Becoming a newbie & first adventure

May 17, 2012 – How I became a newbie birder.

The picture of the egret in the previous entry was taken by me in Florida in February, 2012.

Although I’d enjoyed watching birds in my yard, the thought of becoming an active birder had never crossed my mind. But then my closest friend, the one who enjoyed beach walks and other outdoor adventures with me, said she was moving to be near her sister in another state. Rather than sit around wondering how I would manage without her, I scoured the local paper for an organization with an environmental component and found a listing for a birding group. Never imagining birding could be so much fun, I decided to attend the next meeting.

My friend decided to join the group with me. It was nice not to be the only one with limited bird identification skills. At best at that time I could identify about ten species. Now a year and a half later, I can identify over fifty by sight, at least if I see them close up. I attribute this growth to the numerous birding fieldtrips the group organizes and the patient help and encouragement of the members.

Our first adventure was the annual Christmas Bird Count. Now, you might wonder how two inexperienced birders could contribute anything to that. Well, as far as making identifications, we couldn’t. But we could point and yell, “Bird” so the person we were with could identify the species. And we could count how many we were seeing. One of the biggest things we learned from that experience was the need to buy hand-warmers to put in our gloves.

Each fieldtrip takes us to a different part of New Jersey, to beautiful parks I never knew existed. You might imagine that these trips are pretty routine: meandering through woods, looking up into trees at birds. But the thing is, it’s not always easy to find the birds, especially when leaves provide them with cover. Many of our trips turn into adventures, like when wi temperatures barely  above single digits a member got separated from the group. And another time we crossed a swinging bridge, one person at a time. On the other side, we came to a river with no bridge and had to backtrack over the swinging bridge again, and then ended up getting lost. Obviously, we survived, none the worse for it.

Read future entries for more detailed accounts of birding adventures and additional pictures.