My First Birdwalk

For a successful birdwalk, you will need to gather a few items to help you along your journey. First, you will need a strong pair of walking shoes, rubber-soled with grooves for negotiating steep hills and muddy places. Long socks as opposed to shin-highs or footies are preferred as occasionally you may venture from the path and get burrs or foxtails stuck in your shoes. One pair of binoculars or a telescope (this is a must for identification and viewing rich color patterns of feathers). A copy of Peterson’s “Field Guide to Western Birds” or “National Geographic’s Field Guide to Birds of North America” to quickly reference any species you may meet along the way. One notepad and pen for documenting species and for noting other points of interest. One wide-brimmed hat to keep the sun off your face, (unless the sun is no where to be found). Long- sleeve shirt or sweater or jacket because you will be getting an early start to view birds at their most active time of day, when it can be chilly. Other items you will find useful: bottled water, sunscreen, energy bar, sunglasses, camera (long lens preferably), bug spray, map of the area, patience, generosity, courage, wisdom, open eyes, an open mind, some stamina and definitely, most of all, an open heart.
My first birding excursion was on a mild spring day, at the Thousand Oaks Botanical Garden, a misty early morning with warm dew collecting on the wind shield as we drove along Gainsborough in a middle class residential district looking for the entrance to the park. We were running late, my ten-year-old daughter, Sofia, already complaining, “I hate birds”, she exclaimed, throwing herself back in the seat.
“How can you hate birds?” I asked.
“I just do.”
I didn’t know how to respond. When you hate birds, you hate birds. There is no argument for this.
My wife was also not very thrilled at the idea of spending a cold, early Saturday morning, with a bunch of strangers on a nature walk to look at birds when she could be tucked cozily under the blankets in a warm bed.
“I can look at birds in my back yard. Why do we need to get up so early?”
“Um…”
“I worked hard all week and now we have to spend my Saturday morning with a bunch of strangers walking in the park?”
“Yeah, well…”
“We can walk in the park anytime,” she whined.
“This is special. This is like meditation,” was my answer but I didn’t really know what to expect either. I had never been on a guided birdwalk before and was a little nervous at the prospect. I was concerned that I didn’t know the proper etiquette and might say something stupid or inappropriate which I usually find myself doing anyhow, no matter what the circumstances.
At the Botanical Gardens in Thousand Oaks we circled the parking lot looking for the birding group. The park itself was situated in the rolling hills between housing developments in the Conejo Valley of Southern California. My stomach grew queasy at the fear of this new adventure and the stigma of already being twenty minutes late. Finally we spotted a cluster of cars collecting at the innermost parking lot and a group of decidedly-innocuous looking suburbanites huddled together in a semi-circle. This was not a tough crowd. I could tell by first sight. These were not gangsters, bikers or hardened criminals. These were birders, my friends, humans who don Safari outfits and inhabit parks and soft hiking trails with binoculars and cameras with long lenses. Birders are probably the last group called upon to thwart a terrorist attack or save the world from the forces of absolute evil.
There was no danger. My fear dissipated.
My contact was Roger of the Ventura County Audubon Society. I knew nothing about Roger only that he sounded white and older and somewhat kindly on the phone.
“This sucks. I can’t believe we’re doing this,” my daughter said as we exited the car.
“Just check it out. Could be fun,” I replied, trying to prime her enthusiasm to no avail.
“Yeah, right.” She made a face at me that basically said, “Dad, you’re a loser. Big time.” Ten-year-old girls these days have a lot of attitude.
Roger stood at the head of the group displaying nature photos he had snapped on a previous walk. Roger was a smallish, wiry man with a sturdy build, outwardly only partially affected by his seventy-one years on the planet -- graying hair, drooping eyelids, white stubble, but his gait and posture were that of a young man. Roger looked like he could hump the trails of the Himalayas, brave the darkest confines of the Amazon, march across an unforgiving Sahara; there was no walking trip too daunting for Roger. He was dressed in khakis of an agricultural bent, floppy-brimmed hat, hiking boots. His eyes were intense, and I instantly anticipated getting a full frontal ego assault of Alpha Male Energy at our first exchange, but this couldn’t have been further from the truth. When he spoke his face softened and kindness mixed with deep compassion shone through. He exuded an inner peace and natural openness with the world around him that I have only seen in a few rare souls. It was a look you saw in the eyes of saints.
