Spring is here, and the birders are back. It is easy to recognize them; they are dressed in layers this time of year and often carry elaborate tripods to go with their viewing scopes. Some just have binoculars around their necks.
People used to make fun of birders as fusty, elderly types with scribbled lists, but no more. Birding is more popular than gardening in Canada, and Jonathan Franzen, a well-known, well-reviewed novelist, made birding one of the main themes in his book Freedom.
There are several reasons for its increasing number of devotees. It’s a hobby that’s easy to get into, requiring little equipment. It provides exercise, relaxation, socialization and can take place in just about any setting.
They’re out in droves here at the confluence of the Connecticut and Ompompanoosuc rivers, where I live. This is a excellent place for viewing as the joining of the rivers results in wetlands favored by many ducks and migrating birds, despite the invasion of thatch (Phragmites australis), which waves its high brown plumes above the cattails and sedge native to the area.
The birders are always friendly and fresh-faced and if I stop to ask what they’re seeing they share with much enthusiasm. Golden Eye, they chorus, or Cape May warbler, or snow goose. They even let me look through their scopes. I myself, without much effort, have seen great blue herons, cormorants, red-tailed hawks, Baltimore orioles, a common loon, mergansers, and last week my partner, Peter, says he saw a harlequin duck.
The other day as I was sitting and reading I heard a terrible screeching just outside my window. I thought it was a seagull, but it was so loud I had to check. Just outside my door is an aged pine that leans out over the Connecticut River. Up in its topmost branches I saw three huge bald eagles. They were tearing at something, it looked like a squirrel, and pieces of gray fur were dropping into the river. Though they appeared to be mature birds, I got the impression that one was squawking in order to get a share of the delectable morsels rapidly disappearing into the beak of the one holding the squirrel. I had tried to be discreet, but my presence appeared to irk the birds, and they flew off down the river, displaying their impressive wingspans.
I like the birders, and perhaps their passion will help set aside land for the rare birds that they wish to protect. The Silvio O. Conte Fish and Wildlife Refuge, which was started in 1997 continues to add stretches of the Connecticut River watershed to its protected area.
But there are as many stories of loss as examples of progress and the way things are going we may end up with only the common birds to watch. You’ll notice above I didn’t bother mentioning the Canada goose; they are so abundant it hardly seems worth mentioning. Every day a flotilla comes by my deck and every evening and morning a squadron flies by on the way to and from the cornfields up north. They are my personal favorite, despite their abundance. They fly so gracefully, and with such vigor. Their cries ring in the air so often it’s just part of the ambience around here.
David Quammen, in his book, Natural Acts, says the way the world is going ecologically we may end up a “weedy planet.” That is, only species that are hardy and not very fussy will survive, so we’ll be a place of jays, gray squirrels and coyotes. Of dandelions, daffodils and rhubarb. That’s okay with me, as long as we have a world. The sun on a crow’s wing can be beautiful enough. The song of the chickadee knits winter afternoons together.
Don’t get me wrong, I hope and pray this won’t come to pass, but the signs aren’t good. Even so, I don’t despair. I trust the Earth; It uses what it has. A time may come when the weedy species that are left differentiate into more curious and shyer forms, as evolution does what it has done for eons. We may not be here to witness it, but it will happen, for that is the way the natural world works.
Sybil Smith lives in Norwich.