Those of you who know me will already “get it.” Those of you who do not know me will need to embrace the following declaration about myself – I am a Bird Nerd! I am constantly thinking about birds and I am forever in pursuit of them. If ever I have some spare time I will be out with my camera looking and listening for them. Sometimes, when I do not have any time to spare, they distract me nonetheless. I just really like birds.

This is in no way a personality trait unique to myself. Millions of Americans across the country are similarly besotted with our feathered friends. As a nation, we spend about $4 billion per year on birdseed alone. The total economic footprint of the birding industry (magazines, books, cameras, binoculars, travel and lodging expenses, etc.) is staggering. People really like birds.

The way in which each person expresses this affinity is different. Some people attract them to their homes. Other people go in search of them. Many people like to keep lists and others can become very competitive. I suppose I would have to say that I am highly motivated to keep lists, but not overly competitive with other people. I keep daily lists in my red field journal and I keep monthly lists on a checklist that I created. These monthly lists are kept on a clipboard next to my journals until the end of each month at which point they are transferred to a three-ring binder in my office. I’m a little OCD when it comes to records and lists; the hallmark of a true scientist.

I have lived in my current home since July of 2005, which means that I have 18 years worth of lists at my disposal. The rules are simple. I can only record birds that I see or hear from the confines of my own six-acre piece of property. If I see a family of Canada geese a mile from my house when driving home from the grocery store, then I cannot count them. However, if I hear them, then I can mark them down on the list. Even though I am the only one involved in this pursuit, I am a stickler for the rules.

My personal goal is to observe more birds in any given month than I have ever managed to observe in the past 18 years. January has its record, February has its record, and so on. There is simply no way that you can compare January with May because of the migratory nature of so many of the birds that breed in the Northeast. Also, I am generally confined to indoor observations in the winter, whereas I am much freer to roam in the warmer months. This makes a difference!

My two main outdoor observation posts are the table on my deck, where I do a great deal of writing in my “other” journal (the black one full of thoughts, impressions and accounts of the day) and my beloved Thinking Chair. Located down the hill from my house on the far edge of a wet meadow, this Adirondack chair is positioned to look north into the meadow with dogwoods and alders to the south. I’m in a little pocket that I carved out of the understory where the sun cannot find me. It is probably my favorite place on Earth.

July is a challenging month because it is so often a month of vacations away from home. There are often species that you can pick up at the very beginning of the month that are not nearly as prominent later on. The opposite is also true. It’s all about timing. Then, of course, there are the random factors of the weather and simple, dumb luck. Did I happen to be outside and looking up toward the sky when the bald eagle flew over the yard, or was I mowing the lawn and completely missed it?

This July did not start off well at all. It basically rained for the first two weeks and we also had to contend with that thick smoke from the Canadian wildfires. On the positive side, I was home every day and I was able to take advantage of any break in the rainy weather. At the beginning of the month, the standing record was 57 species (from 2016). The first day of July was foggy and smoky, but it wasn’t raining and I managed to observe (by sight and sound) 37 different species. A very good start, but any experienced ”lister” will tell you that it is the last three species that are the most difficult.

By July 15, I had only managed to add another 6 species to the list, bringing my total to 43 species. All it did was rain.

But then the weather turned favorable and time in the Thinking Chair proved very productive. By the end of July 21, I had 55 species on my list. I only needed two species to tie the record; three species to break it. But what species would I see that I had not already recorded?

That question was answered on Saturday, July 22. I arrived at the Thinking Chair and set some seed on the feeding platform that I installed. I also placed a pinch of birdseed on top of my hat. There is a family of black-capped chickadees that happily lands on my head to retrieve sunflower seeds and I just love it when they visit me. Anyway, it was one of those days that just felt right and the action started fairly quickly. A juvenile Baltimore oriole stopped by – number 56. Then a brown thrasher landed in some honeysuckle bushes across the meadow – number 57. And then, out of nowhere, a field sparrow appeared about 10 yards in front of me! Species number 58 – a new record.

Well, it was all very exciting and the journal writing was fierce that evening. As of the time I wrote this column my list had reached 61 species, but I am out of room for today. Send me an email and I can reveal the additional species. All I did was sit outside and observe. No phones, no books, no nothing. You can do the same thing, too. Just grab a pencil, a pad of paper and go outside. Nature is just waiting for you.

Bill Danielson has been a professional writer and nature photographer for 26 years. He has worked for the National Park Service, the US Forest Service, the Nature Conservancy and the Massachusetts State Parks and he currently teaches high school biology and physics. For more in formation visit his website at www.speakingofnature.com, or go to Speaking of Nature on Facebook.

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