“Hey, you must be Roger. I’m Jay. I talked to Ann and um...she told me to meet you here,” I stuttered nervously.
“Great.”
“I found you guys online through the newsletter,” I said as the words stuck in my throat. “We’re kind of new to the whole, you know, bird watching experience.”
He looked at me with infinite peace, supremely subdued, understanding instantly that I was a socially-challenged neurotic who didn’t get out much.
“Welcome. Thanks for joining us,” he replied warmly. After brief introductions, he returned to showing more photos to other birders in the group.
Everyone was very welcoming. I didn’t expect this because it was still only 8:20 in the morning and sometimes it’s tough for people, including myself, to look like they’re having a peachy-keen time.
An older woman with a Safari hat and vest approached me.
“Where are your binoculars?” You can’t see anything without binoculars.”
“Yeah, dad. Where are your binoculars?” my daughter prodded sarcastically.
“Uh, that’s the thing…”
“Oh well, we better leave,” snapped my daughter.
My heart sunk. I had actually set out a pair of old binoculars on the kitchen counter but in my rush to get out the door, I had forgotten to throw them in the car.
“I forgot them. We were running late.”
“I think Dennis has an extra pair.”
This was not thirty seconds into arrival, already someone was willing to help me secure a pair of binoculars. A few words were exchanged with a tall, geeky-looking man, Dennis, and I had secured my very own pair of Eagle Optics 6x30 binoculars for the excursion. Before I knew it, my daughter snatched the pair from my hands and threw the strap around her neck, proudly claiming herself “Keeper of the Binoculars”, doling out their use at her whim.
“Hey, I thought you hated birds?” I ask my daughter.
“I do but I’m still carrying the binoculars,” she said with a wry grin and a haughty hand on her hip.
Raw deal.
Before we advanced to the hiking trail, we were already encountering many species of birds right there in the parking lot. A small group pointed excitedly toward a distant grassy hill with a single valley oak tree twisting toward the sky. I asked someone what the excitement was. “Red-tailed hawk”. I glassed the hillside and couldn’t find anything in the jittery, limited circular field of view. A heavy-set man with 60s-style square glasses, named Matt, tapped me on the shoulder and motioned toward his telescope mounted on a tripod. I looked through the viewfinder and was utterly blown away. A red-tailed hawk was locked in the field of view unlike anything I had ever seen before. It looked like a painting, with rich, vivid coloration and vibrant detail. The speckled red feathers seemed close enough to reach out and stroke. I wanted to stare longer but a small line had formed behind me to get a peek through the scope.
I suggested to my daughter to use the binoculars to find the hawk. She shot back a facetious look that is best described as “someone who is mentally challenged looking excited”.
From the parking lot we made our way across the grass and up a slope to the hiking trail. I walked close to Roger. I had a burning question I really wanted to ask him. I also found myself drawn into his soothing, amiable aura.
“There is a little dark-colored bird, with a light body and a dark crest,” I said, trying to get ahead of the women who had crowded around him. “It’s a friendly bird and one of its behaviors is to ‘dip’ from its perch and swoop into the grass and return to its spot. I call it a ‘Grassdipper’ but I know that’s not its real name,” I explained.
“Could be a Black Phoebe. Where have you seen it?”
“Usually at my house. In my back yard. At the park,” I said.
“What kind of call does it have?”
“It’s a single tweet. And it moves its tail when it does it.”
“A Black Phoebe. It’s a type of flycatcher. When it ‘dips’ into your yard, it is catching a fly, its main diet. There’s also a Say’s Phoebe and a Vermillion Flycatcher that are similar. The Vermillion Flycatcher is pretty rare though. You’re not going to find one of those around here.”
“Is it really vermillion?”
