More on birds

If you stick with me on this blog and come back now and then to see what I’m thinking about, you’ll probably notice a often-tapped topic: birds.

Are you a birder? I suppose I should claim that I am, even though I know lots of folks who are real birders and I know only a fraction of what they know. Last week a buddy observed a sharp-shinned hawk soaring over the golf course we were playing. I’m not very good at identifying hawks except red-tails. That wide red tail spread with the light color underneath are great field marks. The sharpie’s tail in flight is much tighter. Very different. I recognized that, but Andy said something about white markings that would set sharpies apart from the very similar Cooper’s hawk. Even after reading the description in the National Geographic bird book just now, I don’t think I could tell the two apart on my own. I’ll take Andy’s word on the sharp-shinned.

Even though I don’t know as much as I could -- as much as I will -- it doesn’t matter to me all that much. I just love watching birds do what they do.

It was a goal of mine to set up my back porch as a friendly place for birds. I usually have a couple different feeders hanging and just a summer or two ago I added a bird bath, complete with dripper that keeps adding water even after the robins come in and splash most of it out into the flower bed. I just love it. I even placed the bird bath in a strategic spot that we can see from the upstairs dining room window, too. The whole family has been known to stop what they are doing to watch bird bath antics now and then.

I recognize most of the yard birds around here: Carolina chickadee, white breasted nuthatch, ruby throated hummingbird, Carolina wren, American goldfinch, chimney swift, and of course American robin and Northern cardinal. Last winter I figured I had a hermit thrush who hung around the heated bath water. Pretty cool, indeed, for that lovely forest singer to winter with us.

And as much as I want to recognize as many of my feathered neighbors as I can, I don’t worry about it too much. A sharp-shinned hawk is as beautiful as a Cooper’s regardless of the name. I’m reminded, too, of Rachel Carson’s suggestion to those of us who hang out with kids: you don’t have to teach them all you know. Just enjoy nature’s presence -- and presents. Observe and experience. Feel. A barred owl call heard at sunset on the back porch by any other name is just as sweet.

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Cindy and I had much fun watching for birds as we traveled across the country last month. Here’s the trip list of the birds we’re pretty sure about:

across Kansas et al

scissor-tail flycatcher

western meadowlark

barn swallow

red-tailed hawk

summer tanager

red-winged blackbird

black-billed magpie

new at Crestone/Nada

western tanager

pinyon jay

Say’s phoebe

western bluebird

violet-green swallow

green-tailed towhee

bushtit

raven

hermit thrush

broad-tailed hummingbird

mourning dove

northern flicker

turkey vulture

Today’s elder idea: I sincerely believe that for the child, and for the parent seeking to guide him, it is not half so much important to know as to feel.... Once the emotions have been aroused -- the sense of the beautiful, the excitement of the new and the unknown, a feeling of sympathy, pity, admiration or love -- then we wish for knowledge about the object of our emotional response. Once found it has lasting meaning.

Rachel Carson

from The Sense of Wonder