DEEP DOWN, WE'RE ALL BIRD LOVERS

                                            

Swallow-tailed Kite - Photo Courtesy Sharon Milligan

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".....................the Swallow-tailed Kite is a high-flying winner in the raptor category............................"

Whenever I address a group of people who are not birders, I attempt to get them involved.  I usually toss out the question: “What is your favorite bird?” Now, it doesn’t seem to matter if the group is composed of Midwesterners, or Northerners, or even Southerners. The hands-down winner of this race is always the Northern Cardinal.

Cardinals are a bit scarce in the Northeast and even in the Midwest, and the sight of one against the snow has turned many a disinterested household into one that will do almost anything to keep that cardinal on the premises. I have no quarrel with that; anyone who feeds birds for any reason is, in my book, a better person for noticing what lives around them.

Some of the other birds that get big votes are loons (when I ask which one, the answer is just “loon” accompanied by a puzzled look). People shout out “the hummingbird”, as if there were only one member of this family of more than 300 species.

Woodpeckers also get put into a generic category. American Robins are always in the running and so are Eastern Bluebirds. The Wood Thrush gets an occasional nod, but never, ever, have I heard someone put forth the name of a warbler, not even a generic one, and the same goes for vireos.

When a lady responded with “seagull” and I asked “which one?”she was flabbergasted to learn that there is no such bird as a seagull – not even Johathan Livingston Seagull, but there is a large family of interesting birds called gulls that are more unlike each other than anyone realizes.

Sometimes I’ll get an answer such as White-collared Seedeater or Rose-throated Becard and I will know immediately that there’s a birder in the midst (the seedeater is a Mexican species which occurs in the states only in a restricted area along the Rio Grande River in Texas; the Becard, also of Mexican origin, occurs in the states only in a small corner of southeastern Arizona; one doesn’t stumble across them, one has to go looking).

Usually, before we have gone once around the room, everyone is anxious to talk birds; everyone has a question; everyone has an anecdote (limit 1 minute and 30 seconds each).

My last group numbered about 35 about equally divided between men and women. When I asked if there were backyard birders in the group, half of them raised their hands. To further narrow things down, I asked who actively pursued the sport of birding away from home. There were far fewer hands raised on that one.

As always, I asked who just didn’t give a darn about birds – three guilty parties raised their hands reluctantly. That is usually my cue to invite them to take that nap they missed during an afternoon of Mark Twain or Jefferson Davis. This is all done in good fun, by the way.

But a funny thing happened one night. A gentleman who had proclaimed himself disinterested in birds kept raising his hand to ask questions. He had his hand raised when my two hours were up. He approached me as I was going out the door and asked me to recommend a good field guide. This sort of thing happens all the time.

There are closet birders out there. My dad was one of them, but he would never admit it. He would sit next to my window here and watch the birds, knowing the names of all of them, evincing nothing but practiced disinterest, until one day a full decked-out male Painted Bunting landed on the ground under the feeder. He watched it – a pint-sized bird with a blue head, red breast, and green back – til it left, and later commented that it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. If there had been time enough left in his life, we could have shared the wonders together.

The White-throated Sparrow is my favorite bird. A gentleman in last week’s group also mentioned this sparrow as his favorite. I was astonished. No one ever singles out a sparrow for special appreciation. He said it reminded him of spring and summer where he lived, and that the song was all he needed to make him feel close to the home of his childhood. I felt an immediate kinship to him.

When one declares a “favorite” bird that isn’t as far as it goes. My favorite is certainly not the most beautiful of songbirds. In my opinion. The Cedar Waxwing is. For good looks and gracefulness, the Swallow-tailed Kite is a high-flying winner in the raptor category. Sentimentally, I like Least Terns. I thrill to the sight of  Peregrine Falcon, especially when it is doing what it does so well. And any bird that visits the backyard, for however short a time is, for a moment of my life, Numero Uno.

Everyone carries a bird close to the heart. What is yours?

This article was  first published in March 2002 -

(Editor's note: ( March 2016) Many Swallow-Tailed Kites have been seen this past week along the coast ( - In Gulfport, one group of 9 birds was seen! Keep a look out.)