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Think of it as "playing by ear"
Ah, there it is - that wonderful feeling of being 12 again and coming home with your dungarees soaked through to the knees because you have been roaming through wet woods and wet fields and wet marsh and yes, by the way, it was raining, but so what.
That - and getting to see what real birding is about made a great start to the day. I have never considered myself a birdwatcher, or a "birder," but I have to admit, I'm getting perilously close to being one. You see, identifying birds used to be something to do when I went out for a walk and saw something that raised my curiosity. Now it's a reason to go for a walk - and today I was lucky enough to be with a group that takes it even beyond that. They walk in order to do a formal survey of birds in a specific area.
It's called the Westport River Bird Count and it was born one night at a party when someone happened to mention that it would be nice to know what types of birds inhabited their property. They were a large landowner by the water, and a few Westport birders decided to take them up on the idea. This grew into a full-fledged, scientific survey of bird life on four pieces of private property that border the east side of the West Branch of the Westport - or Noquochoke - River. At the heart of the effort are Betty Slade and David Cole, who live on Westport Point. Six of us gathered at their house just before 7 am today and went to one of the properties being surveyed.
We were hardly out of the car when I got my first lesson. "There's an orchard oriole," said Mike Boucher, the leader of today's survey. (He and Fred Thurber, who writes frequently on nature topics for the local papers, were the real experts on hand, though the others were no slouches.) I looked and saw nothing - but then, neither did anyone else. Meanwhile ,Mike and several others were rattling off other bird names - all from their song, and most were birds I had never seen. The orchard oriole was eventually spotted high in a tree top, but flew before I got my binoculars on him. And while I brought the video cameras things either happened too fast, or it was raining and I needed to keep the camera dry.
The first lesson - real birders know how to listen and I've got a long, long way to go in this respect. I've learned birding like I've learned to play certain simple musical instruments - by reading the notes. Now I have to learn how to play by ear, and that's a big leap for me. Hell, if I go outside without my hearing aids I will not hear a single bird. Well, maybe a crow or a herring gull - someone with a low, rough voice. But it's not just a matter of being able to identify bird song, I simply don't hear it at all. The hearing aids help, but most of these songs are in frequencies that are very difficult for me even with the hearing aids. Then there's the matter of auditory memory - retaining a song like you do an image or behavior.
But I certainly could hear a great deal of what the others heard. It sounded like a symphony. But while I enjoyed the music, these folks were picking out the individual instruments and players. Not only that, they were saying how many first violins there were, how many flutes, and where they sat. They could even tell when someone was practicing way off in the distance. Bottom line? Most of the birds that went into the survey weren't ever seen - and many of those that were seen gave us just a quick glimpse. I did get a good look at a white-eyed vireo, a common yellowthroat, a great crested fly catcher and three types of swallows - barn, tree and rough-winged. And, of course, there was a beautiful white-tailed deer, a red-tailed hawk, some chimney swifts, a small flock of swans, an American egret and an Eastern kingbird.. . chickadees, a titmouse, and the ubiquitous catbird. Come to think of it, I did see quite bit.
All of these and many more got spoken into a tape recorder by Betty as they were spotted. She even recorded an unusual song from a white-eyed vireo that had the experts fooled for a while. And at five designated locations we stopped and stood quietly for exactly five minutes, noting every bird seen or heard in that time interval at that place.
And all of this, plus slogging through the woods, along the beach, over stonewalls, through fields, and over streams, all the time enjoying good company, good wild life, and a gentle rain. Doesn't get much better!
