Vermont Birder

Jeff recalls hand-feeding chopped walnut meats to a Black-capped Chickadee:

I didn’t have a spark per se but rather more of a constantly fed comfortable fire.  My father was already a “bird-watcher” when I was born 65 years ago.  There were always feeders in the yard every winter and I remember being impressed and thrilled when there were invasions of siskins,

Evening Grosbeaks and other special birds.  All through my childhood, my father and I would take walks in the woods, often at Fannie Stebbins Refuge in Longmeadow or Forest Park in Springfield and would look for anything that caught our eye when it came to nature.  We also fished a lot and hunted some (I don’t remember ever killing anything.) so these also usually turned into nature trips.  We went to the beach a lot in the summer and always stopped to check out the waders and shorebirds in the salt marshes.

There was a small patch of “woods” near my house and my friends and I would spend hours playing and exploring this area.  I remember one day finding three young Screech Owls sitting next to each other on a low branch and running home to get my Brownie camera to take their picture.  None of this seemed unusual to me and I figured that every kid grew up with as much exposure to nature as I had.  I have since learned that this was not the case and I treasure all the times I spent with my father and friends in the woods that gave me such an appreciation of nature.

One of Jeff’s fondest memories was of one particular Chickadee that would fly to him whenever he walked out of the house. photo by juicyverve

As I grew older, other things like girls, college, the army, and jobs took precedence over birds and my birding activity fluctuated.  My father continued with his interest and actually became president of the Allen Bird Club in Springfield for a while in the ’60s.  I was lucky enough to marry a woman who also had an interest in birds and we spent many years rekindling our mutual interests.  We lived in the woods and it was here where I first started feeding Chickadees and Nuthatches by hand. I used chopped walnuts and the birds loved them.  One of my fondest memories was of one particular Chickadee that would fly to me whenever I walked out of the house.  I even got in the habit of keeping some walnuts in my pocket to feed him(?) whenever he came to me.  He had me well trained.  He could even pick me out of a group of people.  One summer day, my in-laws were at our house for a picnic and as the eight of us were sitting at the picnic table, the Chickadee flew over and landed on my shoulder.  As my in-laws looked on in amazement, I reached in my pocket and pulled out some walnuts which he quickly grabbed and flew off.  He often came back for seconds, so I gave some walnuts to my mother-in-law and told her to hold her hand out.  Sure enough, he came back, landed on my shoulder for a second, and then right to her hand to grab his treat.  He was around for about a year and a half and always made me happy.  My wife and I eventually split up, but I’ve never lost my affection for Chickadees and still feed them by hand.

I love birding and seeing rare species, but I get just as much enjoyment from watching everyday birds going about their everyday activities.  They still amaze me and every time I come across something that reminds me of things my father and I did, the fire is rekindled.  I still have the first Peterson Guide my father and I used and it has a special place on my bookcase.

A homemade bird feeder launched Michael into birding:

 My initiation into the ranks of birding began at the age of 12 with a Christmas gift: a jigsaw.  My first project: a bird feeder.  I still have a Polaroid snapshot of that crude attempt at carpentry, mounted on a pole in the snow outside the kitchen window.  Within a day or two it had been discovered by some jays and chickadees, to be followed by other common denizens of the New England winter.  As the snow melted in the spring, the feeder fell over, and I had to prop it up with cement blocks until the ground thawed and a proper hole for the post could be dug. That feeder served a good five years, and opened up a whole new world to me, a world that would come to include travel and friends and countless pleasurable hours based on birds and birding.

Blue Jays discovered Michael’s feeder at once. photo by thefixer

My second project, a bird house, only served to confirm and strengthen my new-found interest when a pair of tree swallows claimed it that April.  That house, another crude product of scrap lumber and the jigsaw, probably stood five or six years, and every year produced a brood of tree swallows, and I also have a snapshot of that house with that first pair of swallows perched atop. Sometimes a gift can be a gift of another sort in disguise, and you can never tell where those ribbons and wrapping paper will lead.

The spark that turned Dave into a birder was the Blizzard of 1978:

My parents were outdoors people and passed their joy and appreciation of the out of doors on to their children.  Our vacations were camping trips.  We camped on the Cape, the White Mountains, Canada, and even had a 3 week camping trip across the country.

My father and I fished a great deal.  We spent many hours walking the streams and rivers of New Hampshire.  We went crabbing for Blue crabs in the tidal marshes and rivers of the South Cape area and fished for Stripers throughout the south side of the Cape.  My parents also kept bird feeders.  I can remember them sending in a post card to MA Audubon when they saw a Cardinal.  My next memory of birds was when I was in high school and a flock of Redpolls came to the feeders for several days.

