Subject: hear us cheep
Date: Jun 26 08:42:34 2004
From: Connie Sidles - csidles at isomedia.com


Hey tweets, Yesterday, on the way to the Marblemount ALDER FLYCATCHER
(thanks, Scott, for a great life bird!), we passed by several pullouts along
the river where fishing enthusiasts were unloading gear, about to engage in
their sport. It made me wonder why fishing and hunting are so accepted as
outdoor activities but birding is not.

Okay, now I know that I have raised the hackles of hundreds of you out
there, and it's probably against the tweeters protocols to start a hunting
and fishing thread. So let's all not go too far down that road, if you
please.

All I mean is that often, when I'm out birding in rural areas, I feel out of
place and conspicuous when I'm recognizably a birder. And I feel that if I
were recognizably a hunter or a fisher, I wouldn't raise any eyebrows at
all.

Ornithologist Paul Kerlinger has recognized this problem and years ago
proposed a solution. He thought that we should approach the issue
economically, on the theory that if people living in birdy areas realized
the economic potential of their resource, they would appreciate it more and
work to save it. Kerlinger, who lives near Cape May, told me once that this
approach had worked wonders in New Jersey. He advised me to get business
cards printed which said, "I am spending money in your area because you have
great birds. Thank you for preserving their habitat."

The thought of passing out cards like that still makes me cringe. I'm way
too shy to be that aggressively proactive to strangers. Why, I can't even
remember the last time I gave the finger to a road hog - I think it was 30
years ago when I was young and hot-headed. I also have to say that
Kerlinger's theory isn't perfect. I was birding from my car on a roadside
pullover opposite a picture-perfect redneck house (it even had dogs sleeping
under the porch) in rural New Jersey, and the owner came out and shot off
his shotgun at me. I asked Paul later why his theory had failed in this
case, scaring the bejeezus out of me and shaking my faith in him and his
whacko ideas. Paul said that there was a big battle going on in the state
over rising property values and hence rising property taxes, and some of the
ruralites blamed birders. It reminded me of how spotted owls and birders
were blamed for the collapse of logging on our coast. I guess, like Jane
Hathaway, it's easy to scapegoat us.

Which brings me back to my original point. It wouldn't be easy to scapegoat
us if people realized how much we could improve their local economies when
we come looking for a rarity or, even better, for the SOP birds that live in
great habitat.

With that thought in mind, yesterday I made a point of telling a local
restaurateur that we were in his cafe on account of a wandering visitor from
the east, the ALDER FLYCATCHER. He was very interested, especially when I
complimented him on the great habitat in his area. He told me that he liked
birds too and that sometimes the air around his yard was filled with
canaries. Rather than correct him, I nodded and said that this ALDER
FLYCATCHER wasn't as colorful as a canary but was a very, very unusual
visitor to the state and might attract dozens and dozens of birders from all
over. The bird was here, I said, singing for a mate that he was destined
never to find, but in the meantime, we birders were all enjoying his songs.
"Then I wish you would go back east, find him a wife and bring her out
here!" the man said.

We left each other with smiles all around. Maybe some day, those kinds of
exchanges will encourage people to raise birding (and, more to the point,
habitat preservation) to the highest level of priority in our politics and
in our daily practices.

This has already happened in High Island, Texas. I was out there one spring
and went into a little mom-and-pop grocery store near the entrance to High
Island. The store was filled with cowboy/farmer Texans, all of whom seemed
to be at least as wide as they were tall, and they were all tall men. They
watched me buy a soda, and then one of them said, "Ma'am, y'all should come
back for our big barbecue we're havin' this afternoon. Our church is raisin'
money, and we sure would appreciate you comin' by." As an added inducement,
this big, rough man said, "We can show you where some rose-breasted
grosbeaks are." "Yeah, and I saw a worm-eatin' warbler out by the church
this morning, too," said another. They certainly knew their birds - and
their birders, as I found out later that afternoon. They certainly made
great barbecued hotdogs.

Here's everything that we saw on our way to and from Marblemount yesterday,
and beyond to Rainy Pass:

Canada Goose
BARROW'S GOLDENEYE (WITH FOUR BABIES!); Colonial Creek Campground
SPOTTED SANDPIPER (AND ONE BABY!); County Line Ponds
Glaucous-winged Gull
Osprey
Red-tailed Hawk
Turkey Vulture
Rock Pigeon
Vaux's Swift
BLACK SWIFT (flying with Vaux's, giving great size comparison); Marblemount
Rufous Hummingbird
Northern Flicker
RED-BREASTED SAPSUCKER (including a brown juvenile); County Line Ponds
Hammond's Flycatcher
Willow Flycatcher
ALDER FLYCATCHER
Violet-green Swallow
Northern Rough-winged Swallow
Cliff Swallow
Barn Swallow
Steller's Jay (heard; County Line Ponds)
American Crow
Common Raven
Red-breasted Nuthatch (heard; Rainy Pass)
Winter Wren
Swainson's Thrush
American Robin
Varied Thrush
Cedar Waxwing
European Starling
Warbling Vireo
Common Yellowthroat
AMERICAN REDSTART (adult male and first-year male); County Line Ponds
Black-headed Grosbeak
Lazuli Bunting (Marblemount)
Spotted Towhee
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Chipping Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Pine Siskin
Brewer's Blackbird
House Sparrow - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com