Birds and birders and all kind of good stuff

Kingbird Highway:
The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder
by Ken Kauffman

One of few nonfiction books I've ever read that brought me to tears--not from sadness--that's common as crows--but from the simple magical beauty of learning. Of figuring something out, something real, something that would live with you forever.

I don't want to quote his last chapter--I want you to read it for yourself and see why it made me cry. But I'll steal from his Afterword:

The most significant thing we find may not be the thing we were seeking. That is what redeems the crazy ambivalence of birding. As trivial as our listing pursuit may be, it gets us out there in the real world, paying attention, hopeful and awake. Any day could be a special day, and probably will be, if we just go out to look.

The author's evolving perspective made me especially happy because it agreed with what I'd found out for myself. Watching birds just to collect species in a life list is a fun game, like fishing, but not an end in itself. For me, anyway. When I catch a fish, it's caught. Done with--it's either thrown back, saved to clean, cooked and eaten, or possibly mounted as a trophy. But my interaction with the living fish is pretty much over as soon as I haul it in.

Birding shouldn't be that way. You can catch a bird many times. You can watch a single bird over many days; watch a flock over many weeks; watch a mated pair raise their young; and even watch a whole species over a lifetime. Mockingbirds, for instance, take their song from the sounds they've heard around them--every mockingbird has a unique, fascinating repertory; I can listen for a long time and still not recognize every song.

So this is a lesson I can relearn every time I raise binoculars to eyes--it's not the species, it's the experience. If that means sitting for hours on end, behind a spotting scope at a bird blind with a jacket over your head, that's what it means.

And I see I've digressed. I thoroughly enjoyed every page of this book and heartily applaud him for experiencing it, documenting the trips and sharing it with me. Thanks!