By ABA Young Birder Anastasia Nguyen
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
You drowsily open your eyes, wondering why on earth you’re awake. On a Saturday morning. When even the sun is still asleep. Glancing at your alarm clock, you do a double take. Your vision is still a little blurry from sleep, but you’re pretty sure that it reads “5:01 AM.” As you’re racking your groggy brain to try and figure out the reason for this ridiculously early wake-up call, you can’t help but think that dawn is a time for birds, not humans—BIRDS! Of course! Energy courses through your body, and you’re suddenly alert and awake, the promise of birding perking you up more than any hyper-caffeinated coffee could. Within minutes, you’re in the car, checking to make sure you have everything for your birding excursion. Binoculars? Check. Field guide? Check. Camera? Check!
Creakkk. The garage door opening sounds overly harsh and clamorous in the peaceful morning, piercing as the screech of a Red-shouldered Hawk as it disrupts a quiet forest. Even though the sun is still hiding beneath the horizon, you’re pleased to see that the world isn’t completely immersed in darkness when you pull out of the garage. You’re humming along to the radio when you realize that, in the rush to get out the door, checking for your memory card and battery completely slipped your mind. After pulling over to check, you groan. Somehow, both slots are empty, and you mentally scold yourself for taking out your memory card and battery. Sighing at this delay, you turn your car around. Creakkk. Cringing at your squeaky garage and hoping that your neighbors won’t complain at this unpleasant racket, you rush into the house, rifle through your desk drawer, and emerge triumphant, holding a memory card and battery. On your way out the door, you realize you forgot yet another vital item: your water bottle! From now on, you pledge to gather up all your birding supplies the night before your birding trip. Onward!
As you’re driving to your destination, you can’t help but try to identify the birds on the telephone wires above you. A nice flock of starlings! Some unusually large crows—or maybe they’re ravens. And—could it be?—an American Kestr—ah nevermind, it’s a Mourning Dove. You’re trying to see if that spot in the sky is a distant hawk or a flattened insect on your windshield when you become aware of one small speck of water on the glass. One becomes two, and two becomes two hundred. Suddenly, they aren’t specks anymore, and as fat droplets begin to pitter-patter on your car like the tap-tap-tap of a Nuttall’s Woodpecker, you realize that you might need to change your plans. You’d wanted to go birding in a nearby forest, but tramping through soggy leaves and mud while trees periodically dump water onto your head—and camera—doesn’t sound very appealing. Instead, you drive to a lake and decide to stay where you are, birdwatching and taking pictures from the comfort of your car. Only, there aren’t any birds on the lake. Reflecting the gloomy sky above, the water is the exact greyish-blue of a Great-blue Heron, but alas, there aren’t any birds, Great-blue Heron or otherwise, at this lake.
With a yawn—waking up at five in the morning takes its toll—you settle back to watch the sunrise, hoping that a bird or two will make its way to the lake, when you notice something in the reeds. Although it’s pretty far away, you’re pretty sure that it’s a rail—it might even be a Ridgway’s Rail, by the looks of it! You’re practically bursting with excitement now, and your fingers fumble a bit as you try to focus your lens onto the rail, but the camera seems determined to resist your efforts, stubbornly refusing to give you a clear image. Thinking it might be the windshield that’s giving the camera trouble, you stick your head out the window, making sure to shield your precious gear from the rain with one hand as you attempt to take pictures with the other. Finally, it focuses, and you’re thrilled to see a—what even is that?!?! A piece of . . . a trash bag, with a stick protruding from one side that tricked you thinking it was a shorebird. Feeling a bit deflated, you take the picture—your birder friends will get a kick out of it—and pull your camera back into the car.
As if to comfort you, a single White-crowned Sparrow lands in a tree near your car, and you spend nearly half an hour watching it, grateful that you’ll have seen at least one bird this trip. To add to your happiness, the sky’s beginning to clear up, the clouds parting to reveal a brilliant blue the color of a Western’s Bluebird’s feathers. Maybe you can bird in the forest after all!
