Bird Brain

Some are born birders. Some achieve birding. Others have birding thrust upon them. 

How does one fit into this scheme? In possession of a true talent? As a natural naturalist? Or more humbly as a mere "bird-watcher"? A casual observer? 

Keeping a lonely, silent watch for avian activity this weekend, I pondered these questions. You see, for the first time, I became a participant in the "Great Backyard Bird Count." Binoculars at the ready. My worn copy of "Roger Tory Peterson Guide to Western Birds" at my side. My eyes glued to the skies and tree branches.

More on that in a moment.

In 1998, by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society, launched the GBBC, in a project they call a "citizen science." Bird enthusiasts from all over the world are welcome to count the birds they see and feed the data into the GBBC web site. Numbers compiled from this one weekend help to inform an overall snapshot of the abundance of birds, their migrations, and the distribution of the world's avian population. I counted birds on all four specified days, February 15-18, watching from my living room window, walking the beach, and strolling through parks. In all, I recorded 16 species — and it might have been so many more if it hadn't been so darned chilly. Birds that came visiting when it was warmer a few weeks ago just weren't showing up. I'm convinced the little bird brains flew back south to be counted elsewhere.

The global count for 2019 came in at 101,464 check lists submitted from 172 countries, 5,693 species identified, and 16,754,577 individual birds counted. As for me, out of that 101,464 lists, my ranking was 19,777. That's a feather in a newbie's cap, thank you very much! 

So, how did I get started as a bird watcher, you ask? I came to birding via my mother. She was tickled pink when anything more interesting than a House Sparrow would show up at our bird feeder. Any calm Sunday afternoon could be shattered — repeatedly — by Dad calling out, "There's your hummingbird, Mother!" and she'd be all a-flutter, flying to the window to catch a glimpse of the tiny quivering creature sipping from a red plastic flower on a feeder she had filled with sugar water. 

She shared her ornithological interest with a friend, telephoning each other if they saw something unusual. We began to tease her about Bird Alerts — that she and her pal would be called out, wearing pith helmets and khaki Dian Fossey outfits, carrying giant, high-powered binoculars, and driving a yellow Volkswagen bug with police siren atop, "whoop, whoop, whooping," as they arrived at rare sightings. 

Mum's enthusiasm— and mine — grew as we learned the identity of our backyard visitors from a bird book. I was a teen when I started my Life List. A nerdy activity, but there you have it — I was a nerdy kid. But now, after all these years of experience, I can name dozens of feathered friends, and it is still a thrill to spot a bird that I can't identify until I've looked it up in my Peterson. It gives me great satisfaction to enter a check mark in the tattered book's index. 

Some folks are way more obsessive. They travel the world in pursuit of birds. Their Life Lists are throughly checked off. They may even risk life and limb on bird watching expeditions to capture a rare sighting. These are the Birders. They may even pursue it competitively as shown in a feature-length film, "The Big Year," which came out in 2011. Based on a true story about three friendly rivals who set out to see who could identify the most birds in one year, it's a race to be named Best Birder. That honor for the 2019 GBBC surely goes to a professional bird watching guide in Ecuador whose 918 reports totaled 1,152 species. Wow. I can't even count that high! 

I prefer the other type of bird watching — the meditative variety. In this model, the sight of a straggly, fluttering flock of Bushtits makes me giggle. A majestic Bald Eagle soaring overhead fills me with awe. A robin pulling a fat worm out of the garden warms my heart and makes me think of my mother. 

Bird watching is a way to connect with Nature. To slow down. To be thankful for the beauty and variety of all God's creatures. To instill wonder.

This weekend I counted birds. 

Wax Off, Wax On, Again!

The Mr has reported that when he and I started dating, you know, way back in the Pleistocene, he found my mother's kitchen fascinating — much like visiting a museum. 

I lived with my parents from birth to my early 20s. The house I grew up in was built in the early decades of the 20th century, and to be fair to my folks, they did some updating along the way after they bought it in the early 1950s. They hired a carpenter to add arborite countertops to the old cabinets which were finished around the edges with a strip of aluminum. The mid-century fridge had a tiny freezer compartment at the top that was only big enough for two cans of Minute Maid frozen orange juice and a tray of ice cubes, due to frost build-up that got to such a great thickness that it would take a full day to defrost — a twice annual event that was best accomplished on those frigid, minus degree days in January when 4 inch-thick ice on the window kept foods chilled that were set out on the sill. But as home remodeling TV shows had not yet been invented, there wasn't the same pressure in those days to lust after the latest appliances or to create a kitchen island where guests could gather to watch you cook. Guests in the 1950s sat in the living room where they belonged and were served a cocktail with a smoked oyster on a cracker, after which they would then be invited to the dining room table for a meal that my Mum ceremoniously presented from behind a swinging Hazel door (named by me for the main character of a favorite TV show) which lead to her inner sanctum — the kitchen — a room that remained resolutely old fashioned right into the late 1970s when the Mr and I got married, the house went on the market, and Mum and Dad moved to an apartment.

One artifact that piqued the Mr's curiosity in our kitchen museum was a wax paper dispenser that hung on the wall. Even though plastic food film (Saran Wrap, specifically) had been invented in 1949, plastic garbage bags in 1950 (in Winnipeg, as a matter of fact), and Ziplock bags came along in 1968, NONE of those staple products were used in our household. Mother would have nothing to do with this plastic revolution: our family used wax paper almost exclusively. 

Filled with an industrial-sized roll of wax film, that wall dispenser saw as much action as a box of tissues in flu season. Mum wrapped my school lunch sandwiches in wax paper. She folded it around baked goods destined for church teas. It covered leftovers in the fridge. She even used it as a cutting surface — her culinary technique not having been honed by watching TV cooking shows, but rather from high school Home Ec class. She did not own a cutting board. She used a paring knife held in her right hand to peel vegetables held in her left, and any chopping or dicing she did was on the wax paper. The peelings could then be handily crumpled up and tossed away. 

A generous square of wax paper was laid upon the floor as a mat under the brown paper grocery bag that was our trash "bin" — which offered absolutely no protection from the ghastly mess on the floor if the bag split open when lifted — which it did frequently — for removal to the backyard galvanized garbage can. Our poor Cocker Spaniel ate off a square of wax paper on the floor adjacent to the garbage bag. His can of Dr. Ballard's was splorted out onto the paper, which was whisked away when he was finished dredging his spaniel ears in the wet food.

The most creative use award really needed to go to my Dad, whose surgical precision filleting sardines was magnificent to watch. He would open the tin with that tiny key that curled back the lid, lift each mini herring out, and lay it on wax paper in prep for the fish-gut-ectomy. He then dispatched the minuscule, oily extracts to a wad of newspaper for bundling up. He should have received a Nobel prize or studied to be a fish surgeon. 

Fast forward to today. The city of Nanaimo, where the Mr and I now reside, has a very progressive recycling and trash disposal program that is moving toward zero-plastic-waste. This has prompted us to once again eschew plastic wrap and use wax paper instead — which is accepted in our green bin for the municipal compost pile. It is ideal for wrapping food items. It is equally useful for bunching up peelings, scraps, and greasy bits to throw out, in an effort to prevent the compostable brown paper grocery bag, that we are now using to line the garbage bin, from becoming saturated.

And thus, we have become my parents.

Here are your take-aways from this blog: 

1. Everything old is new again. 
2. My folks might just have been early environmentalists. 
3. Wax paper or not, there is no escaping greasy, wet, brown bag wreckage enroute to the garbage can. We re-enact the ritual cleanup frequently.