Is A Bird Watcher Born Or Created?

I wish I had a quarter (or even a nickel), for every time in the last 30 years, someone has asked me how I came to be so fascinated and captivated by birds. In other words, how did I become a bird watcher?

If you ask twenty-five birders how they got hooked on bird watching, I believe you will get twenty-five different answers. Everyone has a story about what motivated them, and most people love to share their personal experience. Be warned though, sometimes when birders start reliving their early birding days, they don't know when to quit talking. Those of us who get involved in this bird watching hobby think it's so great, we want to share the joy with everyone. Guess we can be an obsessive lot.

A great many bird watchers began birding in their childhood, perhaps blessed by a mother or father who pointed out birds to them. Others of my acquaintance found a series of bird cards inside a box of cereal and set out to find a bird to match a card. Still others received inexpensive little booklets with bird pictures and began a quest to find the birds pictured, in their yard or park. For many, a teacher shared his or her interest in birds, sparking an early interest in students. Others came to birding as a result of taking an ornithology course in college that spiraled into a life-long interest in birds.

I know several great birders who began to list the birds they saw at such an early age, that their first bird sighting records are printed in a very childish scrawl. These people have had a life-long awareness of birds. I think they are very lucky.

Suffice it to say there are as many ways to get hooked on birds and birding as there are people. Adults can fall under the birding mystique at any age, and under a diverse range of circumstances. I speak from experience on this one.

Unlikely as it may be, with one exception, I never remember noticing any birds until I was 40 years old. The exception came when I was a bored little girl one long ago Sunday afternoon. My father set me to the task of getting close enough to a robin to put salt on its tail. He assured me that salting a bird's tail would lull the bird into a state of trustfulness which would allow me to approach it, pick it up and examine it close up. I was a curious child, and couldn't wait to hold a robin in my hands.

In order to achieve this feat, a cardboard box was propped up with a stick, which had a string tied to it. The other end of the string was clutched in my hand. A few crackers were crumbled and spread under the box as bait. I lay on the ground a few feet away, holding the string, quietly biding my time. I can still remember my excitement when a couple robins landed in the yard. Occasionally they came close to the box, but alas never did they venture inside the box so I could toss salt on their tail, pull the string and capture one of them under the box. In retrospect, this activity probably killed an hour or so and allowed my father to read the Sunday paper in peace and quiet.

As I grew up, birds were not even a blip on my radar screen. They escaped my notice until I began volunteering at a local nature center. One of my first duties was to feed injured birds who were in the recovery and release program. It was not a job I enjoyed, especially if I had to hold them in my hand. When they struggled to get away, I became apprehensive and within a couple minutes panic would set in. I was responsible for the escape of several birds until the naturalist re-assigned me to preserving dead birds. Their stillness was a relief!

Surprisingly, I was fascinated by the lifeless birds I handled. The many colors, sizes, shapes, and the variety of bills and tails aroused my curiosity. I began learning their common and scientific names, and when that wasn't enough, the naturalist took me out, taught me how to use binoculars and my bird watching career began. Within a few years I was hired as a Naturalist at the center and began teaching classes on bird identification, leading bird walks, owl walks and managing a bluebird trail. Thus, I got hooked on birds and bird watching. So, that is my story, and it changed my life.

In my birding forays both in the United States and in other countries around the world, I make it a point to ask birders how they became beguiled by birds. I have never had a response that did not involve an interesting, sometimes funny story of one kind or another.