But not like... while it's snowing. That's just dumb.
You know how people lie to you and tell you that running is the cheapest form of exercise? All you need is shoes and a sidewalk! Well, that's False! And it has been false for a long time!
I think we're entering into the same delusional state when it comes to birding. Birding is cheap! All you need are ears, or eyes, or both, and the great outdoors! And that's true – to a point. You can be a slow birder, or a backyard birder, or any number of other types of birders that don't rack up a healthy bill on travel or optics or checking off bird names on a list you found somewhere.
That said, if you want to try and see as many birds as possible, or even just one or two special birds you have in your head, then you have to start Accessorizing. You buy binoculars, field guides, a journal, eventually you realize bins , because you call them bins now, won't cut it in and you have to get a spotting scope, and maybe even a digiscope adapter so you don't get well-intentioned emails from eBird reviewers because you have no proof of that one weird duck you saw, and wait, maybe you should actually just get a big ass camera with a big ass lens because then the proof can be in high def...
You see my point.
(In truth, any hobby can become a financial drain if you want it to. And sometimes even if you don't want it to.)
Wait, where was I going with this? Ah! Right!
After exhaustive research, we decided it was time to add to our small family.
We bought a new spotting scope!
I got it in my head this year that I really needed to see a Razorbill. They are common enough off the coast of New Hampshire in the Winter, and people list them at some of our frequent Winter birding spots all the time. We just never had optics good enough to see very far off the coast.
The binoculars do a decent job. So does my camera with it's massive lens, which we added this year. But we still needed more! So much more!
Enter The Scope, a magical device that lets you see forever, past the event horizon.
Okay, that's not true. But it does let you see super far, so you can see those weird ducks out on the ocean.
Having a scope made the ocean seem like that scene from The Last Unicorn, but with Long-tailed Ducks and Black Scoters instead of unicorns. All those little dots I thought were small peaks of waves were actually birds the whole time!
Knowing that made me wonder how many birds we had missed because we hadn't been looking far enough out to sea, like, ever. After reviewing some old photos, I can say that we were honestly never looking that far out before this year. So, maybe a Razorbill passed us in the harbor over a year ago, and maybe it didn't. We'll never know. The trick is knowing what to look for.
We headed out on Sunday, the day before a predicted Nor'easter, to see what sort of birds felt like coming close to the coast to avoid top speed winds.
The Flight of the Dovekie
Which brings me to the story of my new best friend and recent lifer – the Dovekie.
This tiny flying football has been showing up on rare bird alerts off the coast of New Hampshire for about a month. I was hoping to see one, especially after reading that they "look like flying billiard balls with whirring wings."
Spotting what I thought was a Sandpiper of some sort flying alone, I decided to follow along, taking some very bad, out of focus photos of ... a fucking Dovekie! Look at that majestic billiard ball!
How do I know it was a Dovekie and not, say, a Common Murre or a Razorbill? Because after it landed, I could no longer find it with my reasonably priced, super powered, brand new, amazingly amazing scope. Friend is tiny.
Do you love my very sharp photos?
Listing
When you start a life list, it's a lot like when you start to lift weights. You make a lot of gains in a short amount of time, and then it get slower and more methodical. More reps, then more weight, or whatever your preferred method.
That's pretty much how it's going for me – while I might have only added 8 birds to my list so far this year, they've been pretty meaningful, even if they were common enough in the area at the time. They take more time to find, or more investigation to identify.
It's fun!
I think?
Until next time, friends! Thanks for reading my boring posts about birds and stuff.
