Notes from an Amateur Birdwatcher

May 2023

This month made a birdwatcher out of me.¹

I mentioned in last month’s post that I had recently downloaded Merlin, a bird identification app. But I didn’t expect to start seriously birdwatching—I just wanted to find out what was singing in my backyard.

Birdwatching has always sounded intimidating to me. I have the National Geographic Society’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America, and I enjoy flipping through it occasionally. But it is a 400-page book containing over 800 species of birds. Of course, not all of those birds live in or pass through my part of the country, but the numbers are still huge. To make matters worse, when I flip open to almost any page, I find pictures of four or five different species of incredibly similar-looking birds, along with pictures of the differences between males, females, and juveniles, as well as different seasonal plumages. It’s an overwhelming amount of information.

The introduction to this field guide advises birdwatchers to start by reading the guide at home, arguing that greater familiarity with birds will make it possible to identify them more quickly and easily in the field. To me, reading a field guide sounds about as fun as reading the dictionary (I’m a word nerd, and that still sounds incredibly boring). I concluded that if that is what it takes to be a birdwatcher, birdwatching just isn’t for me.

But using an app to tell me what bird is making that sound? Easy. All I have to do is walk outside, open an app, and press a button. Within a few seconds, I’m given a name. Instant gratification.

But within a few days, I knew the names of the main birds that visit my backyard (even if it took a little longer to be able to assign the right name to the right sound without Merlin’s help). Then I wondered whether I would hear the same birds or different birds at the creek down the road, so I started using Merlin there. And once I got a little more familiar with the most common sounds, it was only natural to want to see the birds that were singing these songs. When my sister and brother-in-law got me a pair of binoculars for my birthday, I realized that I had a new hobby.²

It turns out that birdwatching is a lot more accessible than I thought. I can learn a lot and have a lot of fun without being, or trying to become, an expert (something that, because of my my all-or-nothing tendencies, I often need to be reminded of). Starting small is not just the best but in fact the only way to start.

So here are a few first impressions from my one month of birdwatching. Consider this an invitation to give birdwatching a shot if you’ve ever been interested in trying it.

Surprises

• I’ve been identifying birds mostly by sound (with the help of Merlin), which means I’ve been consciously (and unconsciously) listening more attentively than usual. I’ve been surprised by how much there is to hear. Has there always been this much birdsong? How have I never paid attention to these sounds before? It has been fascinating to intentionally rely on a sense that I have apparently been neglecting.

• In a similar vein, I had no idea how many different songs and calls a single bird can make. “Wait, a cardinal [or insert other bird here] makes that sound too?” has been a recurring thought over the past several weeks.

Frustrations

• Birds don’t hold still. I’ve been identifying flowers for a few years, and I’ve never really considered how nicely they pose for pictures and how they let you stand there and look at them as long as you want. Birds aren’t so considerate. How am I supposed to identify that dark shape behind the leaves, or the flash of black and yellow that vanished as soon as I saw it?

• But what is more frustrating than the uncooperative nature of birds is being forced to admit that their uncooperativeness isn’t the problem. I’m simply impatient. (And sometimes loud and clumsy.) I need to work on my attention to detail, and my memory for details. Instant gratification may have gotten me started, but if that’s what I’m in this for, I’m going to be continually disappointed. (Ugh.)

Favorite Moments

• Finding a tree full of cedar waxwings with my friend Amanda.³

• Finally getting a good look at some birds that I’d been hearing for several weeks, particularly a blue-gray gnatcatcher, a common yellowthroat, and a yellow-breasted chat. The greater the frustration of “I know you’re up there somewhere,” the greater the satisfaction of “There you are!”

• Watching barn swallows and tree swallows fly. They fly like they mean it.

---

A Walk in the Woods in May

• May means green, green, green—overhead, underfoot, and all around.

• And May means mountain laurel, one of my favorite flowers.

Thanks for reading! As always, I would love to hear what you have been noticing and thinking about this month, whether you’ve embraced a new hobby or are simply enjoying the return of familiar flowers.

1. In some ways, this has been a long time coming. My dear friend and former college roommate Laura started working on me four or five years ago. She kept a list of the birds she had seen in our backyard and kept it taped to the inside of one of our cabinet doors. When she heard that I liked owls, she pulled some strings so that I could pet an eastern screech owl in the museum where she worked. A few years later, she took me birdwatching in south Texas, and she was there for my first sighting of an owl in the wild—also a screech owl. (Thank you, Laura!)

2. Thank you, Lauren and Jacob!

3. Amanda has been sharing fun facts about birds with me for the past few months—including that migrating birds can turn off one hemisphere of their brain for a few seconds at a time to get rest on long flights. Crazy! After talking about it for weeks, we finally went birdwatching together and had such a good time. (Thanks, Amanda!)