I do not list myself as a birder in the sense of keeping lists, but I have
always been interested in knowing the names of many of the plants and animals
I encounter as I wander about. As a boy growing up in a west side suburb of
Cleveland I remember seeing yellow birds with black wings and a black cap,
flying about in the fields and having them identified to me as yellow
canaries. It was a while before I learned that they were truly called
goldfinches.
But the bird I remember and continue to honor with special reverence is the
first bird I learned to call by name. It was many years later that I learned
its Latin name Melospiza melodia, but I do remember hearing a bird song in my
back yard and knowing for the first time "that is a song sparrow". That I
believe is the first bird I learned to know by its true name by my own
discovery. It is still a special thrill to be wandering about in the depth
of a gray dreary January day and recognize its unseen song from the inside of
a bramble patch or even on one of those special sunny warm days of March to
see it flip up to low branch, throw his head back and....wondrous sound.
If I may be allowed a second bird of honor. I grew up in the interior of the
continent but I had read of the tap tapping at the window and how the raven
quoth "nevermore". It wasn't until a trip through the northeast which
included the Maine Coast and Acadia National Park and a hike on Cadillac
Mountain, that I first saw that storied bird. It wasn't a December night but
it wasn't a bright sunny day either that I first saw raven.
Then I came to know more of raven in the mountains of Montana and now I have
come to know another raven of legend on the Northwest coast and in urban
Seattle.
Garet Munger
Seattle, Wa
gmunger140 at aol.com