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| Singing Indigo Bunting |
As any serious bird-watcher knows, the term that denotes our
hobby is terribly misleading. A newcomer
or an outsider usually assumes that because the pursuit is called
“bird-watching”, then they should always be able to see birds, and see them
well. Binoculars, naturally, are often
thought of as instruments serving to endow bird-watchers with a nearly
super-human ability to see the birds that fly their merry ways, unseen to the
casual observer.
Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is, “bird-watching” could just as
easily be called “bird-listening.”
According to bird-watching experts, most birders (a term I prefer to
bird-watchers—but due more to its brevity than its accuracy) identify at least
80 percent of the birds they find by sound, not sight. Admittedly, we birders could probably
actually see a fair chunk of this 80 percent if we made the effort to
look, but in a lot of cases, these birds call and sing from the middle of dense
woods, marshes, briar thickets—places we’d rather not go. Of course, if the bird making sounds in this
uninviting terrain is one that is new or especially exciting to us, we’re more
than happy to make the effort to actually see it, even if it means braving
poison ivy, saw-edged marsh grasses, skin-ripping greenbriar, ticks,
mosquitoes, and venomous snakes; or maneuvering more mundane obstacles such as
fallen trees, creeks, holes, gnats, etc.
And, succeeding in the face of all these impediments—finally seeing the
rare bird—wins the hardworking birder a valuable excuse to brag at the next
bird club meeting.
But I digress.
Another great truth of birding: binoculars are excellent tools, and
without them birding as we know it would be next to impossible. However, they will not give you any
extraordinary abilities in locating birds; the most they can do is magnify what
you’re seeing, so that the amazing beauty and variety of birds are more
apparent. As to locating birds, the only
way to improve this skill is with practice.
Even with years of field experience, though, there are some birds that
will manage to elude you, or at least elude your eyes.
I’m certainly not immune to the caprices of bird
behavior. The times that I’ve been
outmaneuvered by birds are too numerous to name. Sometimes it is an individual bird on one
particular day; other times an entire species seemingly conspires against my
earnest efforts to see it. For example,
I have yet to observe The Chuck-will’s-widow and Whip-poor-will—both secretive
night birds with calls proclaiming their names—up close and through
binoculars. I have seen a live
Chuck-wills-widow in the wild—it flew up from the road in front of the family
car one night. I saw just enough of its
brown wings and white-bordered tail to positively identify it. These birds’ secrecy is part of their
mystique, though, so I’m perfectly happy to just listen to their rhythmic,
intriguing nighttime songs, and if I happen to see one in full view someday, so
much the better.
Other nocturnal birds like owls also prove elusive. However, since owls are generally large and
hunt from relatively prominent places—not impenetrable thickets like the haunts
of the Chuck-wills-widow and Whip-poor-will—they are usually a little easier to
observe. Where I live in Macon, there
are Great Horned Owls that live and hunt around the pastures and backyard pecan
orchards. I have seen them on a number
of occasions, but more often I hear their resonant hoots, especially on moonlit
nights in late winter when the trees are bare.
It’s a very comforting sound, and it foretells the owls’ courtship and
eventual nesting, since these charismatic hunters breed and raise young very
early in the year.
Sometimes vocal but difficult-to-see birds can be very
frustrating. The arrival of spring
brings lots of migrating songbirds, many of which choose to proclaim their
territories through song from the tops of the very tallest trees. Then, it is literally a pain in the neck to
try to see these birds, craning your head back as you look through your
binoculars, trying to focus on the five-inch long warbler flitting forty feet
above you as it sings its squeaky melody.
Of course, it could be worse; a lot of warbler songs are too
high-pitched for some people to hear—the songs of Blackpoll, Bay-breasted,
Black-throated Green, and Blackburnian Warblers, for example. Even John James Audubon, one of the founders
of American ornithology, is said to have had difficulty hearing the songs of a
number of birds, especially wood-warblers.
On the other hand, several warbler species have very loud songs and are
relatively easy to see; go into a swampy woodland, and you may see and hear a
vivid yellow Prothonotary Warbler making its shrill tweet tweet tweet
tweet song in the deep, gloomy shade of the cypress trees. I promise you, it’s an amazing experience.
One of my favorite warblers, interestingly, is one that I
haven’t actually seen more than a few times.
Not that that’s anything unusual: Swainson’s Warblers are notoriously
tricky to see. One of these sightings
was of a bird flying away after I attempted to creep on it while it sang in a
thicket. More recently, this year I
heard a Swainson’s Warbler in an overgrown wood during a spring migration
survey. After tallying it, I decided to
walk through the dense undergrowth in hopes of spotting it. Sure enough, as soon as I deduced what
direction it was in, the bird moved to another spot and began its loud, ringing
song again. Despite the frustration it
sometimes provokes in me, this incredibly secretive behavior coupled with the
interesting song is one of the reasons I find the Swainson’s Warbler so
fascinating, and I always enjoy encounters with them, visual or otherwise.
Probably you can think of at least a few birds whose sounds
are particularly meaningful to you in some way.
Maybe they evoke fond memories; or are associated with certain seasons
or times of day; or perhaps are simply beautiful, amusing, awe-inspiring…the
list goes on. The robin’s hurried
morning warblings, the mockingbird’s nighttime virtuoso recital, the softly
lilting tur-a-lee of the bluebird, the energetic drummings of
woodpeckers, the shrill scream of a Red-tailed Hawk, the echoing honks of
migrating geese—these and countless other calls not only hold special
significance to birders, but are familiar sounds in our day-to-day relationship
with the natural world. Even something
as seemingly mundane as a crow’s guttural caw caw can bring a lot
of interesting feelings to an observer.
Seeing birds is always a pleasure, but sometimes it helps to
just stop and listen to them as they go about their lives. This can be difficult; it’s hard to resist
the impulse to search for a bird that you can hear but not see (after all, this
is bird-watching), but even hearing birds fills you in on interesting
aspects of their ecology, enables you to identify them, and just makes birding
more fun and meaningful. Another thing
to keep in mind: although you can see the birds that are right in front of your
eyes during birding jaunts, their songs are all around you.
