You know it’s spring when you look out the window and the normally plain black grackle sports a glossy luminescent head.
It’s time to attract a mate, have some sex, prepare the nest and lay a family. For the next month, not only will male birds be more brightly coloured but the highway of the night sky will be crowded with species after species, some staying, some just passing by on the way to their more northern nesting ground.
Every May, for the last 20 years I and two birding buddies go to Point Pelee for three or four days and spend hours outside. Gaggles of birders can be seen everywhere, looking up, pointing, and using binoculars as eyes.
The physics of why binoculars alter our world is very complicated but it has to do with prisms and the bending of light. Birding with binoculars is essential.
You’ll also need a field guide. There is so much to learn that it’s good to pre-prepare so that when you have to identify something that won’t stay still, the exact species might just pop into your head. Identification is challenging but at the same time, so much fun! Here are two excellent books that will help you in your quest.
Birds of North America by David Sibley holds 4,600 paintings digitally mastered from his original art. Each page is beautiful, full of pertinent information and features a coloured map showing migrations and year round ranges. This information is indispensable when you are working on your personal birding check list and trying to make absolutely sure that the bird you think you are seeing does in fact visit the area.
On the other hand, you might prefer Birds of North America by Kenn Kaufman. He has digitally mastered his photos . The results are exceptional.
Kaufman has been birding since he was 6 and quit high school to follow his obsession. Three years later, he set the record for the most birds seen in North America in one year – 671!
It has been said that mindfulness is something that we should all aspire to. Birding is the epitome of mindfulness. You engage with nature, using all of your senses. You have to concentrate and try and elicit data from your brain. But most of all you will be filled with wonder and happiness.
