About Me

There's something about birds that attracts lonely men.   Think Birdman of Alcatraz a/k/a Robert Stroud..   Color, freedom, song, What's not to like when your own life is drab and aimless and confined?

So it is with me.   I won't go into the particulars of my life except to say that I fit the profile.

Actually I've been interested in birds some for over 50 years.   Got interested in science as a preschooler.  My grandfather taught at one-room schools back a hundred years ago and he along with his well illustrated Websters Unabridged taught me about science before I started school.  Then in college I majored in biology.

Never got interested much in identifying birds though.   Back 20 years ago I picked up an old Peterson field guide for a song at a used book sale.    Last month I came across that Peterson's 1960 guide to Western birds and found that back in the mid 1990s I started a birding life list.    Forgot seeing some of those species.   I've not yet counted species I've seen.   Not many;  I'd guess well under a hundred, including some dubious IDs from 20 years ago.

Now, thanks to motivation (lonely man, drab life, etc.) plus available time plus having good field guides and good binoculars for once, I am in high clover peeping at birds.   Get to play the voyeur.  "I like to watch," as Peter Sellers said,

Backyard birds for now, because my movements are constrained.  I dump seed in the feeders and when I can go out to watch or peek out with binoculars.

Good guides specifically being the National Geographic Guide 6th Ed that I bought new, plus a 1966 Golden guide that cost me $.50, and binocs mainly being Nikon Prostaffs, sharp enough and with sufficient eye relief to use with glasses.

I've accumulated more guides and binoculars than those, but none are as convenient and easy to use.

Maybe one day I'll number the birds on my life list.    Or not.