A Year of Observing, Or How I Learned to Love Birds

I married a man who loves birds and bugs.

This may not seem shocking, since you don't know me, but trust me when I say that it's a shocking thing.

In my life, I have been known to flee barns filled with award winning show birds in cages. I have trapped lightning bugs under cups that I confused for roaches. I have run way from bees, been paralyzed by looking at spiders over a certain size, walked quickly by geese while saying "don't make eye contact!" And many, many more embarrassing stories of my fear manifesting.

But this person, so full of fear of so many things, met someone with such wonder about the world. And, over time, a surprising thing happened -- he showed me beautiful birds, and pointed out interesting bugs, and I started to look for beautiful birds, and interesting bugs. I took pictures of them to send to him. I downloaded apps to tell me what birds were singing near me. He was always appreciative, always inquisitive.

On our first vacation together, we read The Field Guide to Dumb Birds of North America out loud to each other, laughing together.

I went from listening to his stories about birds to telling him my stories about birds. We went from telling stories to reading books about birds together. We went from seeing birds while we were out, to actively trying to see what birds we could see if we went looking specifically for them. (Like our recent Great Egret Expedition – in which there were No Egrets. A story for another day.)

Then we started having stories to tell together. The Belted Kingfisher we saw flying over the pond. The Pileated Woodpecker we heard and then saw, flying in the open over a garden. The Owl we both heard one night, late, because we both happened to be awake around the same time.

I joked once that if you told me 3 years ago that I'd be running around in my free time like I was at nature camp and looking at bugs and stuff, I'd ask you what kind of drugs you were on and whether they were prescribed or not.

I married a man who loves birds and bugs, and we made each other into birders. Sort of.