I've read quite a few birding blogs lately where people have listed their 10 best or favorite birds or birding moments of the past decade. I've been giving it a lot of thought myself, and I'm sure that each time I think of it I come up with a different rotation of birds. I haven't been birding long enough to fill a full ten years, so pretty much every bird in the first decade of this millennium was a "lifer." This is my attempt at picking out ten highlights of my birding experience.
10. I would be remiss if I failed to mention what many people call their "spark bird." I consider my spark bird the one that changed me from a casual bird watcher to a birder. The bird was a Roseate Spoonbill. I was vacationing in Florida with my girlfriend of that time and we'd gone to Ding Darling NWR. At the visitor center, I'd seen and read about the waders of the refuge, but I desperately wanted to see the spoonbills - bright pink with orange bodies, a bit of yellow-greenish color on the head, and red marble eyes, and that crazy bill. I didn't know much about tides and times that were best for seeing them, and missed them for a few days in a row. One morning I went very early, and following a path through the mangroves, I was rewarded with seeing waders almost as far as the eye could see, including hundreds of Roseate Spoonbills. I was hooked and haven't stopped birding since.
9. Now that I was hooked, when I returned home, I got involved in local Audubon and birding groups and joined trips as often as I could. On one trip, we were treated to exceptional looks of a pair of Pileated Woodpeckers displaying and eventually mating. I think that this was the first time that I really stopped to watch any bird's behavior. And I think that watching this big beautiful pair's behavior was another tipping point in my birding history. This is where my fascination with the family of woodpeckers began.
8. While living in New Hampshire, a trip up the coast of Maine was really quite easy, and after reading about the Atlantic Puffins that you could see close up from blinds on Machias Seal Island, I made the trip. And even though the time was short due to inclement weather - the almost point-blank looks at these charismatic little birds was a memory of a lifetime.
7. August 2004, and one of the biggest birding news stories of the year was the first US sighting of a Red-footed Falcon which showed up on Martha's Vineyard. I was one of the lucky birders that made it out there to see it. This was also one of my first experiences with a mega-rarity. Birders from all over the US were there the weekend I went - and nobody was disappointed while I was there.
6. In January of 2005, I took my first vacation that was solely a birding trip - to Southeast Arizona. The entire trip was amazing (lots of thanks to my buddy Mark) with new and exciting birds being seen almost hourly - everything from Spotted Owls to Montezuma Quail to Sandhill Cranes and four new (to me at the time) species of woodpeckers. But the highlight of the trip to me was the Elegant Trogan the we really worked hard to see. I've seen others since, and maybe even better, but the first time you see one is always special.
5. A few months later that same year, we had an amazing owl year, where many northern species spread out a lot further south in search of food. I made two trips to Montreal that month to go see Great Grey Owls. Every moment in the presence of these beautiful hunters was wonderful.
4. My wife and I have taken several birding trips together since we started dating in January of 2006. To celebrate our first year together, we took a birding trip to Texas (the first of several) and while there we took advantage of the opportunity to see Whooping Cranes at Aransas NWR. Still endangered, it was breathtaking to see the big graceful birds on their wintering grounds.
3. Some of the trips we have taken, we've done with our friends Paul & Diana. The first trip we all did together was a Colorado Grouse Grand Slam led by Bill Drummond. We saw a lot of great birds on that trip, and managed to get all the grouse, both Greater and Lesser Prairie Chickens as well as White-tailed Ptarmigan. The number three spot on this list is a tie - we worked really hard to see the ptarmigan at Loveland Pass making it a favorite, but the experience of seeing dozens of Greater Sage-grouse on a lek, strutting displaying and 'booming' only a dozen or so feet away was another experience of a lifetime.
2. Being the woodpecker fanatic that I am, you know that there would have to be more than one woodpecker related item on this list. In Feb/Mar of 2008, I was invited to spend a bit of time in Davis CA by our friends 'Pica' and 'Numenius' from the Feathers of Hope blog, whom we met on the Colorado trip. You see, at this point there was only one (regularly occurring) woodpecker in the US that I'd not seen - Nuttall's and they had them in their yard. Seeing the Nuttall's was great (as well as the Yellow-billed Magpies), but this spot is taken by a Red-breasted Sapsucker that allowed me to sit, watch and photograph him for what seemed like hours from very close range as he foraged along. It was one of thoise close-up and intimate moments that you occasionally experience while birding that really helps you to appreciate the avian world even more.
1. OK, I have to cheat here, because the number one spot is really an encompassing birding experience. Anybody who has birded in Trinidad and Tobago I think would be very hard pressed to pick a single favorite bird. With such amazing species as Oilbirds, Bearded Bellbirds, Common Pootoo, Channel-billed Toucans, Blue-crowned Motmots, Rufous-tailed Jacamars, Scarlet Ibis, and a blindingly colorful array of hummingbirds and tanagers, I just cannot pick a single favorite species. Every moment and every bird was as good as the next. With this experience, I can almost guarantee that the next decade will find me visiting central and south America quite a bit.
