the where of it

for the birds

• Posted by Summer Wood on March 23rd, 2009 filed in flora and fauna
• 1 Comment »

This post is for the birds:  the 25+ species that frequent my little patch of heaven by the San Cristobal Creek in northern New Mexico.

I was inspired to tally up our local count when I read Per Petterson’s OUT STEALING HORSES, a terrific novel set in a rural part of Norway’s forested north.  It opens when the narrator returns to the small village of his youth.  He’s alert to the natural world, and mentions having seen eight different species of birds on his land.

Only eight, I thought?  How many have we got here on our two acres?

The two dozen or so I came up with are just a start.  I’m sure there are many more than that.  I’m a pretty unskilled birdwatcher, relying on my spotty vision and untutored ear to pick out the few birds I can identify.  (I’ve got a handy little Golden guide to backyard birds to help me out, too.)  And I recalled that many in five minutes, taking a walk and counting on my fingers the names of birds I could remember seeing (or hearing) in the past year or so.  Raven, magpie, robin, flicker, redwing blackbird, meadowlark … it was a pretty easy task:  informal, unscientific, but a good indication of the kind of avian diversity this place supports.

It’s a grand tradition, birdwatching.  Conjures the image of the little old person in a bucket hat and a pair of binoculars banging into her/his sternum.  I don’t have a bucket hat, though, and the only binoculars I own are in the bottom of a basket in our laundry room.  (I think.)

Still, I’m in good company.  While Native Americans have been paying attention to the movement and activities of birds for millennia, the U.S. Government got in on the act more recently, encouraging Americans to record bird sightings in order to track patterns of migration over the past century.  Now the USGS is looking for volunteers to transcribe these scribbled observations – six million index cards preserved in government files – into a database.  Scientists hope this will yield useful information regarding variations in range and other data related to climate change, land use, and similar phenomena that affect the natural world.  

It’s easy to sign up.  Just go to the USGS News story here for a link to the Bird Phenology Program.  You can concentrate on a particular species, a particular area, or just take what they throw at you.

Good at identifying birds by sight, but not so sure about their calls?  Check out Chronicle Books’ delightful BIRD SONGS, an oversized, beautifully illustrated text that includes a built-in audio player loaded with recorded songs of the featured birds.

It’s both a serious book and one heck of a great toy.  I love mine.  And if you’re entertaining two-year-olds, there’s nothing like the recorded call of a loon to keep them engaged.

How many bird species hang out where you live?