Penobscot Bay, from Beech Hill, Rockport, Maine, 02 May 2012.
It occurred to me today—as Jack and I were deep into our daily Beech Hill hike—exactly what I am. I’m an incidental birder.
Oh, I’m a birder. I’m always aware of any bird within view or earshot. I see the mourning dove zipping fast across the road. I hear the titmouse out the window. I spy the great blue heron flapping slowly and steadily above the slough. But I don’t normally go out looking for them on purpose. Heck, I’m always looking for them.
I go on few birding trips. I do head out to Monhegan the last week every September, when I know the fall migration will bring plenty of interesting species to the island trees and shores. But I think I go mostly for the camaraderie of fellow birders. I go to experience the place itself, with people who also appreciate it, more than I go for the birds. The birds are incidental. Spectacularly incidental.
I do the Christmas Count—a birding event for sure—but it’s a planned, familiar event that I attend with special, familiar people.
And I do keep count of all the species I see or hear every day while hiking Beech Hill. And I like to take pictures of them if they’re cooperative. (Today, not so much.) But I walk the same trails, stop at the same places. The birds either show up or they don’t. Rarely do I venture off-trail in pursuit of a bird—and nearly always it’s because I’m hoping for a photograph. I don’t generally join the state-wide twitchers in search of a rare vagrant. In fact, I can’t remember ever doing that. I do recall swinging by Warren one winter a couple years ago to see if I could find the Barrows goldeneyes I’d heard Don Reimer had spotted out there. And I found them. But that was a rare and more-or-less capricious occasion.
The best bird I spotted today, for instance, might’ve been the first one. I was washing breakfast dishes and staring out the kitchen window when a sharp-shinned hawk flew by. I know how to name a sharp-shinned hawk, because I’m a birder. But I sure didn’t go out looking for it. It simply graced me with its presence. Which was every bit as thrilling—maybe more so—than had I been hunting the bird.
After I’d typed out the list below, I took a break and stepped out onto the deck to inhale the moist night air, and I heard the flight song of an American woodcock. How many people would’ve noticed the sound? Or known its source? Not many, I’d wager. But it don’t really matter. I did, and I knew. It’s an eerie, exciting, miraculous sound. And I felt blessed to have heard it.
Still, it was just an incidental thing.
Beech Hill List
Beginning at 5 p.m., I hiked the wooded trails.
1. American robin* (v)
2. Black-capped chickadee* (v)
3. American crow*
4. Eastern towhee
5. American goldfinch* (v)
6. White-throated sparrow
7. Wild turkey
8. Herring gull*
9. Song sparrow*
10. Hermit thrush (v)
11. Hairy woodpecker (v)
Elsewhere
12. Sharp-shinned hawk**
13. House finch (v)
14. Mourning dove
15. Rock pigeon
16. Tufted titmouse (v)
17. European starling
18. Great blue heron
19. Double-crested cormorant
20. Northern cardinal (v)
21. American woodcock (flight song)
v = Voice only
* Also elsewhere
** First-of-year bird
Tags: American crow, American goldfinch, American robin, American woodcock, black-capped chickadee, double-crested cormorant, eastern towhee, European starling, great blue heron, hairy woodpecker, hermit thrush, herring gull, house finch, mourning dove, northern cardinal, rock pigeon, sharp-shinned hawk, song sparrow, tufted titmouse, white-throated sparrow, wild turkey
