By Interpretive Ranger, Eric Whiteside 

One of the first assignments I got when I started my career as a Park Ranger Aide in the 2000s was to familiarize myself with the park. Having spent a good chunk of my youth tromping around outdoors, this seemed like a dream come true. Getting paid to just do the stuff I might do any given weekend? Heck yeah! I had a good amount of baseline knowledge of the larger mammals and easier-to-identify plants, but I had plenty of gaps in expertise. One of those was birdwatching! I could identify an acorn woodpecker, a turkey vulture, and an owl, but that was about it.  

 First Attempt: Bird Guidebooks vs Quiet Watching 

One day, at the recommendation of one of the rangers, I headed out into the park on a foot patrol with a few different bird guides and set to work at becoming a master birder in an afternoon. It was like an open-note test; this should be easy!

As I am sure many of you have discovered, it is, in fact, not easy. Bird guides are wonderful repositories of information — migratory routes, wingspans, sound chart sonograms, gestation periods, foraging habits, etc... But they don’t teach you how to birdwatch. No bird guide can distill down the countless hours spent watching birds into a two-page spread. Most of what makes any savvy birdwatcher so impressive is just the accumulation of time they have spent in the field looking for and watching birds. 

I took this to heart and spent 10 minutes staring at a chunky grey bird sitting on a telephone wire. He barely moved, so I was able to stare for a few seconds through my binoculars and then leaf through the guide, then back through the binoculars and back to the glossy pictures in the field guide until I had it narrowed down to two possible birds.

It looked an awful lot like a northern mockingbird, but something was off. Its face matched more closely with the loggerhead shrike as it had this dramatic black streak across its eyes, like it was wearing a tiny Zorro mask! I wrote it down in my notebook, thanked my feathered model for its patient cooperation, and moved on.  

An Experienced Expert Weighs In 

I made my way back to the ranger station, sat down for lunch, and mentioned my findings to the same ranger: a red-tailed hawk, a California scrub jay, a duck, maybe a mallard, a California quail, and a loggerhead shrike. Her attention was piqued by that last one, and she turned towards me with an inquisitive look.  

 "Where did you see it?" She asked, her critical eyes squinting at me. 

"Sitting on a power line out in the nature area near Kingfisher crossing," I replied. 

"Well, you see, Eric, that’s just such a rare bird to spot in this park, I don’t think you saw that." Her nose lifted up in confidence. 

"Well, it was kind enough to hang out for a while, so I was able to really compare the pictures in the field guide..." I shrugged. 

"Yeah, you didn’t get to see that, you saw a mockingbird." And she turned back to her work, satisfied. 

 I looked back at the field guide and tried to recall what I saw, but the image of the bird in my mind had faded. Had I actually seen what I believed I saw? She was the expert, after all. 'Man, this birding stuff is hard,' I thought, 'Maybe I should just focus more on plants...' And just like that, the spark of discovery was extinguished. 

Summer Crush
 

I never really went back to learning about birds until many years later. There were several influences giving some lift to my wings, but I truly reignited that flame of discovery because of a summer crush. I spent a whole summer trying to become a master birder — all so I could impress a girl. The summer crush ended about as abruptly as it started, but I was left with a lifelong love of birding!  

Lessons Learned 

Not too long ago, I much more confidently identified my first Loggerhead Shrike in Sycamore Grove and felt an immense tug of déjà vu as I scrolled back and forth between a shrike and a mockingbird in my Merlin app.

I can’t tell you for sure which bird I was really watching on that powerline that day, so many years ago — but in that present moment, I realized that it didn’t even matter! All that mattered was that my coworker had shot me down, clipped my fledgling birder wings, and smothered my young curiosity. I don’t hold it against her, and I don’t think she intended to shut me down. Honestly, I, too, would be skeptical if some amateur birder who barely knows which end of the binoculars to look through told me they saw one.

That was when I finally figured out that birding is not some exclusive club that you have to be invited to be a member of — you just need to be interested and observant! 

Today, I can identify nearly every bird that visits Sycamore Grove Park — most of the time even without the aid of binoculars! (Thank goodness I finally went to an optometrist and discovered I needed glasses last year!) Once you have put in the work, you will start to recognize birds by their flight patterns; by the way they hop along the ground or dart between branches; by the length and shape of their beaks and the shrill chirps or raspy croaks of their songs. It has infiltrated many aspects of my life — the arrival of the colorful Bullock’s Orioles is now part of my confirmation that spring has, in fact, sprung.  

However, sometimes I feel like the wealth of knowledge can shine too much light and drown that little flickering flame of discovery. I miss those early days of staring at mystery birds, trying to take note of every field marking, watching intently to figure out if they are eating seeds on the ground or snagging caterpillars off leaves. Too often nowadays, I just nod at the Black Phoebe perched nearby and keep walking, without taking the time to do what this whole thing is about... Birdwatching! I have to remind myself to take a few minutes to watch the perched Phoebe as it tracks an insect before dashing out and snatching it from the sky after a dazzling barrel roll maneuver with an audible 'clack' from their beak as they capture their prey. 

Begin Your Own Birdwatching Journey

If you have never taken time to birdwatch before, I recommend you get a pair of binoculars and just... watch. Really watch. Forget the names, the checklists, the song charts — that can come later. Sit still and notice how they move. How they behave. How they live. There will be plenty of time to compare 'Life Lists' and argue whether it was a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk or an adult Sharp-shinned Hawk later; those will be the kinds of things that you do to try to keep that little flame of discovery alive once you have mastered all the basics.  

That flame burns inside of you, too! Go get out there and stoke it! 

Ranger Eric highly recommends you download the Merlin Bird ID App for your smart device to accompany your new favorite pastime! 

Birdwatch with a Ranger at Sycamore Park on Sunday, June 15th  at 7:30 am!

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