern almost before I knew it. One minute I was grabbing a handful of spent cattail stalks and trying not to tumble in the muck, and then there he was, just twenty feet or so away, on his own hummock. He was much more handsome than the picture in the book, and I was fascinated by how painful-looking his singing was. Each sound required so much effort that it seemed to my eight-year-old eyes, that he was constantly on the verge of throwing up. I was absolutely transfixed by that bird – by nature I was rather a fidgety child, but so intent was I on not spooking the bittern that I crouched behind my cattail clump as if frozen. I don’t know how long I watched him before he finally flew off to sing in some other section of his swamp, but it felt like I stayed watching him for a long time before he left, and I felt like I could stay like that forever. What I remember most was the elation I felt – like I’d been lit up inside with a feeling of great joy – that, through my own hard slogging, I had seen something wonderful.
An American Bittern was Catherine’s “spark bird.” photo by goingslo
I think, when I go bird watching, I’m chasing that lit up feeling as much as I’m chasing glimpses of these wonderful creatures. My Dad will be 80 this year, and we still try to get out bird-watching once a week or so. Often we just sit in one place, drink coffee, and watch whatever comes by. It’s a rare outing where we don’t see something avian that gives us that joyful, lit up feeling.
Tom (CT) became hooked at summer camp:
My spark was similar to one of the first posters, who posted about the distant eagle. I was 12 years old, at a summer camp in New Hampshire. I had been interested in birds since I was 5-6, raptors mostly, like most boys (had a falling out with my best friend for a while over who would win in a fight between a Bald Eagle and a California Condor!), but never really birded. My spark bird was a male Blackburnian Warbler (I’m sure I am not the only one) that a counselor showed me on a nature walk, but it was the fact that you could use binoculars to find and identify this tiny bird so far away that really opened up my world.
That winter, I bought a box of Cap’n Crunch with a pair of binoculars inside as a free prize, then upgraded to another pair of plastic binocs from a drug store, then to my dad’s mother of pearl opera glasses(!) before finally getting as a birthday present, about 80-90 species later, a pair of 8x40s optimized for sports viewing (which I was inordinately proud of because both the 8 and the 40 were bigger numbers than the standard 7×35!). Ironically, like another poster, I’m actually not very good at spotting things with my eyes, and have been a birder mainly by ear for most of my life (though my favorite group of birds are shorebirds–I love sitting and going through a flock with a scope over and over again).
Gerry, the “spark” for this wonderful discussion, tells how sharing a ‘scope can change a life:
It was July of 1970. My wife of two years and I were spending the weekend with my cousin and his wife at their Bonnet Shores house. He asked me if I would like to go birding with him on Sunday morning and not being adverse to trying something new easily agreed.
We went to Moonstone Beach and trudged out by the potato field where my cousin set up his Swift scope. Mind you I didn’t even have a pair of binoculars. He started sweeping the fields and then stopped and fiddled with the focus wheel and said “here take a look at this.”
I put my eye to the scope and what happened next was nothing short of an epiphany. The bird in the scope was a Killdeer and seeing him was like a laser back to my brain because at very moment I knew what I was going to do the rest of my life.
Gerry gives quiet thanks to his “spark bird” — a Killdeer. photo by winnu
Today when I find a Killdeer I always linger. It’s not to recreate that moment because that can only happen once but I always view the Killdeer as the key to my great adventure. If you happen to be standing close enough to me you will hear an audible ” thank you” and that comes from my heart and soul.
Jessica notes that she is a “birding baby” compared to many contributors to this thread:
My own story is so different. Maybe six years ago, on a whim, I got a video about “backyard bird identification” from the library. At a local park, I made my first identification: a flock of house sparrows. I watched them hop about, fascinated. They were no longer just “birds”, beyond any
hope of recognition. They had unique names and identities and habits. Suddenly birds were everywhere. I got to know the chickadee, the robin, the blue jay…
A few years later, I imitated a mysterious and lovely (and loud) bird call to my boyfriend. “That’s a cardinal,” he said without hesitation. I was stunned (and a little skeptical). How could he know that from my poor imitation? He got me “Birding by Ear”, and pretty soon I was helping him make identifications.
