The call of the wild

Winter is the ideal season to take up bird-watching.

By: Carolyn Foote Edelmann

Illustration by Judy Martin

   Don’t even think about taking up bird-watching (America’s fastest growing sport) unless you are skilled at forgiveness. Especially of one’s self. From the very start, you will have to employ absolution for (1) not knowing more birds; (2) not getting up earlier, and (3) not having listened to that warbler tape again, before coming out here with all those experts, bedecked with expensive optics.
   These three sins will probably dog you all your birding days.
   Contrary to public opinion, you won’t have to forgive birders. They turn out to be passionate about their quest. Knowledgeable. Generous to a fault. Generosity means letting someone else look at the great crested fly catcher through your priceless Swarovski scope, when the bird is notoriously flighty and rarely seen in these parts. Generosity means an eager and steady sharing of knowledge, without superiority. They will actually humor you in your first and fumbling steps, which may continue longer in this field (pun intended) than in most others.
   You will definitely have to forgive the people who named the birds, and many writers of bird books. Certain names are unpronounceable, leaving you tongue-tied in the midst of urgently important discussions. Try "prothonotary," "parula," "phainopepla." (You may hope never to find one, so that you don’t have to say it out loud.) Granted, some naming offenses go back to the early 20th Century and well beyond. Birds used to be identified through collection (read "killed"). Shot in the field, their little carcasses were carried to home, rectory (for some reason, a lot of early British birders were men of the cloth) or lab for study and unfortunate christenings.
   Take the red-bellied woodpecker. Needless to say, when noisily excavating his nest hole, or feeding, that essential belly is smack up against the trunk. You can only really "call" (identify) this one by its purring sound, a lot like Tom Sawyer running his stick along a picket fence.
   Most woodpeckers are troublous, name-wise. Hairy is not hirsute. Bird book writers insist you can tell this one from his very-near cousin, Downy, by the visibility of Hairy’s beak: "If you can see the Bill, it’s a Harry" is the jingle of choice. Needless to say, on the tinier one, you won’t be aware of down. As for the ivory-billed woodpecker (people are always hoping it’s not extinct), you might not expect this one to require forgiveness. But, should you get a glimpse (try Cuba), you will just know those beaks aren’t ivory.
   Take telling egrets from herons. Here again, bird book authors earn your fury. You’re supposed to distinguish by leg color. But these enormous creatures spend most of their time either in water or in reeds up to their bellies. In other words, no legs in sight. Ditto great egrets from snowy egrets, which are distinguished by foot color. Guess where the feet of these fish-eaters spend most of their time.
   American redstarts are orange. Short-billed dowitchers are described in one of my bird books as "a long-billed shore bird." The birding police have changed the poetic name of old squaw (duck) to long-tailed, but their tails aren’t so long as those of Northern pintails. You get the drift.
   This leads to another essential quality, if you’re considering birding. Without this, take up some other, any other hobby: a sense of humor. Granted, early literature — The Bartrams, Audubon, Britain’s Gilbert White, America’s Roger Tory Peterson — are serious tomes, and useful. However, if you’re very lucky, you will have found your way to birding via the writing of Pete Dunne, of the Cape May Bird Observatory.
   Pete Dunne used to write nature articles for the Sunday New York Times, stories which had me laughing out loud. One of his book titles is "Confessions of a Low Rent Birder," which will give you a clue to his mindset. Pete acts as if he just sort of fell into all of this; he has been known to take remarkable leaps in search of a laugh.
   If you haven’t listened to all my warnings and decided to go a-birding, be advised that winter, oddly enough, is the ideal time to become a beginning birder. For one thing, trees are bare. If there’s a red-tail (hawk) or an eagle or two perched anywhere near the Delaware & Raritan Canal towpath or Lake Carnegie, they’re a lot more visible on those stark branches. Winter is the season when nature proves the architectural dictum, "Less is more."
   Ice becomes your best birding friend, especially if you are armed with trekking poles for stability on slippery ground. The more frozen the lake, the more concentrated the birds. Especially Mr. and Mrs. Courting Eagle, in January and February. They need open water for their key food source, fresh fish. Eagles will scavenge, reluctantly. They delight in stealing fresh fish from other winged ones, such as osprey, which is why you’ll see osprey behaving as aggressively as Eastern kingbirds around bald eagles in Princeton waterside trees.
