Twitchers Vs. Watchers
I love watching birds. No other creature can beat these winged creatures for color or movement. They can soar (hawks) hover (hummingbirds) dive (terns) and scale a tree upside down, their beaks pointing to the earth below (nuthatches). Goldfinches fly as if they are on a rollercoaster, riding airwaves that quiver in the wind as they make their music. One of the most amazing moments in my life (maybe second to childbirth) came when I witnessed a flock of evening grosbeaks clustered around a feeder in the Catskill Mountains. The red-breasted grosbeak is one of spring’s first birds, but the evening variety is bright yellow. Why they are called evening is a mystery, since they are like winged bursts of the sun- think a kindergartener’s primary palette times ten.
On this particular January afternoon, the grosbeaks nudged each other to gobble the sunflower seed, their brilliant yellow against the snow that coated the nearby rhododendrons and young pines. My jaw dropped and I was captivated, too hypnotized by this spectacle to think of running for a camera (and this was decades before the cellphone variety). I simply watched as my eyes drunk in the splendor.
I’ve seen red-tailed hawks in Central park, iridescent green hummingbirds flapping wings like crazy over beebalm in Maine and a green heron in Thatcher Woods just a few miles from my home.
Mind you, I am not one of those rise-at-5am-to-grab-my-notebook-and-$500-binoculars kind of birdwatcher. Although I once aspired to this: armed with Audubon’s guide to eastern birds and binoculars my kids bought me one Christmas, i would dutifully sight a bird then leaf through my guide frantically to find its name before my bird flew off. Most of the time, I was left without a bird’s name or memory of what it actually looked like.
There are professional bird watchers, if you will, those souls enamored with filling notebooks of sightings, species and locations. I just learned there is word for them–‘Twitchers.” Bluebirds, tanagers, kingfishers, kestrels– these are all worthy of recording. Twitches perform a necessary task. But for most of us– me included__ the joy is in the moment.