Not a Birdwatcher

I don’t hunt birds.

I’m just not interested. As a kid, I would follow my dad as he hunted big game. He carried the .308 rifle, and I carried an old break action 12 gauge. If we saw grouse, I got to shoot them. But if we saw elk or deer, it would be dad doing the shooting.

Consequently, I believed that the big game is serious business, and the birds are kid stuff. And I can’t shake this notion for the life of me. I know guys who are amped up about the beginning of pheasant season. I know the dudes on Duck Dynasty built an empire on people with a passion for migratory birds. And turkeys… well, the guys who get into turkey hunting are never heard from again. I hear tell it’s an addiction on par with oxy and fentanyl.

But I can’t imagine getting excited about hunting any bird. The thought of it gives me flashbacks. I’m a little kid, trying to keep pace with dad on the track of an elk, my feet are cold, my hands are colder, the gun is heavy, and even if we see a bird, there’s only a 50/50 chance I get to shoot it. See, if dad thought we were getting close to a herd, he wouldn’t want my shotgun to scare off a bull elk just to bag a 12oz. Spruce Grouse. It’s hard to overcome the lessons learned in childhood, and I learned that birds are for the birds.

However, while you won’t catch me stalking birds, I bump into my fair share. When you’re bowhunting, sitting still in a treestand for several hours, you see plenty of wildlife, and most of it is on the wing. In recent years, I’ve started to get curious about a few of them, especially when they force the issue.

One day, I’m sitting in this aspen about 25 feet off the ground, when a bird swoops right past my head, alighting on a branch about six feet in front of me. He was smaller than a hawk, but he was a bird of prey for sure. Sharp hooked beak, talons till Tuesday, and a penetrating stare that made this 200-pound dude feel like a field mouse.

Just as I became certain he was sizing me up for an attack, he takes off and wheels overhead a few times, letting fly with a few keening shrieks before moving on. I had to know what he was. Googling his size and coloring, I found out he was a Merlin Falcon. Unlike me, he is an avid bird hunter. They’re his primary food source. So he may have been trying to decide if I was a particularly plump pigeon sitting up in that tree.

I liked finding out what he was, and I’ve looked up a couple other birdies since then. As a safety precaution, I only climb trees in places where I have phone reception, so I’m always able to access the interwebs if I see a neat bird. On one occasion I saw this really colorful one I’d never seen before or since. It’s called a Bohemian Waxwing, and it’s apparently a rare find in this area. But, on this occasion, a gang of about 20 were flitting from shrub to shrub about four feet off the ground, eating berries as they went.

I don’t think any of this makes me a birdwatcher, or birder, or whatever they’re called. I think it just makes me a curious human. Like, if you saw a type of car or airplane that you’d never seen before, you might wonder what it was and look it up. It doesn’t make you a car-guy or an aviation fanatic.

That said… it has progressed a bit further as of last week. Here’s what happened.

I’m sitting in my backyard, talking to a friend on my cell. Suddenly, I see this flash of yellow in one of my trees. I focus on the movement, and I cannot believe my eyes. There is a bright yellow bird with dark wings and a red head sitting in the tree. You have to understand, we don’t get birds like that in Calgary. We see a lot of magpies, pigeons, crows, and these little brownish birds. I don’t know what they are, but they’re nothing fancy.

This thing looked like it escaped from a zoo or a pet store specializing in exotic species. I vaguely remembered seeing something like it one time years ago and being curious then as well. But sitting there in my backyard, with phone in hand, I had a chance to find out what it was. So I switch to speaker, carry on the conversation with one brain, but with the other I’m typing a description of this vivid visitor into a google window. And just like that, there he is, the Western Tanager. Turns out, he isn’t escaped from anywhere, but he’s a rare one to spot in this area.

Again, I don’t think this makes me a bird-guy. Like, if you saw a sky blue cat walk through your backyard, you might say: Geez, are they making ‘em in blue now? and google for an answer. That’s all I did. My next click is the controversial piece.

In addition to this description and pic of my yellow friend, the next blurb down said: Is there an app where I can look up what kind of bird I saw and check it off on a list? And there was an answer right beside it saying that eBird will do this for you. It will even listen to a bird call and identify it for you. And I thought: Well, isn’t that convenient. If I have that app, the next time I see something, it’ll be easier to identify it.

So, yeah, I downloaded it. And I downloaded a second one because it works in conjunction with an app called Merlin, and, yes, it’s a falcon on the thumbnail.

When I looked up this Western Tanager in there, it walked me through prompts: Did you see one of these guys? Sure did. When and where? I dropped a pin. It even said something about how it all goes into a database because there’s someone somewhere who wants to know where all the birdies are at any given time.

Now, coincidentally, I’m driving through downtown Calgary the next afternoon, and while I’m crossing a bridge over the Elbow River, I see four pelicans! It’s not unusual to see them down at the south end of the city where the Bow River begins if meandering path through the prairies, but they are never downtown, and they looked wildly out of place.

And I thought to myself: You know, I bet those people of… of… the larger birding community… would be super interested to know there’s four pelicans here right now. So I opened that app, found the pelicans, and dropped a pin where I saw them.

I still don’t think that makes me a birdwatcher. Hear me out.

It was innocent curiosity about the brilliant yellow bird in my backyard that led me to the apps. And it was only there that I learned there’s this citizen brigade of birders who want to know where all the birdies are at every moment of the day. Knowing that, could I in good conscience let this pelican sighting go unnoted? Clearly, I could not.

It’s been about a week now, and I have not entered any more birds on that app, nor have I gone to a park in search of birds, nor have I purchased any bird seed to disperse in my backyard. So… not a birder, right?

I will keep the app on my phone to assist me in identifying any raptors that bluff-charge me in trees, or to learn the name of a brilliantly colored specimen I’ve never seen before, and if I see any exceptional doings in the avian world, I will alert the citizen brigade if I have a spare moment. But this will all be on an incidental basis. The birds will have to come to me.

I don’t hunt birds.