The Birding Bug

Birding is hunting without killing, preying without punishing, and collecting 

without clogging your home." -Mark Obmascik, author of "The Big Year"

While working the visitor center at Desert National Wildlife Refuge, I would daily see men of retirement age come thru carrying thousands of dollars worth of scopes and cameras with foot long lenses to the trails in search of birds. Turns out this is the number one hotspot in Nevada for birding. Part of my job included updating the refuge's "recently seen" list with birds, though I had no idea if what I was adding was typical or rare for the area. As I watched more and more birders come thru, I couldn't help wonder, "what is this birding thing all about?"

One day a woman about my age came to the refuge. Nicole and I spoke for awhile about the refuge, birding and her solo travels. The temperature that day had dropped significantly, so I offered for her to stay warm in our RV for awhile that night before camping. We stayed up late discussing our travels, faith and plans for the future. Before saying our final goodbye, she had spent three nights with us. On the last night I asked if she would take me birding with her in the morning. She excitedly agreed. We woke early and were on the trail before sunrise. If you know me, that's the first unusual thing I've done for the sake of birding. We ended up seeing 21 different species of birds. It was kind of a blur. She was so fast at identification and I couldn't see the birds as well with my borrowed binocular. I brought my camera and snapped away as she pointed them out. Once back at the RV I was able to go thru the photos and find the birds in the identification book which helped commit them to memory. I went back out by myself at sunset, and pretty much every day after.

Soon I learned all of the regular birds at the refuge as well as the rarities as they came thru. I learned the calls of half a dozen birds and could hold a conversation with the other birders that came thru the refuge. I also knew not to call them "birdwatchers" as that refers to people who sit and watch birds. They were "birders", actively on a mission to search out and find birds. Soon my own interest blossomed into obsession and I was birding in other locations and trying to increase my life list (the list of birds I've identified, also referred to as "lifers").

A black-capped night heron seemingly playing mother hen to 5 turtles at Floyd Lamb park.

To learn more about birding, I went on a walk with Red Rock Audubon to Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve. If you are at all curious about birding, joining your local Audubon group for a free bird walk is the way to go! The leader brought a high powered scope and set it up to allow everyone a close look at the birds that were spotted. I saw 14 new species that day, before catching a ride to the nearby Clark County Wetlands with another woman from the group, Sandy Brown, also from Ohio. There I added another 2 species to my life list.

In the 1800s, there was a holiday tradition of seeing who could kill the most birds on Christmas day. The resulting decline in bird populations led to the suggestion of counting them instead of killing them. In 1900, a new tradition began, the Christmas Bird Count. The popularity of it has grown and now tens of thousands of volunteers participate in organized counts from December 14 thru Jan 5 each year. Each group counts the birds found in a 15 mile diameter circle on one particular day. The information collected is used by biologists and wildlife agencies for monitoring populations and movements.

I participated in my first Christmas Bird Count at Corn Creek in December. We split into three groups. Each group had one person that would keep track of the birds while the rest of us identified and counted them. We had to be careful not to count any birds twice. The six people in my group were responsible for counting at the refuge, Paiute Golf Course and the town of Corn Creek. The team as a whole identified 82 species, which is fantastic.

The highlight was when I spotted a Red-Tailed Hawk and had just enough time to alert the others before he swooped down and caught an American Coot. After a few minutes, the coot stopped struggling and the hawk ate him!

We ran into a falconer there who stopped to talk and even brought his birds out to meet us. A falconer is someone who hunts with a hawk or falcon. They usually trap the bird then train it to hunt and to return. This falconer uses a drone for training. The whole process is very intriguing to me. It requires weighing the bird and its food daily.

The last few weeks at the refuge, I offered to lead bird walks for the public. I really enjoy sharing my love of birds with others as well explaining the resources like Ebird and identification books that make birding easier.

Asher has taken an interest to birding as well. I took him birding with me on Halloween dressed in his race car driver costume. We spoke with a few other birders and they were impressed that a child so young was interested. One of them quizzed Asher on identifying a bird call, and Asher got it right, a raven. Another day we were driving into Floyd Lamb Park when I saw a flutter to the side of our truck. Asher yelled, "Quail!", and he was correct! A Gamble's Quail. I asked him how he knew what it was because he'd never seen them before. He said, "the feather sticking up on his head. It's a male, the female doesn't have the black head." Whoa! He remembered that from the photos I showed in a couple weeks earlier. I asked him if he'd like to start his own list and he was excited about it. So now I have a four year old with a life list.   LOVE!

A few of the interesting birds I've seen on the refuge:

An American kestrel, one of my favorite birds, a small hawk 

with blue wings a reddish body and black and white stripes on its face.

A common poorwill is hard to spot. It looks like a rock.

Our resident greater roadrunner in a layer of fresh snow on Christmas morning. We watched him sneak up on a group of white-crowned sparrows in a failed attempt at breakfast.