Watching birds

When did I become a birdwatcher? Ummmmmmm. I really don’t know. It’s one of these things that sort of happened when I was least expecting it. One day, I was wondering how realistic Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, “The Birds,” was. And, before I knew it, I was saying, “Oooh, is that a Baltimore Oriole?” I really did mean the bird and not the baseball player.

I’m a birdwatcher, which means that I’m not as serious about birds as a birder. When you’re a birder, you have to have equipment, including a spotting scope and a camera with a lens that weighs twenty pounds. Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but someone did let me put their camera around my neck, and I felt like a turtle with an overly big shell. Until that point, I had been suffering from camera envy because people with big cameras get awesome photographs of birds from a great distance. And distancing yourself from birds is important since they are not great at posing and, oftentimes, if you’re too close, they choose to depart.

Today, I got a picture of this egret:

He was happily taking a stroll. I took a few pictures before he decided that it was time to depart. I have a little mirrorless camera with .a zoom lens that, alas, requires me to get closer to the bird than I would choose (I have less time to take pictures before the bird spots me and is off on an adventure. Most likely, it’s looking for food. But I got the picture. The bird picture that makes me happier than I ever anticipated.

This osprey was happily sunning itself, and it didn’t care that it was posing for me! And I was so gleeful. I’m starting to be able to identify birds, with a little more skill than random yelps of “big bird up over there”!

When did you discover you had an interest you never intended to have? And how are you enjoying it now?