I’ve decided to stop identifying birds. Yep you heard me
right! I’m not going to simply put a
name on a bird anymore and get on to the next one. Nope. From now on I’m going
to identify WITH the birds instead! Yes, by adding a simple four letter modifier
I hope to enliven the conservation conversation by thinking more deeply about
the birds I see.
Now does that mean that I’m going to dismiss with noting eye
rings, wing bars, rump patches and such? No, of course not! I am genetically programmed
to run feathered things through my mental ringer and call them by some proper
name. I am now and forever more will be
a birder. So yes, I will continue to bird watch. But then the birds I watch
deserve so much more than the names we've attached to them. They deserve more than
just a glance and a tick mark. They are
each and every one miraculously evolved to do what they do—sing, flit, fly—and so
I owe them more; much more.
Having the pleasure of being at the Biggest Week in American
Birding again this year, I got to talk about “seeing beyond the bins” in a
keynote address to urge birders to think about the birds they see as feathered marvels
with stories to tell. Kim and Kenn
Kaufmann press the conservation issue
hard and so I felt at home. As an official out of the closet “Angry Black Birder” I
challenged us as a community of watchers to do more—to not just watch but to
get outside of the “birdy box” and think about conservation and how both birds,
people and other creatures all fit into the equation.
As throngs of us strolled along the boardwalk at Magee
Marsh, thousands of high-powered (and
very costly) magnifiers were aimed at the astounding assortment of warblers,
vireos, thrushes , tanagers and others that somehow made their way across the
Gulf of Mexico to the shores of Lake Erie.
The legions we watched had amazingly
made it to be there through gauntlets of predators, bad weather and in spite of the challenge of all the changes that humans
put before them –cell towers, skyscrapers and such. I wondered how many folks were identifying
WITH the birds they were seeing and not just simply identifying them.
Consider the yellow warbler, Dendroica petechia (oh…I’m sorry—the fickle fingered gene jockeys
have decided that they are now Setophaga
petechia—my bad--geesh!). “Sweet -sweet –sweet- sweeter than sweet!” They were everywhere singing that familiar
song, flashing like little feathered flakes of sunshine in and out of the
willows and low shrubs . They were in fact the first bird I saw through my
binoculars at the Black Swamp Bird Observatory Headquarters; kind of like a
warbler welcoming committee.
The little birds hold the distinction of being the most
widespread warbler species in North America, ranging from the Alaskan outback south to breed across most of the lower
48. No one will deny the attraction of a
yellow warbler. A lemon-yellow living being splashed with streaks of chestnut catches
the eye. Combine that with a distinctive
“don’t ignore me” song and a cute face and
you have a bird that begs to be appreciated.
But do we really appreciate it—or any of the birds we see? I mean, they
were EVERYWHERE! I noticed people
largely ignoring them. After all there
were rarer and sexier things to be had—ticked
off the list to build the numbers. When
an unusually cooperative mourning warbler made its way onto a vine-strewn and
limb-fallen stage, hundreds were astounded that the desirable little grey-hooded
skulker seemed intent on actually being
seen. Many of us waited for the show hoping for a glimpse. I was among the awestruck and may have even
drooled a bit as the bird wandered about, finally giving me the soak-em-up -brain-saturating
looks I’d been wanting for years.
But the mourning warbler, the yellow warbler—any of the
neotropical migrants that we were all there to see should strike us all with
awe beyond just the name. After all, each and every one of them that graced our
collective magnified fields of view had
somehow survived all that nature and humanity had thrown at them
over the course of a year and thousands of miles of migration. Amazing.
My SkyDawg Brother, Douglas Wayne Gray and I talked
intensely about these connections as we lead folks through the urban parks of
Toledo. Watching birders connect the birds to hemispheres, habitats and humans
was an enriching thing. They seemed to appreciate the slower pace and stories we
offered. Funny thing is we still “collected” a hearty list of birds but most we
listed had something more to go along with the names. Our growing connection to each other as brothers beyond the binoculars was strengthened through the birds.
Do you ever take the time to watch a warbler, yellow or
otherwise, throw back its little beaked head and belt out the story of its
life? Have you ever spied a scarlet tanager
setting a tree aflame and warbling the
lore of its wanderings? Sure, the songs sound like clear-whistled phrases or “a robin
with a sore throat” or however we want to describe them, but really the birds
are telling stories. Each note is a declaration of that bird’s being. Yes, there is territorial imperative and the
advertisement for mates but I like to think that somewhere in that avian brain
is some memory of the migration it is enduring. Perhaps there’s some pronouncement
of all the hazards dodged along the way—a particularly persistent sharp-shinned
hawk in the coastal scrub of some barrier Island; a cold rainy headwind; the
wetland that used to be; the mountain of
windows that reflected the night sky perfectly but repelled some flock mates to
fly no longer. Maybe all of that is somewhere, somehow wrapped up in that
bird’s song we watch.
And so as I watch now, whether yellow’s at the Biggest Week
with thousands of my fellow birders, or by my lonesome with Prothonotaries in a blackwater swamp at Beidler Forest, I
cannot simply and care-less-ly just “identify”
a bird anymore—by whatever name some taxonomist gives it. I owe it to the birds I watch to connect the story of its life to the
privilege it gives me of seeing it. The
stories of survival are worth
considering and should move us to do more than just watch. They should connect us. Each one should push is to
admire and actively conserve with
gratitude in the heart for each and every feathered thing.
Add each bird’s story
to the I.D. and be amazed. Be careful though-- a tear might find its way on your list.
Peace,
Drew
