Like most people, I had never really considered birding.
That was, until Sarah, my significant other, wrote a paper about it. I was deep into Sarah’s paper as she wrote it (her benefit of dating a habitual copy editor), and before we knew it we were pulled over on the side of a street staring at springtime birds as if we’d never seen them before.
I didn’t connect birding and blogging until Sarah and I invested in a nicer camera (a Canon Powershot Sx30 IS, in case anyone was wondering. With this new toy in hand, it seemed natural that we start documenting what we were seeing; up to that point, we were still overwhelmed by the peace it could bring us to just watch them.
We can get so enveloped in buildings and Blackberries and strip malls and Facebook that some of us may forget to slow down. Though our human bodies are deeply connected with the Earth, few people I know have enough energy at the end of each fast-paced day to stop and smell the flowers — or in this case, watch the birds.
No one knows exactly how long people have been birding for, but written accounts of this hobby have been appearing since the 18th century.
So the practice is not young; sadly, neither are many of its followers. My guess is there might be more diversity in the ages of birders were it not for the millions of electronic messages and checklists we are often bombarded with — a set of distractions many in older generations have narrowly escaped.
Still, we younger birders can be just as avid about the sport as any more seasoned pair of eyes. Sarah will not get up earlier than eleven for anything except egg souffle or birds. She figures she has more to look forward to than the average person because while running errands that once may have been tedious and tiring, she can now be constantly on an exciting hunt to see what new species she can discover. From beautiful cedar waxwings to even the occasional hawk, there is so much life around us that became so interesting once we realized it was there.
Birding can seem like such a timeless experience. Joyful little existences are discovered after so much silence and patience that one cannot help but get sucked into a moment of peace. As for blogging on birding, we may be combining two very different realms, but in this day and age that is a common occurrence. Across the world, older generations hold onto heavy tradition while younger generations thrive on technology and social progression.
Many souls in grey area have had to find happy mediums between slow-paced familial rituals and the spinning ride of evolution around them. We’re in a weird moment in time trying to balance the alive with the mechanical; but it’s a balance that can be quite fulfilling when achieved.
Taryn Yudaken is a junior media studies student, and you can follow her bird-watching at tarynandsarah.wordpress.com
Birding is awesome– a sweet hobby to promote and participate in. I’m jealous of your camera too. I think the larger point about balance between our industrial lives and our lives within nature is well stated. Pretty cool.