1 month of birding every day
Feb. 28th, 2021 07:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silverflight8Actually, 35 days of checklist streak, as defined by ebird. Because ebird is trying to collect data that is useful for science, they have birding protocols. The most valuable is a "complete checklist", where your primary purpose is birding, you try to identify all the birds that you can see and hear, and you give number counts - estimating obviously, if necessary (and it's very necessary when faced with thousands of birds at sea, I'm totally overwhelmed. Counting is hard!!)
Anyway, it's been pretty helpful, because if I've learned anything about practicing, it's that if you practice every day you cannot fail to get better. It's a very comforting thought. Piano was the first thing I did this with - my parents made me - but I've also done smaller projects like this, like carving a stamp a day for a set period of time. (THAT project levelled up my carving skills so fast, but I need to do a 30 days of drawing. Design is now the sticking point.) I definitely think I've gotten better at birding. It's forced me to not only go outside every day, which I'm actually pretty good at doing, but also makes me focus on listening and watching, being active about observing. Also, though I think I've got a pretty high tolerance for going to the same place and watching it change throughout the seasons, I do get bored, so I try to change up the locations. I usually go during lunch since I can't reliably get out of work in time before sunset; the main pond nearby has other birders reliably covering that location, but there are smaller parks and wooded patches that aren't well-visited at all, so since I'm local I try to keep a watch on those.
For lazy days, I have a feeder filled with seed that hangs on the lilac in the back yard. I call it a yard, but it's not really - it's about two meters of dirt that is at the back of the apartment block, with a concrete wall (overgrown with ivy) separating it from the alley, and a concrete path that runs through to the back door. However, there's also a reasonably tall lilac bush and I've hung the feeder from there. It gets mobbed by sparrows and I do so enjoy watching their little interpersonal conflicts and their cute little faces. Blue jays drop in too, and cardinals and mockingbirds. I'm sure the starlings will be back - I'm amazed they haven't come by yet.
Anyway, what I was going to talk about is the study that was done on avian populations in North America, and the staggering statistic that we've lost about 30% of the bird population compared to 1970. 1970 is only 50 years ago. These aren't rare birds disappearing - common backyard birds have suffered huge losses. Here is the article: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/09/nearly-30-birds-us-canada-have-vanished-1970
There's another article which I cannot find now but was talking about a physics lab (I think) in the Midwest, where to accommodate the lab, there's land set aside, and it's interestingly enough turned into a bit of a wildlife sanctuary, because it's land that's not being actively used for human purposes. The ecosystem's just been left alone. There's a scientist at that lab who also birds, and there was a quote from him saying that it was so strange (and disquieting) to walk through the property there and now hear so little birdsong, because he remembers. Older birders remember a past that had more birds in it. The change has come so fast.
It makes me wonder about my memory and the future. 2020 is when I started really observing and listening. This is my start. This is the baseline, for me - I've always liked nature but lived in cities, so Pandemic Year 2020 will probably be my earliest memories of birding. I'm a young person and life expectancy is pretty high, there are a lot of years to go. I hope I won't ever have similar thoughts, and to be saddened by the silence of the woods & meadows. I think about how common mallards and Canadian geese are and how any patch of water might have a duck or two in it, no matter how small; I think about how even when running errands, passing by some ordinary city house's shrubbery I can hear a vocal horde of house sparrows chattering away; I think about the way I can stand still in a small urban forest and hear black-capped chickadees singing their distinctive song. I hope these don't become rare experiences.
Anyway, it's been pretty helpful, because if I've learned anything about practicing, it's that if you practice every day you cannot fail to get better. It's a very comforting thought. Piano was the first thing I did this with - my parents made me - but I've also done smaller projects like this, like carving a stamp a day for a set period of time. (THAT project levelled up my carving skills so fast, but I need to do a 30 days of drawing. Design is now the sticking point.) I definitely think I've gotten better at birding. It's forced me to not only go outside every day, which I'm actually pretty good at doing, but also makes me focus on listening and watching, being active about observing. Also, though I think I've got a pretty high tolerance for going to the same place and watching it change throughout the seasons, I do get bored, so I try to change up the locations. I usually go during lunch since I can't reliably get out of work in time before sunset; the main pond nearby has other birders reliably covering that location, but there are smaller parks and wooded patches that aren't well-visited at all, so since I'm local I try to keep a watch on those.
For lazy days, I have a feeder filled with seed that hangs on the lilac in the back yard. I call it a yard, but it's not really - it's about two meters of dirt that is at the back of the apartment block, with a concrete wall (overgrown with ivy) separating it from the alley, and a concrete path that runs through to the back door. However, there's also a reasonably tall lilac bush and I've hung the feeder from there. It gets mobbed by sparrows and I do so enjoy watching their little interpersonal conflicts and their cute little faces. Blue jays drop in too, and cardinals and mockingbirds. I'm sure the starlings will be back - I'm amazed they haven't come by yet.
Anyway, what I was going to talk about is the study that was done on avian populations in North America, and the staggering statistic that we've lost about 30% of the bird population compared to 1970. 1970 is only 50 years ago. These aren't rare birds disappearing - common backyard birds have suffered huge losses. Here is the article: https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2019/09/nearly-30-birds-us-canada-have-vanished-1970
There's another article which I cannot find now but was talking about a physics lab (I think) in the Midwest, where to accommodate the lab, there's land set aside, and it's interestingly enough turned into a bit of a wildlife sanctuary, because it's land that's not being actively used for human purposes. The ecosystem's just been left alone. There's a scientist at that lab who also birds, and there was a quote from him saying that it was so strange (and disquieting) to walk through the property there and now hear so little birdsong, because he remembers. Older birders remember a past that had more birds in it. The change has come so fast.
It makes me wonder about my memory and the future. 2020 is when I started really observing and listening. This is my start. This is the baseline, for me - I've always liked nature but lived in cities, so Pandemic Year 2020 will probably be my earliest memories of birding. I'm a young person and life expectancy is pretty high, there are a lot of years to go. I hope I won't ever have similar thoughts, and to be saddened by the silence of the woods & meadows. I think about how common mallards and Canadian geese are and how any patch of water might have a duck or two in it, no matter how small; I think about how even when running errands, passing by some ordinary city house's shrubbery I can hear a vocal horde of house sparrows chattering away; I think about the way I can stand still in a small urban forest and hear black-capped chickadees singing their distinctive song. I hope these don't become rare experiences.
