34. Birding
An outdoor activity for clothed perverts.
While planning to visit my friend, Robin, who has been living in upstate New York for a few years now, she suggested we go on a bird watching walk. I responded, obviously, by saying that I’ve been “really into birds.”
“Everyone is it seems,” she replied.
“I think it’s just our age group,” I told her. “The Parasites have hatched.”
Whatever it is that happens to your brain that makes you very interested in birds, I’d say it was triggered in me about seven years ago. I like to look at them and listen to them and I spend a lot of time thinking about them. I even made a little documentary about the Wild Bird Fund that was never released, though it did give me an opportunity to meet a number of very tame birds in close quarters. While I treasure those memories, I have for some reason never actually gone bird watching with a pair of binoculars. I think the barrier to entry has been buying binoculars.
Robin has so many pairs of binoculars that she had one to lend me and one for herself and one for her partner, Josh. We each took our set and got in their car and drove off to the bird watching meet up hosted by the Columbia Land Conservancy. I’m not a land owner or home owner and will probably die without those experiences, so my understanding of what the CLC does, and how, is hobbled by that. They are a non-profit that manages public properties in upstate New York where people can hike trails and they are basically attempting to hold land in a trust to limit development. This seems like a good thing, but one thing I’ve learned in this life is that debates over land use will always have something going on under the surface. I don’t know what is going on under CLC’s surface. Perhaps nothing. I’d certainly prefer land where no one can build housing, but based on some rumblings on this singular birdwatching walk, that can be a real pain in the ass for folks who already have homes on the protected land.
Anyway, this walk was on the land of an older architect who asked us not to take photos of his home and collection of off-grid cabins, which he rents out to some very lucky people. The Taghkanic creek goes through his property at a point that is not very wide, yet wide enough to split around an island covered in saplings and ferns. There was a thick tree line splitting two sloping meadows and that’s where our attention was mostly turned.
After speeches from at least five different people associated with CLC, the property, and the spirit of birds everywhere, we starting walking in a shambling line behind our guide, a farmer and ornithology enthusiast. The guide was extremely informative and I remember almost nothing he said. Here are the birds I saw:
-A turkey vulture
-An oriole
-A woodpecker
-A bluebird
-A swallow
-A yellow warbler
-A catbird
The first few birds I saw were a bit fuzzy even if they were magnified. I was starting to worry about my eyesight and general cognitive health when I realized you can adjust the focus via a rolling wheel at the center of the two adjustable sides. This may seem very obvious to you, Reader. It is not!!
Once the birds looked crisp and detailed in my view, I found I still preferred to look at them with my own eyes and with less clarity. Through the binoculars, it felt a bit like watching them on TV. I wasn’t with them like I was when I was aware of myself in the field or beneath a tree. The smell of the meadow, grass and blossoms, fresh leaves making me sneeze and my eyes itch—the scent made me a creature, the soft touch of wind stirring the sleeping animal within, daring it to take flight. I wanted myself and the birds to be the same, on the same level, even though I can never go where they go.
Because Robin, Josh, and I were approximately 20 years younger than most people in the group, we kept ending up at the head of the line. I walked for a while beside the property owner, trying to chat him up. My one real goal was to get invited into his house, which I failed at. He was an aloof man and married to another man, so there weren’t too many points of entry. When the yellow warbler alighted on a branch, I offered him my binoculars so he could see. He accepted, the pull to see a bright feathery being the approximate color and shape of a lemon proving too strong to resist. He handed them back after a moment, saying gruffly, “Beautiful bird.”
Finally, he loosened up enough to complain to me about development on the other side of the hill, and a proposed subdivision of that nearby property. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I nodded attentively, dreaming about how nice his tableware probably is. I bet his towels are so thick and fluffy. He probably has decorative glassware on every table.
Another thing about upstate New York is that it is full of ticks. One of the other CLC leaders who spends a lot of time maintaining trails kept wandering off the paths and into the grass, returning with tick-covered legs. Robin’s greatest fear might be lime disease, so every one of these displays was skyrocketing her anxiety. We had all tucked out pants in our socks and sprayed ourselves down before heading to the walk, but here was this man who was absolutely in love with carrying ticks around on his legs. I’ve actually had lime disease before, so I wasn’t too freaked out, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
We reached the property’s personal waterfall, which wasn’t huge, but not a lot of people own waterfalls at all. Then the tour came to an end and we headed back to Robin and Josh’s house to lint roll ourselves for bugs carrying blood-born illnesses.
I’ve been thinking even more about birds since this adventure, though I have not yet purchased a pair of binoculars. A few weeks later, in Fort Greene park, I saw a bird I’d never seen before. It was small and wearing a black raccoon eye mask with a yellow dickie. It had grey wings and flew past me as I was admiring some delicate lavender irises that had recently bloomed. Bird watching for the casual enthusiast is mostly about noticing. You’re asking your brain and your eyes to pay attention to things you probably wouldn’t otherwise. The more I notice, the more I am able to perceive things I couldn’t imagine before. Curiosity conjured the little bird and it flew away quickly, lost again in the green.
I went home and used the internet to identify it, by which I mean I searched and couldn’t find anything and then one of the many bird accounts I follow randomly posted a photo of it: a common yellow throat.
Then the next day, I saw the yellow line of a bird’s tail disappearing into a bush: a cedar waxwing
.
There are more birds to notice now than I knew existed.
Gentrification in upstate NY (rural gentrification) has been an ongoing problem exacerbated by the pandemic, especially caused by people with second homes who leave their unoccupied much of the year. If you don’t have a second home there or a first home in NYC, you might not have looked into it, but it’s interesting.
Catskill You don’t have to go anywhere in particular to see birds, but the NYC parks department has a lot of bird related events. In fact, more people should be looking for free fun stuff to do on the NYC parks department website. Period.
Anyone seen any good birds lately?
I've been seeing lots of brown-headed cowbirds lately. Their beaks are so weird.