I'm so happy there are other bird people on AW! I wouldn't call myself a serious birder (not on the scale of
The Big Year, I mean), but I do keep a Life List, subscribe to a couple of bird sighting alerts and when time allows, take binoculars and camera and go walking to see what I can see. Mostly I just look out my back door at my feeding stations, and when I attract a new species to the yard I get very excited. In early summer I got this one:
It's a Pileated Woodpecker, one of the largest and showiest of the woodpecker clan. I've heard them in the neighborhood in the past, and seen them elsewhere, but this was the first time one visited my yard. Because my feeders had been empty for two months I was afraid that June visit would be my one and only sighting, but it showed up again the first week I was back. Success!
NICE!
Wouldn't say I'm a birder, but I spent a couple of years chasing birds and photographing them (see my sig/photo gallery). I have feeders out and it is a constant battle with the squirrels and sparrows. I have blue jays whom I feed peanuts, lots of chickadees and nuthatches this time of year. Downy woodpeckers, bush tits and Red Shafted Flickers which are almost as annoying as the sparrows.
Here's a poem from my collection A Fleeting Existence:
For the Birds
The Siberian Rustic Bunting
brought Neal the Big Year Birder
winging his way 5000 miles
Ft. Lauderdale to Homer, AK
though he himself makes his nest
in Massachusetts U.S.A.
He’d grown up in Oxford
birding there
at the innocent age of 10
and now on his 40[SUP]th[/SUP] birthday
chance was afoot.
The call came in and he was on his way
-- 9[SUP]th[/SUP] time to Alaska this year
in hopes to see the one.
After six hours driving from
Anchorage to Homer with only
a roadside nap, there it was
right downtown on Hoeh street,
a Rustic Bunting beside a Junko
on the feeder at the hipster cafe.
A new world record of 749
species in a single year.
Unfortunately there is
no certification, only bragging rights,
but certainly of course
the annual winner
can crow all he wants.
Kenny A. Chaffin – 1/2/2014