Wings over Washington

I’m not a birder. I don’t keep a list of the birds I have sighted. I own binoculars, but seldom carry them around with me when we go on walks. But I do like to look at and listen to the birds. I enjoy living in a place with a lot of different species of birds. My heart stirs when I see a bald eagle circling over the farm. I took the return of the red-winged blackbirds to the marshy area in our neighborhood as a sure sign of spring. I am awed and stirred by the trumpeter swans that winter in our region. I frequently comment on the sounds of squabbling gulls and flying Canadian geese. I enjoy the visits of song birds to our backyard feeders and delight when the humming birds come to the wisteria in our yard. When we moved to Washington, I received the gift of a new bird book, which is specific to our area. And recently I installed the Cornell Ornithology Lab’s phone app, which not only displays pictures of birds, but plays recordings of their calls to assist in identification.

This weekend serious birders have descended on our area. March is an especially good time to view the birds, as many of our winter birds have not yet departed for the north country and some of our summer birds have returned to the area. This weekend is the Wings over Water birding festival in our community and it attracts birders from around the country for a weekend of birding events, including hikes, tours, art displays, speakers, and more. During last year’s festival, birders spotted 126 species of birds, including a dozen species of ducks.

We notice all different kinds of birds during our daily walks. Sometimes we are challenged to identify them. For example, I simply call seagulls seagulls. Serious birders have identified nine different species of gulls in our area. I don’t know the difference between Anna’s Hummingbird and a Rufous Hummingbird. When we spotted an owl near our home, I knew it was smaller than a great horned owl, so I called it a barn owl. That apparently isn’t accurate, as the owls spotted by the official bird accounts in our region have been Barred Owls and Short-eared Owls.

And when we get to the beach, I can identify just a few of the shore birds. I’ve learned to identify the oystercatchers by their bright orange long beaks and the orange around their eyes. I think I can accurately name Greater Yellowlegs, thought to be honest I call all little gray shorebirds with bright yellow legs Yellowlegs. The shallows are often full of brants and ducks and grebes and loons and cormorants. I know the distinctive call of loons, but don’t know which of the three species found around here I’m looking at.

Last year, we took in some of the Wings over Water events, including a tour through the civic center with its art displays, vendors, and raptor show. The kids made kites at one of the children’s tables and we went outside to join others in flying the simple kites. Our friends joined in a serious birdwatching expedition on a path that we regularly walk. There is a place near the top of a hill where you can gaze across a swampy area to the trees beyond and see a farm outside of the State Park boundaries. If you look carefully, you’re likely to spot one or more of the emus that are raised on the farm. Those birds aren’t native to our area, but they make a good joke for those who take their birding just a little bit too seriously. I doubt that they are recording the emus in their record books.

One of the things that I like about watching birds is that you don’t have to be a serious birder to enjoy the birds that we see. We often comment on the birds we see and the behaviors as we walk. Oystercatchers really do pluck oysters from the water and open the shells with their sharp beaks. The gulls pick up oysters and clams and fly over the rocks or the parking lot and drop the shells so that they break open. There are some gulls who seem to specialize in stealing the contents of the shells from others who have done the work of finding them in the ocean’s edge and flying them up to a height to drop them. There are different kinds of birds that feed in the tidal creeks depending on which way the tide is flowing. Some days, especially when the tide is out, the beaches will be covered with all kinds of birds. Some days, there will only be a few. In the spring and early summer we might count 25 or more Great Blue Herons, and on some days we won’t see any. There is a field we pass on our way to work that sometimes has hundreds of trumpeter swans. One day this week we saw only two and thought that maybe they had started to migrate north, but yesterday there were dozens in that same field again. We don’t know where they go when they are away from the field but still in the area.

I’m told that most of the rooms in the Semiahmoo Resort are booked months in advance of the Wings over the Water weekend. I’m sure that there are plenty of bargain birders who drive the additional 25 miles or so to a lower priced motel in Bellingham as well. I wonder if there are serious birders who, like me, enjoy getting away from the crowds and plan to visit the area on different days, leaving the festival weekends to others. I’m pretty sure that if I were to put a pair of binoculars around my neck on one of our walks, I’d end up striking up a conversation with a serious birder, who might notice from my ignorance about birds that I’m an amateur.

That’s OK by me. The word amateur comes from the word for love. An amateur is one who pursues something for the love of it. I love looking at the birds, even when I don’t know what I’m looking at.

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