By Sarah Hatfield
A blur of blue flashed out of the corner of my eye on a rural road in Pennsylvania: bluebird. A flash of white as motion disappears into the hemlocks: junco. A sand-brown explosion comes from the gravel on the side of the road: doves. These are the bird sightings that I don’t even think about, the ones that enter into my eyes, are processed by my brain, and recorded in my memory.
Waterfowl on a pond, I pull over. Sometimes I need binoculars, sometimes I don’t. Ring-necks, Mallards, Canada Geese, Wood Ducks. These sightings are usually more seasonal, in March or early winter, but I’ll usually stop.
Then there are the birds that are rare or don’t trigger familiar parameters in my brain; these are the ones that may cause the slightest of concern while driving. I’ll crane my neck, or hit the brakes and swerve to the side of the road while reaching for binoculars. Regardless of weather, the window is down and I’m peering at a feathered friend, referring to my field guide as needed.
Someone once said “it makes me nervous when you drive and bird.” While I understand that, there are two fundamental truths that arise from that statement — I don’t think I am actually capable of not birding while I drive (or anytime); and in comparison, to other people in my life, I demonstrate very safe birding while driving. I stay on the road, keep my eyes on the road (mostly), and will pull over if I want to use binoculars.
Once upon a time, I didn’t do this. Once upon a time, I wasn’t a birder. It seems like a long time ago, but I didn’t get into birds or start a life list until college. It began in Australia when, during my semester abroad, my directed research involved bird surveys in a reforested corridor. I wonder now if part of the appeal was because they were new birds that I had never seen before. The novelty made it more exciting. Regardless, I returned stateside a bird nerd, bought a field guide, and started my list by checking off the boxes in the index and making notes about where I saw them.
Flipping through the list was a stroll through the past – Corkscrew Swamp in Florida, my internship in South Carolina, the trip to see my grandfather in college, weekly I-need-to-keep-my-sanity walks in central Pennsylvania. I could mentally transport myself back to moments and relive that moment of ‘first sighting’ all over again.
One of those memories comes from Florida in 1998. I was doing a short-term internship and it coincided with the Christmas Bird Count, my first one. So we all grabbed binoculars and piled into the SUV (a Suburban, I think). Holy moly. The checkmark that accompanies the Painted Bunting in my field guide involved riding for a terrifying stretch down a highway bordered on both sides by shrubby wetlands with the driver looking through binoculars. Yes, you read that right. The driver was driving while looking through binoculars.
Have you ever tried to even walk while looking through them? It’s hard! They mess with your depth perception! I was certain we were going to die. Obviously, we didn’t, and I saw my first Painted Bunting perched in a bush alongside the road, which we were parked diagonally on in the oncoming lane. This was the moment that makes my ‘birding while driving’ not really a concern or even remotely unsafe. It was also the moment that I decided that some birders are lunatics.
A couple years after that adventure, I went to Maine for an ornithology camp. Great birds, great trip. At one point, we were in the van headed to a destination and the driver hit the brakes, hard, and yelled excitedly to the front-seat passenger, “Was that a cuckoo?!” To which the passenger replied that it sort-of looked like one, but she wasn’t sure. And then in unison, they both turned to me, sitting in the middle of the first back seat and demanded “Did you see it? Was it a cuckoo?” And I’d never felt guiltier for not knowing something in my entire life. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and frown and say ‘I don’t know.’ I think that’s the moment I decided, perhaps unconsciously, to really get to know my birds.
I allow myself birding time throughout the year, sandwiched between house chores and farm work and other miscellaneous tasks and hobbies. Spring is always a big birding time, especially the Birdathon in May. March is a heady time for ducks coming through. And the Christmas Bird Count is another great time to get out — not only to provide data for the longest-running avian survey in the country, but also to see what’s around in a season we associate with slumber and rest. It is a fun day, there’s one in Warren and Jamestown, and teams have designated areas so we don’t double count birds (yes, I know they can fly, but we do the best we can).
This year starts a mission, as well. Over the summer, some sort of mystery automotive problem occurred, my backseat filled with water (no, I didn’t leave the sunroof open), and the one casualty was my field guide. Two decades of checkmarks and notes, gone. Two decades of birding memories, trips with friends, and moments of wonder, erased. I salvaged a few from the glued-together and water-damaged pages, and a few more from recent lists I had on my phone, but most are now just checkmarks of ones I remember I’ve seen. It is time to rebuild the list. Birding adventures anew!
It is always a great time to get started in the bird world, would you like to join us? To bird in the Warren Count on December 17, contact Don Watts at (814) 730-9204. To bird in the Jamestown Count on December 18, contact Bill Seleen at wseleen@stny.rr.com. I promise that your first bird count won’t be as terrifying as mine.
Sarah Hatfield is Education Coordinator at ACNC.
Audubon Community Nature Center builds and nurtures connections between people and nature. ACNC is located just east of Route 62 between Warren and Jamestown. The trails are open from dawn to dusk and birds of prey can be viewed anytime the trails are open. The Nature Center is open from 10 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. daily except Sunday when it opens at 1 p.m. More information can be found online at auduboncnc.org or by calling (716) 569-2345.
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