“Bright red.”
We walked together for a moment and my mind raced for more things to say.
“What kind of work do you do? Are you retired? How long have you been doing this?” I anxiously threw out random questions to Roger so as to dwell a moment longer in his warming aura of peace.
“About twenty-eight years. I retired a few years ago.”
“So you do this. What else do you do?”
“I roam.”
We separated as two women closed in on him to ask him about a strange bird one of them had seen in her backyard that looked like a mini-hawk which he explained was probably an American Kestral or Sparrowhawk.
The trail meandered past endless fields of wild mustard, California sunflower, white alder trees, desert willows, wild lilac and a myriad of valley oaks.
As we strode along, I took note of all the birds we identified in my journal. People in the group were more than happy to make sure I got the names and spellings correct.
To my astonishment, my daughter was actually getting into the groove of bird watching, excited and enthusiastic now, spotting birds with her binoculars and being surprised by their stunning appearance when viewed at close range.
“I didn’t know they looked like that. From a distance they just look grey,” Sofia said.
“Everything looks grey from a distance,” a woman said and I wasn’t really sure what she meant by it.
We saw Alan’s Hummingbird, Western Kingbird, the bright orange-yellow Hooded Oriole, California Quail, American Goldfinch, California Towee, Western Bluebird, Red-Tailed Hawk, House Wren (although I was confused because the House Wren in California are larger than the tiny House Wren I knew from Washington State), Song Sparrow, Nutcatcher, House Finch, Acorn Woodpecker (who was named thus because he hides his acorns in little holes in oak trees. Roger pointed this out to us on the walk), American Robin, Black Phoebe (I call this a Grassdipper), Mallard (Male), Bush Titt, Mourning Dove, White-Crested Nuthatch.
We stopped for a water break near a sapphire dragon tree and I noticed there was one man off by himself, smoking. He was the only person who didn’t look like he was enjoying himself very much. He looked gruff and irritable, like someone had dragged him along and he would much rather be golfing or watching a baseball game. He was tall and slight with a shock of gray hair, wearing sunglasses and pastel clothing that appeared more functional for library wear than a nature hike. He was also the only person without a pair of binoculars or spotting scope. I heard a few people ask him questions like, “Alan, did you sell your boat yet?” or “Alan, are you going to the walk in Ojai next week?” Along the way I threw him a few questions about incidentals just to feel him out which he only answered with a grunt or groan. When he was alone with his cigarette, I mustered the courage to ask a more direct question, “Why do you do this?”
After a long pause, remaining stone-faced, he answered, “It comforts me.” I was surprised by his candor. He ground his cigarette into the dirt with his jogging shoe.
“But you’re the only one here who seems like they don’t really want to be here.” He looked at me again with mounting irritation. (Note to the reader: I am generally only this direct with people I am certain I can subdue in hand-to-hand combat)
“My wife was really into it,” Alan said finally.
“She didn’t come today?”
“She passed away.”
“I’m sorry.”
That hurt a little bit. I was being a pushy jerk because he looked like he had an attitude but he was really only still mourning the death of his wife. Talking further with Alan, I found out that he was recently retired from an executive job at a pharmaceutical company, married nearly forty years and had never gone bird watching with his wife before. He only began when his wife got sick. This was her main hobby.
“I like to come with Roger because some of the other people who lead these groups are idiots, frankly,” Alan confided.
“This is my first.”
“I know.”
“How did you know?”
“You ask way too many questions.”
I have always had the strange tendency to ask random questions of complete strangers.
As we walked further down the trail, which snaked into an oak forest along a trickling creek, I dropped the bomb:
“Do you believe in God?”
Alan glared at me with absolute incredulity as if I had asked him if he ever had butt-sex with his grandmother.
“I’m an atheist,” he replied testily.
“That’s cool.”
“I believe in the Church of High Overhead,” he said with levity.
I tried to think of something else to say and we kind of just walked alongside each other feeling that clumsy silence of two personalities who repel each other like the wrong sides of colliding magnets.