I think what got me hooked though was the experience of going to places that seemed empty and just stopping long enough to see that they hosted a rich variety. If I stand still and pay attention, I might see coots bobbing in the reeds, a heron motionless and hunting, goldfinches calling as they fly, a flock of bluebirds passing through.
Looking forward to reading more about your adventures and finds.
You can read the initial question here and the first batch of answers here.
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When Gerry Cooperman put his “What Sparked Your Interest? on the MASSBirds listserve, I asked him for permission to post it here. I figured he’d get a half-dozen responses and perhaps I’d excerpt one or two and move on. The response has been overwhelming as dozens of birders from across the Northeast tell their story. Here are a few examples from just the first day of responses.
Paul was in college:
My spark came as a nineteen year old at UMASS. I was told one could see bald eagles at the Quabbin. I packed my girlfriend in the car one cold winter morning and made the trek down route 9 and arrived at the reservoir expecting there to be an eagle in every tree. How naive I was. It wasn’t until I arrived at the Enfield lookout that I noticed a few older gentlemen with very large homemade telescopes. I built up the nerve to speak to one of them and asked what they were looking at. The answer was something like “that eagle in that tree on Mt. Ram” I looked with my naked eye and saw a mountain. He suggested I look through his scope and that’s when I saw my first adult bald eagle. Amazed by what I saw, I immediately went and purchased the best binoculars and scope that I could afford and decided I wanted more!
Kathleen was a young girl:
I remember the day very well. It was in May and I was perhaps 10 or 11.
My sister had come down with scarlet fever. I was perfectly healthy but the house was quarantined, so no school for me. It was a lovely warm morning, my window was wide open and I heard birds singing. Encouraged by an aunt, I was just beginning to become more seriously interested in birds. I knelt by my open window, looking down at the pear tree in full bloom below, and suddenly the brightest bird I had ever seen flew into the top of the tree…the brightest red I had ever seen, with black wings and tail.
I knew robins and crows, blue jays and chickadees, but I had NEVER seen anything like this. This scarlet red atop a white tree. I just had to know what it was. My aunt had given me her old copy of the little Chester Reed bird book with black and white drawings. It look a long time of turning pages, but eventually I found the bird and immediately took my crayons and colored it in, and decided to try to see every bird in the book. I’m still looking, and marveling, at all the wonderful birds that are out there waiting to be discovered.
David is a birder who began in middle age, decades after he wished he had begun.
My spark birds were Harlequins at Cathedral Ledge in Rockport in late fall, 2008. My first-grade son, Tim, had gotten interested in birds via feathered dinosaurs, and my wife and I enrolled him in the Chickadee Birders program at Drumlin Farm. That Saturday we had gone to the Gloucester Fish Pier, where I figured out how to use binoculars, but when we got to Cathedral Ledge, something had dawned on me: I had been blind until that day, to birds, that is. Beautiful, glamorous, utterly surprising birds. I was hooked, and began strolling around our neighborhood in Concord trying to see birds; it turned out I wasn’t all that good at locating them, but I thought that hearing them was almost good enough, so I began concentrating on finding them by ear.
David’s spark birds were Harlequin Ducks. photo by Dendroica cerulea
My son, meantime, has turned to other things, but still remembers his Sibley and asks to see local rarities now and then. Even if he doesn’t turn into a lifetime birder, he’s given me that gift.
Steve Arena described two spark moments:
The first time was the second week of May, 1970. I was staring out the window of my first grade class at the Henry Grew School in Hyde Park, Mass. Like a beacon of light, a bright red bird with all black wings alit atop a weeping willow tree – singing continuously. True to form, I jumped up, disrupted class, and got the teacher “on the bird”. Mrs. Ferrara was wonderful. She stopped the class so that all the kids could see this beautiful bird singing in the clear morning light. She took it a step further and over the next couple of days, we learned all about birds. The Scarlet Tanager and Mrs. Ferrara’s encouragement were all I needed.
