To those who care to notice, my backyard is a birding oasis relative to the urban community that not only surrounds it, but dominates the area for miles upon miles. With no decent "wild" or "pristine" area existing without driving for hours west of my small town, my small backyard is my secret escape.
The chickadees are among my favorites. Their small black and white bodies, puffed up to make themselves appear much much larger than they actually are. A faint "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" that confirms their presence. They frolic, carelessly, between our feeders, the maple trees, and across the water to our neighbors pine. They often stare at me with curiosity, before flying away, almost unnoticed. This small passerine has followed me throughout all my travels. The mountain chickadee in Idaho, with its higher pitched call and its smaller statue. The boreal chickadee in Alaska, with its rufus colored sides and more monotone song, daring to embrace a bitter winter. The Carolina and black-capped chickadees in the southeast, almost impossible to distinguish from one another. Yes, to me, seeing a chickadee is the feeling of home, and I refuse to live in a place where I can't find them.
The red bellied woodpecker, who's belly is in fact actually not red, taps at an almost inaudible level on a pine tree. His bright red head shining as the sun catches it against the dull, gray bark. A mocking bird on our fence, singing the tunes of a song unknown to me. A sea gull yawning in the sky, floating in a breeze, moving neither backwards or forwards.
With the changing of the seasons comes the changing of our birds. As our backyard transforms in fall, winter, spring, and summer, so do the colors of feathers. In winter, our starlings come. By the hundreds, they sit on our pool cover and play in the water that has built up in it. Green-winged teals and hooded mergansers show their faces in the marshes that brush up against our property, but only if you look for them. Yellow-rumped warblers play in our fence while house finches proudly display their red.
In spring, other colors come. Purple martins rent out the tall structure we erected for them two years ago. Yellow warblers play in our bird feeders, while other countless passerines overfill their bellies with seeds and fresh suet. As tide retreats and the mud flats become exposed, lesser yellow legs and other shore birds walk gracefully, pecking at the mud.
Occasionally birds of prey show themselves. Turkey vultures, red-tailed hawks, bald eagles and ospreys. And if you listen at night, the great horned owl.
My backyard is my oasis. For in the morning, I can brew my tea and sit on the stairs leading down from our deck, and count 50 different species that flutter in and out. Passerines, hawks, waterfowl, shorebirds, woodpeckers. I count and mark them off in bird books and journals, waiting for a new species that has never called my small backyard home before. I watch their behavior, listen to their voices, and observe them carefully through a small set of binoculars.
To most, the joy of birding is no joy at all. A park ranger told me that birders were among his least favorite groups. They would barge into his visitor center, inquiring as to where to find certain species (unique to that area) and nothing more. To him, these birders were after nothing more than checkmarks on their life-list, and to him, this encouraged poor wildlife viewing behavior.
To be a birder, there are a number of characteristics you must possess. Most importantly, curiosity. No one becomes a birder to pursue the life-list competition. The life-list is a list a birder keeps, mostly to himself, of all the species he's seen in his lifetime. This list is not kept for bragging rights. It's simply a list, particularly for when rare birds are seen. Curiosity is what drives a birder though. Most days, we all go out birding knowing we will see the same species we saw yesterday, last week, and last year. But every time we see the same species and observe it for even 5 minutes, we learn something new about it. We notice a new behavior, or a difference between that species and a common relative. We pursue visitor centers and new species not to add a species to the list, but out of curiosity. A curiosity of animal behavior, of natural ecology. The curiosity of life.
This park ranger also told me that birders are not naturalists. I beg to differ. To be a good birder, one must meticulously understand birds. The changing winds, weather that drives them, the subtle changes in vegetation that can trigger a species that an occur there. Behavior patterns, other species that affect a bird's occurrence. A birder may not know everything about nature, the way a true naturalist does, but a good birder is a naturalist all the same.
Birders must possess patience as well, and a great deal of it. I remember days in Alaska, sitting on the rivers edge at 10 degrees. My toes going numb, wind slapping my face, my fingers barely movable, all in hopes of watching waterfowl. Goldeneyes and pintails, swimming in water that would surely kill us in minutes. Yet they swam and played on the ice the way we do the beach in summer. No bird, rare or common, is found without patience.
The other piece of the puzzle that describes birders and the idea of birding can't be described through one word. It's an inner component. A sense of satisfaction that comes from birding. I did not come to love the chickadee through reading books or watching movies. My love for chickadees comes from the countless hours I have spent observing them, and through this, I've developed a connection. In spring time, I enjoy nothing more than the simplicity of calling in a chickadee and watching it turn it's head as it tries to figure me out. Birding is the one outdoor pleasure I have that can take place still in any environment, even an urban one. And even my small backyard.
My backyard is small and plain. But to those who care to notice, it is a birding oasis.
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