This blog is, largely, about interests I have taken up that either did not or probably will not survive. There are a few interests that I have that are cyclic or intermittent; I am sometimes interested and sometimes could not care less. One of the more persistent specimens of this latter category is “birds.”

I do sometimes get bored of them, but never for very long. The mania of bird dorkage, over the past three years, has always come back to me, and usually stays for quite a while, which makes it a weird anomaly.

I have tried to figure out why. I don’t know for sure. Like, sure, birds are beautiful and interesting and intelligent and flappy colored sometimes-talking dinosaurs, but that can’t be the whole story. A lot of things are beautiful and interesting and…er, well, maybe not flappy dinosaurs. But whatever. You know what I mean.

I do have thoughts, though. And I have come to the conclusion that, although it probably isn’t for everyone, there are a lot of reasons why everyone should at least give being a bird dork a respectable trial–and, to be fair and balanced, at least one reason why you shouldn’t.

1. It makes going outside and walking around interesting

Maybe you’re the sort of person who finds being outside interesting in itself. That’s totally cool. But maybe, like me, you really like the idea of being outside, but then you get out there and think, well, what now? Or perhaps, a friend suggests going on a hike, and you ask to where or to see what, because you don’t understand why anyone would just wander around outside without a specific Thing to see or do.

If you are a bird dork, however, all of these experiences change. Now, every time you go outside and walk around, there is something to do: find birds. Identify birds. Tell the birds they’re looking sexy today. Yell back at the birds yelling at you. Maybe, take photographs of birds, or watch bird behavior, or record and identify bird sounds, or even make friends with birds. There is more than one way to be a bird dork, so you can shake things up a little every so often. You can keep lists, make goals, treat it like a video game where you have specific objectives and get points when you, say, get yelled at by a blue jay. (A thousand points for me, yesterday.)

 

2. The thrill of discovery (…of birds)

At some point in 2019, I bought a DSLR camera and telephoto lens, because I thought I wanted to get into wildlife photography. Then, the pandemic happened, and I couldn’t go anywhere to find fancy wildlife, and thought, well, I bought this damn thing, so I’m going to wander around the neighborhood with my dog and shoot at anything that moves. And then, one day, I saw a bird fly into a tree, and took aim, and saw a drop-dead beautiful weirdo through my lens that I never even knew existed.

I literally gasped. Out loud. Followed by a lot of whispered “holy shit what the shit what the hell are you oh my god what are you” type of sounds.

Now, I don’t know if this is a normal reaction to seeing a cedar waxwing for the first time. Probably not. I’m gonna guess not. But the point is: I spent 30-something years on this earth not knowing this creature existed, let alone anywhere in my vicinity, and one day I just…found one.

There is something to be said for the feeling of “discovering” something for yourself, even if everyone else already knows. Ennui can set in pretty easily, in life, and it’s super nice to be reminded that actually, you have not even remotely seen or done everything, not even in your own neighborhood.

Which brings me to the next point, actually.

3. There’s always the potential for new birds

You may think that there are only so many birds to watch, in your vicinity. Eventually, you will have to travel to see new birds, or simply get bored with what’s around you. And to some extent, I guess, there may be truth in this. But I will tell you that a) I have been a bird dork for a full three years now and I am still seeing entirely new birds to me, and b) you often do not have to travel that far to see a whole new suite of bird life.

“What kind of birds are around” depends not only on where you are on the map, but also the season, the plant life in any given area, the water situation, and the general ecosystem profile of a particular location. And depending where you are, there might be a lot of ecosystem variance within a few miles. I live in a heavily wooded area, but there’s a park a 15-minute drive away with marsh, wetland, ponds, forest, shrubland, and meadow; that’s a lot of ecosystems in a tight space, which means a lot of bird variety.

But there’s even broader possibilities if I drive a bit further. Where I am right now, I will probably never see an osprey, unless it is extremely lost or drunk. But if I drive about an hour to the east, there’s a wildlife sanctuary that is seasonally so full of ospreys that if I were to go there at the right time of year, and close my eyes, and randomly point my finger in an upward-ish direction, there’d be a significant chance I’d be pointing at an osprey.

The season also matters. Some birds stay year-round, but a lot of them migrate. At the moment, it’s winter. The weird ducks (“anything not a mallard”) and the dark-eyed juncos are here; many of the songbirds are gone or less abundant. In spring and summer, the weird ducks and juncos will be gone, and the songbirds will come. In the fall, the hawks migrate. That wildlife sanctuary I mentioned? There aren’t any ospreys there right now. The finger-pointing random osprey season is springtime. But there are a lot of weird ducks there now. (Shit, I should go to the wildlife refuge before the weird ducks disappear…)

In short…it could be a while before you run out of new things to see. If you get bored, go to your mom’s house.