Ringed-neck Pheasant tracks sparked Dave’s interest. photo by USFWS

The spark that turned me into a birder though, was the Blizzard of ’78.  My wife and I had an apartment in Danvers and the property behind it was open area that ended up along a small, tidal river. After a couple of house-bound days, I went out for a walk through this area and came upon a set of tracks.  They were Ring-neck pheasant tracks.  I followed these tracks for quite a ways until I came to where it roosted during the night, in the lee of the wind behind a big, carved out rock.  As the winter unfolded, I continued going out on these treks  looking for this bird.  I often heard it in the morning heading off to work, but never saw it until the Spring.  I continued these walks throughout the winter and into the spring.  I’d go down to the tidal river at dusk and hunker down and watch the Black ducks fly in.  I also got to observe a Great blue heron hunting. One day I stopped into the Reading Public Library to check out a couple of books on birds.  The librarian struck up a conversation with me about birds and it was clear she had a passion for them.  The librarian, Anne Blaisdell, told me about the Brookline Bird Club, of which she was a member.  I went on several walks with the BBC and greatly enjoyed the new areas, birds, and people I met.  The hook was set and I became a birder for life.

As an elementary and middle school science teacher for 36 years, I had the opportunity to share my passion of birds with my students.  I used birds as the vehicle to teach observational skills to my students. For 32 years I took my students to Plum Island as part of our study on bird migration.

Birding is a joy!  It can be done anywhere, any time, and on any scale you want.

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A fallout of warblers sparked Denise’s love of birding:

What sparked my interest in birding back in the 1960’s was an awesome  outfall of “sparks”, the springtime jewelry of migrating warblers in our beautifully flowering antique apple trees in Lynnfield. We were lucky enough to have an overly large lot that included about a dozen full-size Baldwin and Macintosh apple trees, and in the spring of 1965, they exploded in bloom just as clouds of gorgeous warblers migrated up to feed on their pests. I had always  been the child who wanted to stop the car to look at hawks and ducks, but the warblers just blew me away. It’s a good thing I could ride my bike to the  library, and that my grandfather gave me his old hunting binoculars, because  there was no stopping me after that.

Migrating warblers were Denise’s “shower of sparks” birds. photo by jeffreyw

My only regret is that we only had one car, so I had little access to the birding community. No mentors, no one to help me learn that a Junco  in Massachusetts in June is cool, but common in December. I finally got my license, and my own car, so I could join the BBC and pick up on the finer  points.

Myer was hooked as a youth by the activities at the Boston Museum of Science:

I have always been interested in nature, and in my adolescence I Joined the Museum of Science in Boston. I went on field trips, was a Junior entomologist, and became a Junior volunteer in their animal room.  I guess what started birding was that one of the adult leaders would take the volunteers out to Mount Auburn Cemetery, where we would identify birds.  I remember being on the dock at the Museum of Science and a Great Black-backed Gull landed on the dock, and got everybody excited since at that time the Great Black-backed Gull was a rarity.

A “rare-at-the-time” Great Black-backed Gull was on of Myer’s early spark birds. photo by Dendroica cerulea

I continued on an off birding from many years and then took a course that Mass Audubon and Wayne Peterson presented on beginning birding and have continued birding since then.  My interest in the photography side of birding began with a course that the Cornell Living Bird Laboratory had on bird photography.

Since I have retired, I have been fulfilling my passions, for both photography and birding.

After several birding sparks over the years, a dog got Jim serious about birding:

First notice: I spotted a Blackburnian Warbler high in the ash tree across from my house in Nahant. I was about 20, and open to all kinds of new experiences. I didn’t pursue it, but was observant and noticed birds with heightened attention.

Second: Camping in Morro Bay, CA. in 1977. My ex-in-laws were all excited about the great blue heron rookery in the Eucalyptus trees. It was impressive. Having moved from Nahant, MA to California, I was flooded with new experiences. Birds were a part of that – magpies, thrashers, road runners, kites, dippers – all “early birds” for me thanks to California.Then a long hiatus while I raised a family and life happened.

Third: In 2007 we rescued a 9-year-old dog around Christmas time. I started taking notice of the ocean ducks on our walks. The dog was old, slow and very patient, and a wonderful casual birding companion. (Some North Shore Massbirders will remember her.) I figured that if I was going to be out in this crummy weather at least 3 times a day, I might as well have a “project:” learn about those ducks. I did, slowly but surely. By January 2009 I was really into it. One Sunday, I joined Bob Mayer for a Jamaica Pond walk.  Afterwards, I took the dog for a walk when we spotted a Common Shelduck off Little Nahant. The subsequent reaction of the birding community was revelatory, and fun!

