Hey tweets, Pete Dunne, that famous birding author, often comments that
birders are the nicest people he knows. Whenever I hear him say that, I
can't help but think of one of my earliest birding experiences.

My family and I had driven out to the coast to see what we could see. My
notes from that era indicate that we could have seen 243 species on our road
trip. We saw 45. We actually saw more birds, of course, but who knew what
they were? Even then, I was in love with this frustrating, simultaneously
exhilarating activity called birding. I never knew what I would find around
the next bend in the road, and if I did find something, I couldn't predict
whether I would be able to identify it or not. It was a high order of
magnitude treasure-hunt.

In Westport, the best bird we found was a Great Egret foraging in the fields
of the airport. What a stately, angelic bird. We watched it until our two
boys threatened to explode, then we got back in the van and drove over to
Tokeland. Out on a spit of brackish marsh, we saw two birders with expensive
scopes. Still high on our great egret, we piled out of our van like a litter
of puppies and rolled over to the birders to ask what they were scoping. The
birders took one look at our crummy, battered little scope on its pathetic
tripod, our two kids wearing cheap binoculars, the one pair of Swifts that
my husband and I shared, and our beaming faces. They must have decided we
were rank amateurs, bird*watchers* rather than bird*ers* because they didn't
answer us. Thinking they were hard of hearing, my husband asked them more
loudly what they were seeing. In supercilious tones, one finally said, "It's
the godwit flock." Implicit in his tone was the addendum, "you idiot."

All the sunbeams went out of my boys' faces. I felt my temper rise. In my
family, the only one who gets to call my husband an idiot is me, and I don't
do it when my kids can hear. Enunciating as clearly as I could, I said to my
husband, "Oh, the godwit flock. I guess you can unpack the scope for that,
but I'd rather see something more exotic, like that Great Egret we just
found."

The two birders straightened up and exchanged a look. "Where did you see a
Great Egret?" one asked.

When I told them Westport, there was a faint popping sound, like a paper
airplane that had just hit Mach 1, and they were gone.

John said, "Do you think that Great Egret will still be there when they
arrive?"

"I certainly hope not," I replied.

John was shocked. He lectured me about kindness, about returning good for
evil, about turning the other cheek. John is a Methodist whose father taught
Sunday school for decades, so he knows all the biblical strictures against
sin. He trotted them all out until I had to admit that I had done wrong by
wishing to send those birders on a wild egret hunt. But while I was good on
the outside, I was bad on the inside. I still hoped the birders would miss
the egret when they got to Westport. They had been mean for no reason and
had made my kids sad.

This incident came to mind yesterday when I was out at the Fill. Bob
Schultz, birder extraordinaire for Totem Lake (check his web site at
www.birdercentral.com) tracked me down by the burn at Shoveler Pond. He said
he'd been carrying around a book for the past few days in hopes of finding
me so he could give it to me. We talked for an hour about birds, politics,
nature and life. As Bob left, another birder came up and told me about his
habit of videotaping birds. We exchanged reminiscences. When I finally got
in my car to return home, I recalled Pete Dunne's saying: Birders are the
nicest people I know.

I also recalled something my father told me once. He and a bunch of his
friends from work had retired to Lake Havasu City in Arizona. There, they
had formed a little community of retirees who spent their golden years
having fun together. They took bus rides to Nevada to gamble. They played
card games at night. They gave dinner parties for each other. One member of
the community drove everybody else crazy. Arnie was coarse and foul-mouthed.
He was cheap and would never pay his fair share. He cheated at cards and
would never admit that he lost money at the casinos. Arnie always won,
according to him. This last trait was especially irritating to my dad, who
lost all too frequently. One day, my dad was recounting the latest Arnie
solipsism and concluded by saying, "Well, Arnie is just like that."
Everybody in the group nodded. Yep, Arnie was just like that.

It made me realize that my dad and his friends knew something about
community that was important for me and my me generation to learn. Community
is a precious thing. It holds you up when you need help. It gives you the
chance to share your experiences - your happiness and your troubles. It
strengthens each person and multiplies everyone's contributions.

Communities are not perfect. They're hard to build and easy to destroy. To
build one up, you have to give something of yourself, which takes effort.
You can't choose everyone who belongs. Some in the community are going to be
pains, but they are just as much members as you are - and maybe sometimes,
you're a pain too.

The birding community in our state is made up of hundreds of different
people with hundreds of different ideas about birding. Some people are in it
because they care about the environment and use birding as a reason to
advocate for better stewardship. Some people are in it because their spouses
or friends roped them in. Some like to list. Some like to band. Some think
raptors are the only birds worth caring about. Some think the same about
shorebirds. Some devote every spare moment to birding. Some put out a feeder
in their backyard and just like to enjoy whatever dickie bird appears.

The wonderful thing about birding is that it is such a big tent. There is
something in it for everyone. Best of all, there's no right way or wrong way
to care about birds.

As for those curmudgeons of long ago, I confess I am still trying to figure
out how curmudgeonliness fits into our community. I'm sure there's a place
somewhere for surly birders. Maybe Bob Schultz has a part of the answer. At
one point in our discussion, he mentioned how conflicted he feels about
encouraging tons of people to visit his cherished birding spot, Totem Lake.
"I think it's great when lots of people care about a place," he said. On the
other hand, he's not eager to see his favorite place overrun with hordes of
people. Let them go somewhere else, Bob said. Like to Westport to hunt for
egrets.

FYI, here's everything I saw at the Fill yesterday:
pied-billed grebe
great blue heron
GREEN HERON
Canada goose
WOOD DUCK
mallard
gadwall
green-winged teal
BLUE-WINGED TEAL (a pair)
American coot
killdeer
LEAST SANDPIPER (more than 20 in two flocks on the lily pads)
WESTERN SANDPIPER (one on the main pond)
SPOTTED SANDPIPER (one on the main pond)
glaucous-winged gull
rock pigeon
BAND-TAILED PIGEON (two)
Vaux's swift
Anna's hummingbird
belted kingfisher
northern flicker
downy woodpecker
tree swallow
barn swallow
cliff swallow
Steller's jay
American crow
black-capped chickadee
bushtit
Bewick's wren
American robin
cedar waxwing
European starling
yellow warbler
common yellowthroat
spotted towhee
song sparrow
savannah sparrow
white-crowned sparrow
red-winged blackbird
American goldfinch
house finch - Connie, Seattle

csidles at isomedia.com