Scarlet Tanager — the bird that started it all for Steve. photo by Steve Arena
The second time for me was after taking some time off from seriously birding to raise two wonderful children, a Massbird report of two (2) Black Rails at PRNWR entered my inbox. The birds were found by some hot shot birder I never heard of before (you all know him as Marshall Iliff) and a young man that I last knew as a boy (Jeremiah Trimble). I ventured up to the Island on 6/21/10 and was treated to the odd yet wonderful sound of two Black Rails calling at dusk. Zing! The hook was reset.
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I try to make it over to Parker River NWR every time we visit this area and today I grabbed a few hours to check things out and practice some digiscoping. There were few tourists and birders and lots of ducks. Most of the ducks were feeding heavily so I gave up after taking way too many “duck butt” shots. I saw Gadwalls, Mallards, Teals, Pintails, Wigeons, Ruddy Ducks, Black Ducks, and a probably a few more. Four Mute Swans were in the Salt Pannes –here’s a shot of one preening.
We always check Mute Swans hoping for a Tundra…. some day.
Some of the highlights of the day were the hundreds of Double-crested Cormorants (with probably a Great or two in there) heading southward. I enjoyed watching two Northern Harriers hunting, using the northwest wind to hover and swoop. They are perhaps my favorite hawk.
Lots of sparrows still hanging out — Swamp, White-crowned, Savannah, Song, and several others too vague for me to identify. I need a sparrow guru with me on Plum Island. One Song Sparrow posed for some digiscoping:
On the way out, about a dozen Yellowlegs were resting. Here is one that was up and about and looking good.
In addition to good weather and good birds, it was nice to be at Parker River between hunting seasons. The adjacent waters are hunted heavily and it’s nice to have some peace and quiet — for us and for the ducks and geese.
Every fall and winter, harbor seals come into the Merrimack River. They congregate just opposite to the campground -they are very much a local attraction — to campers and day visitors to Salisbury State Park Reservation. Mary and I drove over today to see them as the tide was receding.
Named common seal throughout Europe, this seal frequently observed around Long Island lives along the shores of eastern Canada, New England and in the winter, as far south as the Carolinas in a variety of habitats. Their scientific name loosely means “sea calf” or “sea dog.” This latter nickname is well suited as these seals closely resemble a dog when their head is viewed at the surface of the water.
“Hey Guys, stop loafing and get to work. The fish are running.”
They were out on the rocks, lying with their heads and hind flippers elevated in a “banana-like” position. They were “talking” to one another and enjoying the fall cloud-filtered sunlight.
A Great Black-backed Gull posed as we watched the seals.
While harbor seals don’t do the tricks of the seals at Sea World, it was delightful to see them in their natural habitat, feeding, playing, and resting. Nice images to take back to a pending Vermont winter.
“Ah, just a couple of Mallards.” How many times have we said that when scanning through a group of waterfowl, looking for the rock stars: the Teals, the Hoodies, the Redheads … anything but plain vanilla Mallards. Like Black-capped Chickadees or American Robins, or even Blue Jays, it’s easy to take a “just another” attitude toward the feathered friends we see quite often.
But, there’s a lot to be said for bird watching, rather than birding from time to time: taking the time to observe, to admire, to just be present with … some call it slow birding. Here is one online description of the differences:
One person can be both a birdwatcher and a birder. Many bird lovers change their style of birding from day to day, some days more casually enjoying their familiar backyard birds, while other days focusing on chasing that new lifer or identifying a unique visitor. What both types have in common, however, is a love of birds that withstands any name rivalry.
The other day, I watched two pairs of Mallards feeding in the morning sun, oblivious to me scoping them from across the inlet. They just dabbled and preened and had a great time — it reminded me of hanging out in a great coffee shop, nibbling and sipping, just having a leisurely breakfast.
I watched a couple of Mallards leisurely feeding and dabbling, partly hidden by the foliage, enjoying the morning sun.
I’m usually not the most patient of birders — I have to consciously slow down and observe rather than just ticking the bird off on my iPhone and moving on. There’s a time and a place for that, but it’s also fun to make time to not only study the details of plumage but to learn more about what the birds that we see and hear are doing. It’s a work in progress for me. So Mallards, if I have maligned you in the past, remember deep down I think you’re cool-looking and acting ducks. Dabble on!