Before I moved off to join my wife and daughter who had ventured ahead on the trail, he caught me with a question of his own.
“Do you believe?”
“Sure.”
“Why?”
“I just do.”
“But what do you base that on?”
Dennis, the man who had loaned me the binoculars, chuckled uncomfortably and stepped between us like a ref between two boxers, sensing the heaviness in the air.
“How did we get on this God debate?”
“He started it,” Alan said with a hint of good humor in his expression.
“No. He did. I swear,” I said.
“Let me ask you this. Where is God? Where can I see him? No, really. Show me where God is,” Alan said with feisty eyebrows cocked in challenge.
Dennis slouched off, shaking his head and flashing an uneasy grin.
I looked at Alan’s eyes glaring through his hundred dollar Ray Bans. I saw some macho haughtiness but there was pain and anguish too.
I wanted to say something really profound here but couldn’t find the words. You know when you’re confronted with the chance to convey some earth-shattering philosophical concept that could change lives, shift realities, move mountains? But you don’t. All you can focus on is your anxiety as your mind races a million miles an hour to formulate an unequivocal statement. I was even under the delusional belief I could transform a non-believer into a believer with a single, well-delivered gem of inspiration.
I tried to formulate something and it came out all wrong: “It’s really all about, you know like, what you choose to believe...I mean, who we are as... you know...where we are going spiritually...”
He made an exasperated sound by blowing air out of his pursed lips and slouched ahead of me down the narrow trail. A few seconds later it came to me, “Everywhere!” That’s what I wanted to say. “He’s everywhere!” I wanted to run after him, take his arm and yell right in his face: “Everywhere!” Or better yet, scream at him from a distance so it echoed over the distant hills, “Hey Alan! Everywhere-where-where-where!”
Then I read his mind: Yeah, screw you! You blew it! I don’t believe, jerkface! Because of you, I will never believe! I will die a non-believer and end up in the fiery abyss of Hades because you don’t know how to communicate your ideas! I opened the door for you to say something profound and you stuttered like a school girl! You amateur! You fake! Loser!
I made an attempt to catch up with Alan and elucidate my point but a man had engaged him in another discussion about his sail boat that was collecting barnacles in Ventura Harbor. I had blown it, big time.
We never spoke again the rest of the walk and later I learned that Alan had a stroke a few months after the birdwalk and half of his face was paralyzed. I never heard if he recovered or not.
As we approached the end of the walk, the party thinned; some people had gone on ahead and left and others had dropped behind, exploring other areas of the park. My wife and daughter appeared energized. They were laughing and singing. My wife’s stress level from the previous week had melted away. She was happy and content.
“Hey Sofi, how did you like the walk?” I asked my daughter. “Did you have fun?”
“No,” was her flat answer but I knew she did by the way she was dancing and singing her favorite song.
“I actually had a really good time. I’m surprised,” my wife said. “And best of all, it’s not even eleven yet. We still have the rest of Saturday to do things.”
Roger thanked me for coming and said we should join him on a walk to the grasslands of Oxnard by the beach in two weeks. He began to list off some of the species we might encounter. I told him I would love to. When my wife and daughter were out of earshot, I cut Roger off as he continued naming various shore birds.
“Roger, tell me, why do you really do this?”
“This?”
“Birdwatching.”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
He continued walking for some ways and I felt insecure at the silence.
“Why do you do it?” he asked cheerfully.
“Uh, a friend suggested I check it out and I read it was a pretty good walking meditation.”
“It’s transcendent,” he said and patted me on the shoulder with a sheepish grin that half-looked like he was joking or embarrassed by making it into something bigger than it was.
Transcendent? I hadn’t heard that word applied to nature since I studied those funny, soul brothers from the nineteenth century who practiced civil disobedience and went out to live alone by ponds.
Transcendent? How could walking through a park in southern California looking at birds be transcendent? You can see birds anytime. After all, aren’t they everywhere? I had no clue what he was referring to. None whatsoever.
“Do you still hate birds?” I asked my daughter as we reached the car and dumped out equipment in the back.
“Yes.”