4. Birds are almost everywhere

You can be a bird dork just about anyplace. City, country, meadow, forest, desert, jungle, ocean, tundra, on a boat, with a goat, by a moat,  doesn’t matter, there’s birds. You could argue that, in a city, the variety of possible birds is limited, to which I say, a) I’ve never seen a snowy owl and only seen a peregrine falcon once, but those fuckers seem to like to sit atop giant city buildings, so keep your eyes open, and b) I’ve seen pictures of birds from Central Park that make me seethe in jealousy, and c) you don’t have to get into the variety of bird species to be a bird dork. You could be a dork for one species. You could find out why pigeons are interesting, or develop peanut-distribution-based relationships with crows, or stare deeply into the iridescent rainbow oil-slick feathers of starlings until the universe talks to you.

I’m not going to promise that there will always, constantly be a bird presence, wherever you go. Sometimes they’re just not where you are. There was one memorable walk I took in Arizona scrubland where my footsteps were literally the only noise or movement anywhere; absolute dead silence for 45 minutes of walking and no birds to be found.

But then I got back to the parking lot. A tree full of nuthatches, and wild turkeys all over the road.

The point is, whether or not birds are there in that exact spot in that exact moment — birds are always possible. Just keep looking.

5. The bird dork community is huge and enthusiastically dorky

There are birders everywhere, formally and informally.

There are numerous official or semi-official societies and groups. The Audobon Society has its fingers all over the place, and chances are, you have a regional or state Audobon Society that you can hook up with, that probably leads bird walks or talks or educational series or other group activities.

Personally, I am not a very social person, and I have not done the bird walks yet. I also have not done much of a dive into the subculture of birders. But I am very aware that there is a whole world of ravenous bird people I could seek out if I ever wanted more company.

And, in fact, the company seems to come anyway. After ranting excitedly about birds to friends and acquaintances, I’ve found out that some of them are also, to some degree at least, bird dorks, who were merely more polite than I was in considering whether or not the person opposite them might be interested in bird-related rantings.

I have also been hailed by total strangers in bird-heavy locations who saw me with a camera staring at a bush, who had a similar interest in staring at bushes with cameras. They have usually been pleasant and extremely helpful. These lovely randos were how I “found” my first owl, and my first roseate spoonbill and avocets. I once spent the better part of a pleasant afternoon with one of them, chatting and sauntering around some constructed ponds, with no idea what his name was even though he definitely told me.

 

 

If you are a social person, you can pretty easily find like-minded people to hang out with, or excitedly share your sightings with, even if you’re not trying to.

And Now, A Word of Warning

I did say there would be a reason why you shouldn’t get into birding. It is, really, the same reason why any hobby is dangerous to really get into seriously, and that is this: money.

You do not actually have to spend any money to be a bird dork. You can just sit there and watch them. You can download the Merlin app and it can help you ID birds by sight and sound right there on the spot. You can use free online bird guides to learn about them.

But there is a chance that you will want more. And maybe, you will want to see them up close.

If you want to look at living birds up close, there are three ways to do it. One, you look at captive birds that are habituated to humans and can’t get away from you. Two, you spend years carefully cultivating close social relationships with a particular group of birds that eventually allow you to stand sort of near them. Or three, you buy quality glass. And by glass, I mean either binoculars, or a DSLR camera and telephoto lens. I am not a binoculars person, but it’s my understanding that quality binoculars will generally run you a minimum of a few hundred dollars, and it is the same situation with a “starter” DSLR camera. If you want to go high-quality, it’s more like thousands.

And once you start the whole photography thing, you are, financially, kinda fucked.

But if I am familiar with anything in life, it’s the expense of taking up a hobby. An interest in traveling has cost me staggering amounts of money. I already hinted at the monetary dick-punch of photography. Woodworking was an unexpectedly awful financial decision. It’s a good thing I’m now afraid of scuba diving, but snorkeling is still in the running to fiscally ruin me, as is kayaking, and crafting and art and home improvement.

And then archaeology. An entire college tuition on archaeology. Let’s not dwell on archaeology, actually.

Birding, really, is pretty mild in comparison. And, unlike some past hobbies I sunk unthinkable costs into, I’m still into it.

This, I have to say, is an amazing thing. And it’s really The Thing, for me; the thing that all of what I said about it above amounts to: in birding, there are a hundred ways to not get bored.