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Some people like to go to the park and feed the pigeons and the ducks. These are the pigeon-and-duck feeders. They like to sit on a bench with a bag of bread crumbs or popcorn and throw bits to the birds and watch them flutter and strut and peck and crowd each other for the choicest bits. They like to pick out particular birds—the big fat gray and pink one, the spotty white and green one with the missing toe—that always come over first or hang back reluctantly, come closest, do the most entertaining things, seem the least afraid. They take their pleasure in the relationship they have with the birds which I believe is something akin to lordship and peonage. Listen up, Feather Boy: I’m the guy with the food, you’re the clown who wants it. So be funny. Be cute. Coo!
On the other hand there is the birdwatcher. The birdwatcher eschews the park bench and stalks the whole park looking in every hedge and tree, stands on a pier with a scope rather than a fishing pole, goes into the woods or the marshes, up the mountains or into the deserts, even out on the ocean hoping to see something he or she has never seen before. The possibility of seeing birds may be great, but, as opposed to the park pigeons, the birds will be anything but eager to see the birdwatchers.
The birds may hide, pop out, disappear. The birds may not come out at all. They are wild birds, after all. They have things to do, places to be, insects and seeds to eat, and while some species can be coaxed with food, for the most part they live their lives without regard for human desires. Ultimately the birdwatcher, hopefully scanning the shoreline with his binoculars, is subservient to the birds while the pigeon feeder in the park, with his sack of flour products, is lord of all he surveys.
The difference is in a very loaded word: expectation. While we all have expectations of one kind or another, the birdwatcher learns to be very careful about them. The pigeon feeder, on the other hand, knows exactly what to expect when he or she goes to the park with a bag of bird dope. The birds will relate to the feeder eagerly, as they always do, lavishing praise on the feeder by paying attention to him. Theirs is a set relationship. It moves in a schedule of time and place. It is rewarding to the feeder and to the birds. The feeder has this expectation and will in all likelihood not be disappointed.
The birdwatcher has no such prospect. The birdwatcher realizes that he may not see many birds. The birds he does see will not be happy to see him. The birdwatcher will be thrilled if he sees a Hooded Warbler, but not if he sees a domestic pigeon. His expectations are very different, and he may in fact be disappointed. But there is a lesson in his disappointment. After driving 200 miles up to Humbolt County to see a rare Black-Backed Wagtail and finding no Wagtail there, he will learn the expression, "Well, that’s birding." He will want to throw the person who tells him that into a landfill. He will learn its wisdom, however, and will come back for more.
It’s similar in a way to the difference between owning a cat and owning a dog. Owning a dog is being the honcho, the boss. You speak, the dog rolls over and pees on itself with happiness. Owning a cat is being the schmuck. You speak, the cat yawns, rolls over and tries to get the other ten hours of sleep it needs if you’ll just leave it the hell alone.
Same with the birds. Feeding the pigeons is being the nawab, the poobah, the grand panjandrum. Being a birdwatcher is being the flunky. One guy has the bag full of goodies and dozens of bum-kissing pigeons or ducks hailing him as Robin the Good. The other guy has a handful of binoculars and a pinched nerve in the neck, and maybe a brief flash of yellow fifty feet up in a tree which evaporates instantly and is never seen again. Myron the Schlemiel.
Then there is expense. How much does a bag of stale crusts cost? Basically, nothing. Of course, the pigeons don’t know that. They act as though you’re feeding them beluga caviar. It’s like having a beautiful, devoted girlfriend who thinks potbellies are sexy and fifty is young for a man.
On the other hand, it can get really expensive to be a birdwatcher. First of all there is the glass without which one cannot be a birdwatcher. It’s possible to spend a thousand dollars on a really good pair of binoculars. A top-of-the-line scope and tripod cost more. You can be in twenty-five hundred large and you still do not have a decent pair of boots. And the birds are unimpressed. They’ll manage to hide even from your 10x40 Bausch and Lomb Elites while the crust-suckers will cavort naked right in front of you for hours and fall all over themselves for a piece of three day old Wonder Bread. So why bother with birdwatching business when you can go out into the wilderness and just enjoy the scenery? If a bird flies by you can simply enjoy its flight. You don’t have to know what it is. This is the famous Nature, after all. What else do you need to know? It’s Nature, it’s There, so Look At It. Many people feel that when they go out and commune with Nature that they are reconfirming their Oneness with the Big "N." They feel, perhaps, that they must be very careful not to further separate themselves by poking and prodding at it, trying to learn its secrets.
On the other hand there are compulsives, like the author, who need to know what they’re looking at or it just isn’t captivating enough. When Ronald Reagan said once you’ve seen one redwood you’ve seen them all, he was expressing a certain reality. It’s true that redwoods tend, like any group of similar objects, to become undifferentiated to the casual observer. I felt that way for years. I thought redwoods were beautiful, but after awhile they tended to clump up. They were, after all, just large — if impressive — unmanufactured decks.
