What Birding Means To Me
Male Henslow Sparrow Singing
I guess I’ll start out this “nature musings and poetry” category with a quick post on my thoughts on nature observations in general and bird watching specifically.
While I’ve spent countless hours observing nature from inside cramped blinds during my wildlife photography career and participating for years in organized bird counts and surveys, I rarely have gone “birding” just for the sake of birding. I don’t keep a “life list” and would probably never drive more than just a few miles just to see a rare or unusual bird (although photographing one might be a different story).
Birding and birding field trips, for me, are more a time to get together with CBC members and enjoy nature while at the same time enjoying the camaraderie, companionship and friendship. While we nearly always keep a list of the birds we see, for me the enjoyment in “birding” comes from the interaction between friends - the stories, the informational exchanges and most of all, the good-natured kidding and teasing that goes on on all of our outings.
For my entire life, I have loved spending time outdoors - often on my own. But it is the time spent sharing Nature with friends and family and the fond memories of these outings that are “what birding means to me”.