Interestingly, for me, as a musician as well, many memories are linked to either birds or music. In the way a song can evoke not just a memory, but a full sensory experience of a lost time and place, many life milestones are intertwined with my memory of birds: seeing a golden eagle through a sunroof, while driving through South Dakota on my way to a new life in California; that first Blackburnian; watching the pelicans dive at Avila Beach as an undergrad with a beach-friendly schedule at Cal Poly SLO; the red-headed woodpecker at the Lake Michigan campground where I camped on yet another cross-country trip; the meadowlarks and yellow-headed blackbirds singing as I drove through the Midwest on my way home.

A warbler fallout also sparked Linda’s interest in birding:

My fascination with birds began with a sudden and powerful spark. As a young child I was always interested in animals, bringing home all kinds of stray critters or injured birds. However, being a city kid, the birds I saw were mainly pigeons and house sparrows.

The Spark that ignited my love of birds happened when I was in my early 20’s. I had decided to plant a garden at my parents new home in Chelsea. The house was located on the side of a steep hill, called Powder Horn Hill. One lovely spring day I was working in the garden and stopped to rest. I sat on the top of the hillside overlooking some trees and shrubs. Wow! Right before me was a “warbler fallout” at eye level. What were these gorgeous colorful gems moving about in the leaves? I never knew such beautiful birds existed. And they were singing. I dashed to the local drugstore and bought a Golden Guide to birds. I returned to the hillside with the book and my parents old binoculars. Finally, I matched a bird with a picture! It had a name. I actually knew it was a Black-throated Blue Warbler. Incredible. What a great feeling. I went on to identify another and another. I looked through the book – there were so many birds. How could I find them? That was the beginning of a new lifetime passion – learning about birds and the miracle of migration.

A Black-throated Blue Warbler was one of the first birds Linda identified by herself. photo by dickmfield

For the next few years I birded alone since I didn’t know any birders and wasn’t sure that many people actually watched birds. I birded whenever I could, but at that stage of my life, much of my non-working time was spent socializing. It wasn’t until I was a stay-at-home mom, raising my new son, that I  decided to find other “bird people”. What a great community! I love sharing the joys of birding and the fun and excitement of a quest. I also still love birding alone: I can wander, listen quietly and track down a song. Admire a bird for as long as I wish.

Birding has led me to many fascinating places in the world to see incredible birds. I also continue to find great rewards here in the northeast, where migration provides an ever-changing show. When I come upon a familiar migrant species for the first time each season I find myself actually smiling and with a sense of relief, I think “Hi, it’s you. So glad you’re back.”  So many great memories.

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Harry, the chaffinch, provided the BIG spark for Margie:

I have two sparks–the first being then five year old Jason who received a field guide for a holiday gift .  At the suggestion of my aunt, we began taking him on BBC walks/trips which I also enjoyed, for seeing birds, learning the names of the common birds, but probably even more so, for the social nature of the birding walks. I would mostly rely on Jason or others to tell me what we were seeing.

But the BIG spark came when we had a chaffinch arrive in our yard three years ago. It was early morning Dec.1st, and Jason was leaving for work.  He came running back into the house, pulled out a European  field guide, and told us to watch for a bird that looked something like a house finch, and call him if we saw it, which we did.  Early the next morning we had our first three visitors –Jason wanted confirmation in case the bird only stayed a day or so. (Little did we know that we would be hosting this visitor for three months!)

Harry, a chaffinch similar to this one, attracted many birders to Margie’s kitchen.

Harry, as we called the bird, was not the actual spark–it was having so many people over the next month or two spend time in our kitchen enjoying what was for many a life bird. Listening to all the conversation going on gave me a whole new vocabulary and made me so much more aware of ways to really “see” and appreciate birds.

While I often still rely on Jason and others to tell me what I am looking at, I now know all our yard birds and most of the common birds local birds, and will use a field guide to try to figure out what something I don’t immediately recognize is.

By the way, the Post-Its I used to note visitors and Harry sightings are still on the wall in my kitchen!

A Google search for Ivory-billed Woodpecker rekindled Tim’s birding passion:

A little background first.  I was interested in birds from age 6 to 9 and then totally and completely forgot about them until I was in my early 30s. Now I look back and wonder how I ever survived those middle years.