Today was a beautiful fall day to chase birds. I returned to Artichoke Reservoir which was rather calm after yesterday’s chaos. I was looking for the Greater White-fronted Goose that has been seen for several days in a row. My first pass on the various vantage points brought some nice birds: lots of Mallards, Pied-billed Grebes, a Double-crested Cormorant, a couple of Mute Swans, and about 20 Canada Geese but no target bird. I was early and knew that they had been overnighting in nearby cornfields and arriving later in the morning so I drove over to nearby Cherry Hill Reservoir.
I took a walk along the eastern edge, seeing hundreds of Ruddy Ducks, a couple of American Coots, a late Osprey, and numerous sparrows. A birder came walking up, with a dog on a leash, and asked if I’d seen the goose. When I said no, he told me that it had just flown in back at Artichoke — that he’d been there when it arrived. So, back in the car I went, stowing scope and tripod, and drove the ten minutes back. Sure enough, there was a gaggle of geese on the wind-swept water and after counting 49 and not seeing it, I went slowly back through the group and sure enough, there it was — smaller, orange bill, different coloration. Life bird 348! I took some digiscoped shots but they are for documentation — too far away and pretty windy.
A Greater White-fronted Goose on Artichoke Reservoir, West Newbury, MA.
As I was watching, a birder from New Hampshire showed up, and then another serious guy who’d driven yesterday to Rhode Island for the Wood Sandpiper. They got on the bird and then a woman arrived, mentioning that “the Great Cormorant was still at Cherry Hill Reservoir.” I asked her where and since I’d never spotted it, after watching the goose for a bit longer, I made the short trip back to Cherry Hill. I suspect that locals are used to birders by now.
I found the juvenile Great Cormorant — perhaps two — the photos look that way — on rocks way on the other side of the water. They digiscoped photo is pretty rough but the looks through the scope were good. Life bird 349!
I would have liked to see the Pink-footed Goose that someone reported a few days ago and my birder friends were really after that … but it may have been a misidentification or just left, as rare birds will do. I’m at the point in birding where I still have a number of not-so-rare birds to get for life birds. Hope to get one more this week — perhaps a Northern Gannet.
For the last several days, the MASSBIRDS listserve has had numerous reports of a White-fronted Goose spotted in a large group of Canada Geese on nearby Artichoke Reservoir. Someone also reported a Pink-footed Goose at the same location. So, I was thinking about skipping church yesterday but decided to attend and visit the reservoir afterward. Big mistake as it turned out.
I checked email after church and sure enough, two more reports reported the goose still in place so I was psyched. After a coffee stop, I drove the several miles to the turn down Turkey Hill Lane, the road that runs along the reservoir. I immediately encounted hundreds of plastic cups in the road and a few runners and thought, “Well, a local race must have just finished up.” Don’t I wish.
Soon, there were more runners, and spectators, and before I knew it, I had come to an intersection where runners were streaming in from another section of the race — and a local policeman was holding up his hand to stop me, and I had six or eight cars behind me blocking any exit. Here’s the scene, which doesn’t due justice to the number of people.
I talked to the cop who said we would just have to wait — and so I did, for about 20 minutes when finally I was able to turn around and backtrack. I decided to approach the reservoir from the south so I drove down I-95 to the next exit and found Turkey Hill Lane and it was deserted. I drove north for three or four miles and suddenly, a phalanx of runners came in from a side road and I was immersed in runners on the narrow road, I could see the reservoir, and saw a gaggle of geese, but runners were in the middle of the road, on both sides, and I was also in a convoy of vehicles. It felt like the Tour de France, albeit slower. This was the back of the pack and runners were walking, taking photos of one another, and nearly all had headphones. I crept ahead, with no other options, and pretty soon, an old tractor joined the procession. I came to an intersection clogged with runners, and who should I see but my policeman friend, vainly trying to sort things out. I snuck by, headed out and home, thinking that this was not my day. I’d got tangled up with a big half-marathon with over 2000 runners. I think I’ll try for the goose today when the roads should be calm and birder-friendly.