One short drive and a minor pothole later, you’re at the trailhead, excited to finally see some more birds. A chorus of birdsong greets you, and you crane your neck upwards to try and spot some of the music-makers. After a few painful and fruitless minutes, you decide that the birds are too far away, so you decide to keep walking, rubbing your sore neck. A Red-breasted Nuthatch flits in front of you, and you quickly snap a picture. Yes! But when you look at your picture in the camera, you’re disappointed to find that you captured nothing of the beautiful bird but the very tip of its tail as it darted away. Oh well—they’ll be more! Chipper as a Yellow-rumped Warbler, you march on in search of more birds.
After an hour of scouring the forest, you’re feeling a bit disappointed. Usually, this forest is practically teeming with birds, but today, it seems like they’re all hiding. An idea pops in your head—you should try sit spot birding! Perhaps the birds will feel comfortable enough to show themselves if you sit still for a while, quiet as a Great-horned Owl flying in the night. With a grin, you pull out a lightweight, camouflage parka you keep in your bag for just this occasion. You put it on, wincing a bit as the leaves and branches you glued on scratch at your skin. And then you sit back and wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Finally, you notice some movement coming from a pile of fallen twigs and leaves on your right. With an admirable display of patience, you ever-so-slowly begin to rotate your head and binoculars to the right, knowing that any sudden moves could ruin your chance of ever seeing that bird. It’s pretty far away, but you stifle a gasp when you see it—a Varied Thrush! Slowly, softly, you pick up your camera and crouch to get at eye level with the bird. Slowly, softly, you raise it to your eyes and locate the thrush through your viewfinder. You’re about to gently press the shutter button—slowly, softly—when you hear footsteps and voices behind you. Sighing a little, you stand up, brush yourself off, and let the hikers pass, acutely aware of their bewildered stares. Not that you blame them—it’s not every day you see someone practically lying on the forest floor, wearing a camouflage parka. But where is the Varied Thrush? You scan the ground, then the trees. Still nothing.
Then, you see it. It’s in the tree right in front of you, its colorful feathers radiant, holding a bright red berry in its mouth. You raise your camera, create an artistic composition, click the shutter button—and nothing happens. Frowning, you click it again; still nothing. With a sinking heart, you suddenly remember why you’d taken out your memory card a few days ago—it had been almost full, and you’d been planning on clearing it, but you forgot. Well, now it’s completely full. Frantically, you see if there’s any pictures you can quickly delete to free up some space, but it’s too late—the Varied Thrush is gone. Realizing that it’s fruitless to try and clear up your memory card by deleting individual images, you turn off your camera and decide to try sit spot birding again. It takes nearly half an hour, but you soon find yourself surrounded by birds. You watch a Dark-eyed Junco hop around the forest floor in search of food, admire the beautiful plumage of an American Robin, and strain your ears to see if you hear a Townsend’s Warbler. You’re a little sad that you can’t take pictures of the birds you’re seeing, but you’re grateful for the opportunity it gave you to put aside the camera and actually observe the birds’ behaviors. A few hours fly by, and before you know it, it’s time to head home.
Smiling to yourself, you pull into your garage—creakkkk—and reflect on your day. Before you became a birder, you always thought that birding was a pretty glamorous hobby, just walking around and occasionally holding up your binoculars to see a spectacular Peregrine Falcon. But, as today demonstrated, nothing could be further from the truth—there’s nothing particularly glamorous about waiting in your car for an hour only to see a trash bag impersonating a Ridgway’s Rail, and most birding trips don’t yield too many spectacularly rare birds, but they’re enjoyable nonetheless. All things considered, it was a pretty good trip; even the mishaps weren’t that awful. Far from being a disappointment, it was just another day in the life of a birder.
Anastasia N. is a high school student who started birding four years ago and has been obsessed with birds ever since! She loves patch birding in her neighborhood, especially when she gets to see the American Kestrels that frequent her area. More often than not, she brings a camera along on her bird walks, taking pictures that she later uses as references for her bird-inspired watercolors. She feels incredibly blessed to live in such a beautiful world and gives thanks to God for the inspiration and peace she finds in creation. When she’s not birding or working on her studies, she enjoys reading, drawing, participating in her church’s youth group, and spending time with her family.