I grew up in southwestern Ohio, and at the time did not know that a raptor rehab center was a rare thing.  My father would take me (along with my older brother) up there at times.  On one of the trips, we stopped by the associated nature center on the way home.  They had a nice feeder setup, including a big suet block; all of this was visible from the warmth of the visitor center.  I was just shy of 8 years old at the time, and had already plowed my way through the Golden field guide.  The two largest American woodpeckers had interested me for some reason or another, and I had memorized their paintings and descriptions.  When the guy running the center asked me my favorite bird, I said “Ivory-billed Woodpecker”.  He informed me that he got Pileated Woodpeckers on occasion, and then said “well here he comes now”.  I found myself within a few feet (glass in between) of a stunning male Pileated Woodpecker chowing down on the suet. He was big, bold, and magnificent, and seemed as big as I was.  I have never forgotten this moment.  And when I see a Pileated, I stop and admire them.  And it is easy to get transported back to the winter of 77/78.

Tim has had a long-time interest in Ivory-billed and Pileated Woodpeckers. photo by hyperion327

The “spark” that got me back into birds was very simple.  For nearly 20 years I was an observational astronomer, meaning that I spent at least a few nights a month on the all-night shift.  As anyone that has done night shifts knows, you’ll do ANYTHING to stay awake and defeat the tedium.  For some reason, I threw “Ivory-billed Woodpecker” in the google search bar in the winter of 2001/2002, and wondered what had ever happened with these birds.  And that was all it took.  My love of birds resurfaced in my early 30s, and it still retained a lot of the joy and intensity I thought only a youngster could feel.  To this day there are still birds that will make my knees shake when I see them (like the Connecticut Warbler Brian Harris and I saw this fall in Wayland), and some, like the Plymouth Ivory Gull a few   years back, and nearly bring me to tears.

CJ summed up his three sparks:

1) My grandfather was a forester in Pennsylvania.  He had two huge  posters in his kitchen – one the Birds of Pennsylvania, the other Pennsylvania  Birds of Prey.  I would gawk at them for hours when I was small.

2) Eight years old and walking down a backwoods road with friends.  I  was making crow noises.  We were attacked by a red-tailed hawk.

3) Took an ornithology course at Allegheny College.  On a field trip  to Erie National Wildlife Refuge the bus was going through the grounds of the refuge.  A huge creature took to the air – I managed to stammer out  something about a Big Bird.  It was a Great Blue Heron.  It was all over after that.

Paul thinks that he may have started birding before birth:

Not sure this had anything to do with it but in 1968 my (expecting) mother sat in our tree and bush-filled yard just north of Detroit and watched birds from her chair while my sisters played.  Can you start birding BEFORE you were born?

As a kid I remember putting up small sticks near tern and plover nests as warnings to cars and beach-goers along the Race Point and Long Point shoreline during summers on Cape Cod (guess it didn’t work that well).

I have a photo of me when I was 8, Chickadee perched on fingertip ready to pluck a sunflower seed. I remember thinking how rare and exciting it was to have both species of nuthatch come down to snag a treat. I think that photo comes close to “the moment”.

Paul recalls hand-feeding Chickadees at age 8. photo by Dawn Huczek

When I was 10 I dug the condenser mic from my inherited boom box and mounted it on an arm extending from a wok cover… a perfect parabolic mic.  I remember how incessantly the Tennesee Warblers sang from the canopy, how aggressive the Ruby-crowned Kinglets and House Wrens sang and scolded at playback, and how complex the song of the rare Canada Warbler was when the odd one would happened through the undergrowth.

Sure would be nice to make a living at that kind of stuff.

Josh details three sparks on his pathway to birding:

#1 was when I was probably 2 or 3 years old, then living in Peabody. My father grew a backyard garden including a little patch of corn. His corn would get raided by Ring-necked Pheasants. The male pheasants just blew my little mind. I have been all about nature ever since.

#2 was several years later. I talked my father into taking me to a Mass Audubon field trip visiting Plum Island in May. It was my first real taste of hard-core neotropical songbird migration, with warblers, vireos, tanagers, orioles, etc. The one bird that really stands out in my memory from that day was the Canada Warbler.

 

Josh remembers a Canada Warbler as a standout bird on a memorable Plum Island visit. photo by Jeremy Meyer

#3 was around the same time (may have actually taken place before #2, my memory of the chronology is a bit hazy). But it was not a bird, it was a person. My school had a weekly extracurricular activity period. Different teachers offered different activities and students signed up for their favorites. I was the only student who signed up for bird-watching. Leading this activity was the school’s Latin teacher, Barbara Drummond. A few of you might know her. That activity period introduced me to birding clubs, hot-spots, listing, all of the social, recreational, and informational framework that birders have built up in conjunction with this activity that we do. From that point on, birds eclipsed other interests and organisms. Abandon all hope, ye who enter.

A few years after that, in high school, I took an ornithology class from yet another Latin teacher, that one named Tom Burgess. Birding and Latin must go together on some level.

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