   In Hamilton-Trenton-Bordentown Marsh, check out open water near beaver lodges to find rare winter ducks. Beavers have to keep a "path" open in order to eat each night. They swim out of those twiggy homes to nearby forest. Beavers rip through young trees like woodchucks in summer’s tomato patch, then swim back, portaging the woody feast. Also in the winter marsh, look for tiny, jewel-like ruby-crowned and golden-crowned kinglets. They pop about with ever-present chickadees and titmice, as though this combination of royalty and commoner were the most ordinary scene ever.
   Fresh snow is to birders as breadcrumbs to Hansel and Gretel. Again, early in the marsh or the Plainsboro Preserve, you can read snow like newspaper headlines. Find out where the ruffed grouse landed and took off; where rabbits hopped; whether the fox was sauntering or hunting (the straighter his rose-shaped-paw trail, the more determined his intent). Where the first Plainsboro Preserve trail arrows left off the main road, search in bare dogwoods for clusters of bluebirds — especially irresistible, as they shake down new snow. In McCormack Lake, you might well see sought-after ducks such as buffleheads, Northern pintails, redheads. On a good day, snow geese have been reported.
   You don’t have to learn to bird all by yourself. And Mr. Dunne is not the only bird guide, by any means. The Cape May Bird Observatory has many whom I treasure, including author Mark Garland and Clay and Pat Sutton, owl and raptor experts who are photographers and authors. Plainsboro Preserve’s Brian Vernachio and Tara Miller are amazingly knowledgeable, suffused with enthusiasm. They offer a broad range of programs, day and night (try owl prowls), many of which are geared toward families. Home-schooled children spend one day a week in the preserve – and are they ever wizards with a compass!
   For more information, visit www.njaudubon.org/Centers/Plainsboro/.
   Most leaders are committed to teaching, eagerly sharing "everything you always wanted to know about birding, but were afraid to ask." Check out the Audubon Society, the Sierra Club, the Stony Brook-Millstone Watershed Association, Kingston Greenways, and Princeton Friends of Open Space.
   Bird walks are the norm around here — often held in the Institute for Advanced Study Woods. Leaders prove not only fountains of knowledge, but also of refreshing laughter. None more so than Charlie Leck, who regularly shares his voluminous expertise in woods on the Rutgers campus, at the Plainsboro Preserve, and in the richness of the Hamilton-Trenton-Bordentown Marsh. Stay close to Charlie, so you never miss a serving of dry wit. He and his wife, Mary Leck, Rider University botanist par excellence, prefer birding the marsh in winter. For one thing, if you go early enough on a still and icy day, you can see beaver breath above the lodges.
   For programs, visit Friends for the Marsh at www.marsh-friends.org/.
   On a serious note, birding requires vigilance of another sort. Consideration for the objects of our quests, for one thing. Wear brimmed hats because our eyes alarm birds. Wear quiet clothing – non-rustly; black or tan or camouflage, not white. Using your car as "blind," staying in it at refuges such as the Brigantine (Forsythe) National Wildlife Refuge, lest slammed doors set 10,000 snow geese aloft (I speak from red-faced experience … )
   For more information, visit http://forsythe.fws.gov/.
   Protecting one’s self is essential, especially in cold. Stay hydrated: a pint an hour below 90 degrees. Dehydration brings on chills and mental confusion, neither of which are welcome on the trail. Wear layers, layers, layers, especially of breathable materials. Even in winter, anti-tick garb is vital, lest you become a warm magnet for the little buggers: brimmed hat, as mentioned; long sleeves, always; long pants, tucked into high socks.
   For spring and summer birding, insect repellant is essential. A good trick is to spray it on a bandanna to tie around hat, or neck — that way you don’t have to apply poison to skin. If in doubt, wear hiking boots — they protect vital ankles, keep feet dry and ensure solid footing. Hi-tech boots actually keep you warm. Boots should be waterproof to begin with; kept that way through regular cleaning, followed by waterproof reapplication.
   Two sets of socks are good: inner longer ones, then outer, strategically padded. The purpose of two sets of socks is that friction then occurs between sock fabrics, not between socks and feet, thereby preventing blistering. You don’t want your most fruitful birding foray cut short by foot sores.
   Birding is a field you can pursue merrily on your own. Every site I’ve found is safe and welcoming. There is a companionability about hiking with binoculars or monocular. With a birding glass about your neck, a woman alone doesn’t feel that way out on the trail. She has an obvious purpose which others see and respect, a phenomenon my single-lens reflex camera also conveys. This is true even in the restaurant afterwards, bird books spread all over the table, trying to identify, identify, barely looking up for wine or food.