A Post a Day in May #13: Urban birding

I have pledged to write a new post for this blog every day in May.

I’m the birdbrain in the family, and Val is the birder. Anything I know about birds, or any birds that I can identify, is thanks to her. She came into our relationship with a love of birds, vast knowledge and many years’ experience watching them, listening for them and identifying them. 

At first, I’ll admit, I didn’t get the attraction or the point. But Val’s excitement at hearing the first Whitethroated Sparrow of the season and then of sighting it, of identifying a more unusual bird, and of enjoying feeding them, both at the cottage and in the city, eventually infected me, and I now join in the enthusiasm of birdwatching. While I don’t have the patience that Val brings to the activity, I do now share the general interest. 

On my own, I can easily identify the more commonplace birds, such as the three sizes of woodpecker — Downy, Hairy, and Pileated. I use my parents’ naming convention for the untold numbers of ‘Little Brown Jobs’ that flit and fly through. Beyond that, I rely on Val to identify the birds. 

This past Sunday, our front yard and back yard feeders were alive with migratory birds, including — quite spectacularly, a couple of Baltimore Orioles, at least one Rosebreasted Grosbeak, and even a Goldfinch. Wow. Talk about colourful magnificence. The photos I’ve included are hardly award-winning, but they give the general sense of colour. 

I’ve not yet seen a Cardinal, but on our trip to the far southwest I saw a Tanager, and I’ve never forgotten the bright beauty of that small bird or the joy I felt at rounding the bend to spot it on a branch. 

When we open our eyes and ears to the natural world, our scope of living expands exponentially. Even if we are only feeding the common sparrow in our urban front yard.  

A Goldfinch

And a Rosebreasted Grosbeak

...and a stunning Baltimore Oriole, too 

Thanks for reading. 

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