But when Mr. Reagan said that he almost certainly wasn’t looking up into those redwoods for a Northern Sawhet Owl or a Pileated Woodpecker. When we begin to do that, then each redwood takes on a character of its own. Lest the deep ecologist exult let me go further: The same can be said for a ploughed field in the fall. Here is cultivated land. A farmer has ridden his tractor over this land for decades. He has dug and planted it over and over, fertilized it, sprayed it, injected it. It’s thoroughly domesticated land. It is not generally categorized as Nature, but it is. The birder discovers this when he walks out into the dirt and stubble at sunrise with a scope and starts picking through the furrows looking for a Chestnut-Collared Longspur and finds a bonus McCown’s as well. This is the time when the birder discovers the magic that wild birds expose: Everything is Nature. Under this premise, even those fat park pigeons take on a new stature. Columba livia, the Rock Dove. Also called the Feral or Domesticated Pigeon, it has a proud lineage. Ain’t too proud to beg, however.
Depending upon the inclination of the individual, this can become a lifelong obsession. It can mean hours of chasing rarities that evaporate the moment we arrive. We live for the next great tick. We become inured to Grand Slam breakfasts gulped somewhere between home and that Rustic Bunting seen on an Indian Reservation 300 miles away. The need to add another bird to one’s list can create division in the home and penury in the bank account, not to mention suspicion in the farmer whose pond you’re scoping at last light trying for your twentieth duck species of the day. But we keep doing it. And we learn something. Patience? Persistence? Economy? Well, maybe. How to grin idiotically and wave meekly at the farmer while backing carefully away and sliding quickly into our cars? Definitely.
I do know this: Nature is the boss. We’re not in charge. We don’t run the show. We’re watchers. We’re ceaseless learners. Nature isn’t just laying out all her attributes casually and promiscuously for all to see. We need to look, to use all our senses, to connect patterns of color and sound in our brains to form an object we may not have seen before. Can we accurately describe it? This absolute need to pay attention to what is around us has great benefits. I have learned to be more methodical and less capricious in my birding, though I still tend to forget to put oil in my car.
On the other hand, Nature may surprise us suddenly with something completely unexpected. On a pelagic trip with Rich Stallcup a few summers ago I was quite content to continue learning the different and, for me, difficult birds I had seen before on earlier trips. I was happy to simply get better looks at the Storm-Petrels and Shearwaters and to start learning and recognizing the flashing field marks on these birds. Then, late in the afternoon, out of the West a large, dark bird appeared. "Pterodroma!" Rich shouted. Video-cameras whirred, Nikon shutters clicked. I barely got my glasses up in time as the huge petrel practically overflew the boat. The bird was imposing and possessed of a monumental solitude as it swept in high, graceful arcs over the unfamiliar waters. It was gone in a matter of less than a minute. After much conjecture and references to Harrison, it was concluded that we had seen a Murphy’s Petrel, a rare visitor to Northern California. It was my first true gadfly Petrel and I was thoroughly pumped. A Murphy’s Petrel! What would have happened if I had merely been out there on a fishing boat and simply seen another "gull" fly over? But knowing it was a Murphy’s Petrel made the whole day special.
Then, a couple of months later, Mike Parmeter, who had also been on the boat, called me and told me I would probably have to remove the Murphy’s Petrel from my life list. My heart sank. It had been an illusion. I had been ecstatic about something that was not there. Then Mike said, "Yup, it’s a shame all right. You’ll have to put a Great-winged Petrel in its place." Whoa! They had sent the videos to experts in Australia and it turned out to have been a much rarer bird. It was a Northern Hemisphere record. Knowing what the bird was, and the degree of its rarity, actually made me happier than when it was just, well, a boring old Murphy’s Petrel for instance. Did my life improve? No. I’m still a lazy good-for-nothing. But I made a discovery.
First, I am incredibly fickle. I had deserted one perfectly decent Pterodroma instantly for another, more glamorous one. Secondly, I am alternately buoyed and deflated by the possession of knowledge. Knowledge isn’t only power, knowledge is joy. It can also be sadness. Even anger, outrage, disgust. And it can change instantly. Let me illustrate to the reader with this confession: I keep a bag of stale crusts in the kitchen. My wife thinks it’s for making bread crumbs. I have never disabused her of this notion. After all, everybody wants to feel wanted, desired, OK, worshipped once in a while, don’t they? Even by a flock of obsequious Columba livias?
The beautiful Light-mantled Albatross that flew you to this page was seen by a group of very lucky pelagic birders led by the redoubtable Rich Stallcup on July 17, 1994 (reported on Joe Morlan's Page). This group included Yours Truly. This sighting has been accepted as authentic by the American Ornithological Union, a very serious lot, and represents the first ever (and so far only) sighting of this species in the Northern Hemisphere.
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More on the Light-mantled Albatross and even more
Read about The Shy Albatross seen off our shores in Aug. 1999 (contains great photos of this magnificent bird!)
Californians who just adore eucalyptus trees, please read
