anxiouswren: I would like to keep a “bird journal”, where I…
Wednesday, March 19th, 2014I would like to keep a “bird journal”, where I record every bird I see during the day and do a quick little sketch of it, but I don’t think I’d have the time to keep up with it. Maybe I’ll just do them intermittently, on days where I see notable birds and/or have time! :)
Today I saw the first goldfinches of spring, partaking of the birdfeeder outside the kitchen. :) At the same time, there was a dark-eyed junco, which my brain categorizes as a “winter” bird for my area. Then there were my regulars, a song sparrow and a mourning dove, with a robin skulking in the distance. I saw the mockingbirds on my way to run errands—they flew right over my window as I was at a red light. Lovely animals!
Something I didn’t really appreciate until I took up bird watching again as an adult, after getting way into it as a kid and then burning out on some of the weirdly competitive humans I encountered doing it, was how wonderful it is to appreciate the “ordinary” birds you see every day.
My wife taught me that (though we weren’t yet married at that point) on our first bird-watching outing together. We went to Will Rogers Park off Sunset in the Palisades, and right as we stepped out of the car she noticed some birds flitting on the ground.
“Oh, they’re so cute! What are they?” she said.
“Dark-eyed juncos,” I said. I assumed we’d be moving on to look for more-interesting birds. But what I learned that day was that spending time looking at an everyday bird with someone you love is about as much fun as you can have bird-watching.
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