A Citizen Scientist wannabe

Many years ago I joined the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as a Citizen Scientist.  What this meant in real terms was that I set up a bird feeder on my deck and counted the visitors for two months one winter.  While I was diligent in recording my observations, I never got good at the identification piece, nor were my findings anything but pedestrian.  To my chagrin, my lovely jungly yard mainly attracted house sparrows and starlings, both invasive species of the most unattractive kind. Juncos were more fun, and I always enjoyed watching them root through the seeds that fell to the deck.  Real sparrows, finches (mainly house finches), also showed up, with the occasional black-capped chickadee (no more than two) and once in a blue moon, the spotted towhee.  And, of course, squirrels.

The cats mainly left the birds alone, which, considering their springtime predations, surprised me. I do remember coming home from a weekend trip to find the deck totally devoid of avian life.  I was inclined to blame the cats, until I looked towards the large cedar overhanging the deck.  There I saw a Cooper's hawk.

I recognized it from previous visits to Chapman School to watch the annual migration of the Vaux Swifts.  For the last few weeks of September, the Audubon Society sets up binoculars for the crowds of picnickers, who settle on the hill above the school, watching the swifts dine on the last of the evening insects before swirling and funneling into the school's tall chimney for their night's rest.  The neighborhood grudgingly tolerates the parking problem, and a nightly show unfolds, ending in a storm of applause as the last swifts whump into the chimney and leftovers take off for the woods in the surrounding hills.  This show regularly includes the presence of a Cooper's Hawk perched on the side of the chimney, biding its time.  Usually it would pick off a swift and make for the nearby trees, but sometimes the swifts would mob it and drive it away.

So, I knew what a Cooper's hawk looked like, and I knew why the birds had deserted my deck. I hated to think of the carnage that took place in my absence, but that too is part of the deal.  These are wild creatures. Predation is the name of the game. While we humans try to mask that part of existence, it's unavoidable.

Still, we do our best to close our eyes to reality.  And in fact, it's difficult to believe that soaring and swooping and chattering is merely part of the birds' hunting and territory-building activities.  It's easier to enjoy the beauty and the variety. So, we set up feeders and baths in our yards and on our decks, we get out our binoculars, we make pilgrimages to migratory stopping places and sanctuaries, we keep journals, we call ourselves Citizen Scientists.  We are thrilled because they are sharing the world with us, but we put them into a mental zoo.

Actually, I cannot truly call myself a Citizen Scientist. I cannot describe birds by the proper terms, I cannot recognize delicate variations in plumage, I mix up their calls, I squint through the binocular lenses but can't find them in the trees.  Hawks, buzzards, kestrels and eagles are all lumped into one category (raptors) and identified by one behavior (soaring.)   Herons are solitary, elegant, sticklike outlines at the water's edge.  Red-wing blackbirds are obvious by their red-wings, and obligingly pose on the barb-wire fences by the roads.

I have accompanied birder friends to coastal marshes and watched the gulls holding their wings out to dry.  A few springs ago,  I joined Holly and M on Audubon's Mt Tabor walks to learn how to identify birdsong, and I kept asking, what's that?  (It was usually a robin.)  I went to an outdoor zoo in Sydney, Australia:  who can help but recognize a parrot?  I have visited Malheur Wildlife Refuge to check out the high desert birds.  My sister and I go to the Mississippi at Keokuk to watch the bald eagles soaring above the dam, my friend Karen and I took an Audubon-sponsored hike on Sauvie Island to do the same. When I first moved to Oregon, I remember hiking up to Nesika with S:  he had a key to the Trails Club lodge in the Gorge, and we would take wild-cat trips.  He soaked his red kerchief in sugar water and hung it from chinks in the log walls of the cabin.  We sat in the adirondack chairs, a short distance away and waited:  sure enough, a hummer arrived to sip on the makeshift feeder, and I took its picture.

It was blurry.

Eventually I owned my own feeder, but I never did manage to lure the hummingbirds to it.  I didn't actually need to.  The deck was surrounded by fruit trees and bushes with large pink horn-shaped flowers.  Clematis flowed up and over the wall, and Oregon grape grew in the jungle-yard.  Hummers became frequent visitors, and it was not unusual for me to be reading in the hammock and hear a buzzing sound.  I would look up and see the hummer, inches away.  I had always thought they could not sit for long without food, and that they didn't like people, but this one was amazingly gregarious.

Now, I'm in New Mexico.  While I'm missing certain parts of Oregon, I don't feel bird-lonely. The apartment complex is home to doves, some small brown birds that I haven't identified, and hummingbirds.  As I walk to the pool, I wade through the aptly-named charm of hummingbirds:  one of the patios has a feeder set out for them.  The doves coo in the morning and perch on the chain link fence by the basketball court.  The little brown birds settle on the grass.  And the hummingbirds hover over the pool, then zip over to the junipers.  They are ubiquitous, and I love it.  (L actually found a newly hatched one, the size of a finger-nail, and nursed it continuously for a few days before it flew off.  Since they need constant nourishment, it was not an easy thing to do.)

Although the New Mexico state bird is the road runner, I think it should be the hummer.  Apparently, New Mexico is home to 17 species of Hummingbirds, summering here before returning to Mexico for the winter.  As even experienced birders find it difficult to identify the various species, I feel off the hook regarding a Citizen Scientist role.  I'm just enjoying them.  A lot.