Dip into the popular literature on birding, and you’ll probably notice one characteristic off the top. It can get mighty ambitious and even competitive right quick. Life lists, and big years, and bird-focused travel. I’m good with reading about that kind of dedication to the hobby, but I’m almost certainly never going to rise to that level myself. Especially not in any kind of competitive way.
My expertise at identification — birdspertise, if you will — is pretty shaky. I mean, have you seen how many black and white ducks there are in the world? What’s with all the black and white ducks? Is it a bufflehead? A merganser? If it’s a merganser, is it hooded, common, or red-breasted. Is it a coot? A scaup? If a scaup, is it greater or lesser?
I’ve stuffed a lot of information into my head over the years, and the old brain bucket is pretty much full. So, I developed a mostly fearless habit of posting bird photos on social media and “identifying” the species but ending the ID with an implied (or actual) question mark. Knowing that several expert birders follow me online, I can be sure the proper ID will arrive in good time.
Hey, look at this beautiful… um, purple martin (?) everyone!
Yeah dude, that’s a tree swallow.
Success!
Definitely not a purple martin or tree swallow. An American tree sparrow feasting on scattered seeds in my backyard.
So, you like birds, but you’re afraid to take up birding because you think you might be bad at it? I’m bad at it. But it still brings me immense pleasure. Same with soccer, baseball, and basketball. Bad, bad, bad at all of them. Back in the early 1980s, I was at a Blue Jays game with my buddy, Scott. We had seats right near the on-deck circle, and were watching hall-of-famer Joe Morgan (Oakland Athletics) get ready to go to the plate. As he took a few mighty swings with the weighted bat, I said out loud “Great arm on that guy.” By which I meant the very good baseball player was using his great arm to swing the bat extremely well.
That’s what you say about baseball players, right?
Well, no… no it’s not. You say, “Nice swing.”
And while Scott will never let me forget saying that within earshot of Joe Morgan, my ignorance of proper baseball terminology in no way diminishes my enjoyment of the sport.
The point is, you don’t have to be good at birding to enjoy watching birds. They are colourful creatures that fly, swim, and sing. Sometimes they are terrifying monsters that can take a housecat for a meal. That’s really all you need to know. Every bit of knowledge you gather after that is just gravy. And these days, that knowledge is as close as your pocket. Take your pick of birding apps.
The Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird app (and website) automatically builds a number of lists for the casual birdwatcher. Each sighting I report on the app gets added to what I suppose could be my life list, except I’m 57 years old and have seen and privately identified many, many more birds over my lifetime than what I’ve so far reported to Cornell. My actual life list is best represented by the shrug emoji. 🤷🏻♂️ I dunno. But I’m glad I can share all my info from here on out with actual bird scientists. They need my data; me, not so much.
Since starting to use the app in late December of 2022, eBird tells me I’ve spotted and recorded thirty different species worldwide. Twenty-seven of those have been spotted in my home province of Ontario, and ten of them in Algoma, the district containing my northern home. Now, if I could just remember the password I used to sign up for eBird, I could be sure I wouldn’t lose access to all that info.
Red-breasted nuthatch on my back deck.
The companion app to eBird, Merlin Bird ID, is helping to conceal my lack of skill in identification. The app will look at one of my photos, analyze my location, be conscious of the time of year, and come back with an accurate ID pretty much every single time. Don’t have a photo because you can’t find the bird? Can you hear it? Merlin also identifies from recorded bird call. Like, immediately. I took this photo of a red-breasted nuthatch at my backyard feeder just today, but I knew the bird was around somewhere because I’d identified it through Merlin by its song, a fast-paced cackle that is now burned into my brain as nuthatchery.
So, just enjoy looking at, listening to, or otherwise experiencing birds. That’s enough, isn’t it? The scientists and their apps have you covered for everything else.