The Feathered Trail

Life Rediscovered on the Audubon Highway

It started with a spark

It is the middle of my 58th year and I am living out an obsession that grabbed me by the throat three years ago on vacation with my family in Hilton Head. That was when I saw my first Great Blue Heron. Really saw it. Just me and the bird. On the beach. Feathers floating freely in the summer wind. Posing. Not caring about the stranger with the camera.

It is the bird that rocked my world. What bird addicts like to call the spark.

The Great Blue is a living sculpture. The big ones get four feet tall with wingspans over six feet. They fly like darts. More often they stand stock still, golden eyes intensely gazing, until just like that the neck cranes forward, the long beak becomes a spear, and an unsuspecting fish becomes a meal.

I did not know it then, but the Great Blue is a pretty common bird. You can find them all over the states, and they have cousins who live throughout the world. If there’s a body of water, chances are there’s a Great Blue, except for the depths of winter in the coldest parts of the country.

It isn’t hard for a common bird to spark a love affair. Cardinals and Blue Jays and Robins in the yard do it for a lot of people. It doesn’t really matter what bird it is. Once it happens, there is no turning back.

I’m still on a remote part of the beach when a Great Egret ambles over and we walk together for a while. This is another big bird, common as a penny in a lot of places. Tall and white, not as elegant as the Great Blue but impressive in its own right, with a long yellow bill, tall, spindly black legs and eyes as intense as the heron’s. The Great Egret was almost hunted to oblivion in the 1800s, prized for the elegance of its feathers. It became one of the spark birds of the conservation movement. Now on a good day in New Jersey or Florida or Hilton Head, you can see dozens at a time.

I talked to the bird. I swear I did. She didn’t talk back, but she was so used to humans that she just let me walk and talk and take all the pictures I wanted while she lurched onward in search of a good meal.

Soon I was out in shallow water, surrounded by big gulls excited by tiny little fish. I was swirling around and snapping away with my Nikon, not knowing or caring if anyone else was around. I was Columbus, and I had just discovered a new world.

The next day my wife Marina and I booked a tour out in the bottomland where we saw more herons and egrets, and lots of other birds I may or may not have ever seen before, or if I had seen them, I paid them no mind. I was busy living my life. So were they. We had never really met until this week.

A Green Heron looks out over a pond for a tasty meal. An Anhinga dries its wings in the sun. Alligators gurgle in the pond around the boat, one eye on us to see if some food gets thrown overboard – the other eye on the birds because one step in the wrong direction … well, so long bird.

I turned to Marina and asked her: “Why did I never see this … where have I been?”

“You’ve been working,” she said. “That’s all you know.” And she added with a touch of Zen she had picked up after years of flirting with martial arts and mysticism: “You look, but you do not see.”

When I got home I starting buying books on birds, largely because I was taking pictures of things I knew nothing about. First came The National Audubon Society Field Guide to Birds, which offers great photos and descriptions, plus information on nesting habits and range. Then came The Sibley Field Guide to Birds of Eastern North America. Incomparable for its detailed illustrations. I bought some apps so I could start identifying birds by song and sight right on the spot. More expensive camera gear. Fancy binoculars. A field scope for spotting birds from far away. I was on bird meth. Shaky. Suddenly addicted and obsessed.

I started taking bird workshops and walks and seminars with big-name birders who were nothing like the pedantic or nerdy stereotypes people like me used to carry in their heads.

Novice birders like me get so caught up in their gear they can’t find a thing. These guys would tell you to put the binoculars down – use your eyes to detect movement, and then raise your glasses slowly upward.

I met guys at our local nature park that taught me how to take better pictures – to stand and observe and let the birds come to you. Find your spot and be patient. “If you spend all day walking around you’re going to miss what’s right in front of you.”

And right there was one of the biggest lessons to be learned. An expert can teach you a lot about birds. Any man or woman at a local park can tell you to open your eyes.

Marina was right. I was learning to see.