Parus major, that is, outside her English countryside kitchen window. A little birdwatcher’s humor, there. The reason I’m reminded of it is that recently I’ve had an oak titmouse (baeolophus inoratus, right) outside my window here on the creek. A new bird for me. Not that I’m a lifer, but we did grow up with an appreciation for wild things including the multitude of birds that filled our yards, pastures, and woods. Birds populate many childhood memories. We spent a few years of our 1970s childhood living in Indiana out in the countryside with wheat fields and sheep pastures. Combines were a novel piece of farm equipment to my parents, raised on dairy and hog farms in rural upstate New York. I remember an evening driving out the dirt road after Dad got home from work and watching the combines harvest wheat. Sister and I played in the remaining stalks, building condor nests. We ran around the piles, hands in armpits, pretending to be condors (gymnogyps californianus).
I’m not sure how we knew what condors were. But I do remember following their saga in the '80s when they were all captured from the wild. Their future was held in the handful of scientists responsible for a captive breeding program. Years later—April 6, 2003—I was working at Zion when four condors decided to come visit the canyon floor and feed on a deer carcass. We got their tag numbers, looked them up on the Peregrine Fund website (the group now responsible for their reintroduction), and talked to visitors about the gigantic and delightfully ugly creatures. They had flown over from the Grand Canyon where young condors are regularly released into the wild. I’ve had some pretty amazing ranger experiences, but this still wins. I remember when…
Today my biggest bird thrill comes with yet another monstrous bird, the white pelican (pelecanus erythrorhynchos). Flocks in the hundreds migrate through our valley every spring and fall. They don’t fly in perfect Vs, but rather seemingly ungainly clumps. Seemingly, until they all shift in perfect synchronism and catch the sunlight. Then shift again and they disappear into the sky. A wave of white as they flash back into view. Magic. And majesty. There is an unmistakable tug in my heart at the sight of a flock of pelicans, an unspoken desire to answer to wildness.
I could go on and on, too, about my ravens—the playful, the talkative, the wise. I think I first met ravens on Tres Orejas outside of Taos, NM, rising off the Carson Mesa. Now they are everywhere I live: Alaska, the desert, the Colorado Plateau. If I ever move east again, it’ll have to be Maine where Bernd Heinrich reports they are up to all the usual antics.
The whole family is still watching birds, in our own amateur, non-achievement way. I remember where I was when I heard they’d found an ivory bill in the swamp. I pulled off the highway and called my dad. Mom gives a weekly report of turkeys in the trees. Both mom and dad keep feeders despite the chronic squirrel troubles. And my sister moves to a foreign country and asks for a bird book for Christmas. One day I may get more serious about my birdwatching. But for now, it’s a connection—part nostalgia, part conversation starter, part shared appreciation for the everyday wonders of our world. What a lovely gift to have received as a child.
