The Pure Joy of Birding

I’m a birding beginner by accident. I’ve always been fascinated by seabirds, but more in a “Look how they fly! How they dive!” kind of way. And a gull was a gull, I was in no way interested in what kind of gull it was.
My first conscious effort at identifying birds was last June when we went to the Pyrénées, it was all about the vultures (next time I’ll even bring my binoculars). Not a birder.

In October last year a bird of prey sat on our barn roof. It took me a long time to find out it was a kestrel, I should have bought a field guide then… Still not a birder.

I’ve been on regular walks for about two years now because of back problems. Walking as a form of PT is booooring. In February on a fine sunny day it suddenly hit me – there are birds all around! One can listen for birds and look at them while walking (and occasionally stand around gawking) to pass the time. I took some really nice pictures (at least I think so), but would have denied being a birder. But by March 1st I owned my first field guide.

Books about birds and birding have multiplied, my cheap pocket binos have been replaced and I bought a new camera specifically for birding. I’m looking into scopes. And I have caved, I admit that I like watching birds. It’s addictive, by now I have to concentrate, otherwise I’d be birding while driving (there’s a colony of jackdaws around that I only ever see when I’m pressed for time on my way to work). 😀

I’m a sucker for learning new things and strongly believe in the concept of the “Renaissance Man“, so birding gives me a sense of accomplishment. I can identify a lot of common species in my area, but I still hit the books often for the ones I rarely see. And that’s great as well, because as a side effect I also learn about other birds while flipping through the pages.

And then came a time two days ago when all the contentment and happiness I find in birding turned into one moment of pure joy that still makes me smile. In the early morning light I saw a bird I was sure I’ve never seen before. It was little more than a frontal view silhoutte with a reddish shimmering breast and I had no idea what I was seeing. Usually I take as many pictures as I can and try to identify an unknown bird later. But while I was bringing up my camera, the bird turned it’s head and I had an epiphany. I’m still lacking the words to express this one moment of sudden knowledge with the surety that I really saw this bird in the wild for the first time. It almost brought tears to my eyes and even now just writing about it makes me grin from ear to ear. It was a Common Kingfisher:

The hardest thing was going to work afterwards and not telling everybody. Because even before the birding my colleagues thought I’m weird (not that I care), we have next to no interests in common. When I came home after late shift – it was a looooong day – the Dearest had to suffer while I was babbling about the kingfisher and he didn’t even get to see the photo… 😉

August 2013, Common Kingfisher / Eisvogel, Ahlen