Dear Tweets,

Yep, there is no question but that most bags of birdseed, bird-feeding magazines, and decorated Sunday-supplement china plates show east-coast birds more than west-coast ones. I am a native New Yorker, and even I noticed that bias when I lived there.

Once I had started birding as a kid, I remember looking westwards with fascination. The only place I'd find pictures of most of the western birds was in my bird books. Once in a while the seedsmen would choose to depict a token Chestnut-backed Chickadee or Golden-crowned Sparrow, and I'd get all excited just looking at the cheesy illustration on the bag. Wow, the Chestnut-backed Chickadee! Now that would be a cool bird...

I used to read and re-read Peterson's introductory essay to his Western guide, where he mentioned his initial hesitation on attempting a field guide for an area with so many species. The west had its allure for me, and I know it did for many of the local birders I had gotten to know there. Imagine, a place with so many birds that Peterson wasn't sure he could fit them in a field guide!

All those years living in the Empire State, I'd never go a week without sitting down with my Rand McNally Road Atlas. Looking at all the big, white, empty areas out west, I knew it was only a matter of time before I'd head out there to the land of open space (not wall-to-wall suburbia), exotic Steller's Jays (not mundane Blue Jays), and mysterious Black-headed Grosbeaks (not humdrum Rose-breasted Grosbeaks) for good.

Of course, now I can't remember what half the eastern birds sound like, and when I go back to my native state, I have to look at my field guide every five minutes. So much for mundane and humdrum.

Good birding,

Gary Bletsch

near Lyman, WA

garybletsch at yahoo.com





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