Through the Eyes of a Birder

February 20, 2015

Sandy and Bill are good friends from Minnesota.  They are Birders (with a capital “B”)  I always thought that Jim and I could be called birder “wannabe’s”  or maybe “birder tag-alongs”.   But, I just got through reading Wickipedia and various other websites and apparently we are technically “bird watchers”.  I realize this is getting a bit esoteric, but the top of the list in terms of “obsession” are twitchers, then birders, then birdwatchers.  I’m thinking the dividing lines may be a bit blurry, but you get the idea.  We have travelled with Sandy and Bill to Belize, Guatemala, Mexico, the Boundary Waters in the US and on hikes around our local area. (They have done much more travelling, just not with us)  Sandy always has her binoculars with her.  I love accompanying her.  I learn a lot.  I ask a lot of the same questions over and over again and she patiently tries to teach me.  I enjoy looking at the birds, but, and here is the distinguishing feature.  I do not plan trips around birds, I don’t keep a bird list, I don’t check all of the field markers before speculating on the species.  In my defense, however, I feed our local birds faithfully during the summer, and I do write down the names of ducks who spend a few days on our pond en route to their migration north.  But, a birder, I am not.  I thought Bill went along with all of this bird watching as a demonstration of great marital patience, but no… it turns out that all of these years he was developing an interest in bird photography which since his retirement has bloomed into a full blown passion, matched only by Sandy’s passion for birding!    Now wherever they go, they travel with binoculars, spotting scope, and a camera with a huge telephoto lens. 

Sandy with her spotting scope.

A birdwatcher surrounded by two birders.  Check out Bill's camera lens.  

Jim trying to use a post as his tripod at Sanibel Island

With a self discipline which few others seem to have, Bill narrows down his 100’s (1000's?) of pictures to a few spectacular photographs that become his journal of that particular birding trip.  

Sandy and Bill spent this last week with us on the boat. Apparently a birder can “sniff” out good birding spots without anyone's help.  Bill was up and gone before anyone else had rousted that first morning.  He returned several hours later rattling off a long list of birds he had seen and had the beautiful photos to prove it!  Turns out he had found the pond on the other side of Hulk Harbor (see post on February 5, 2015)  I persuaded him to let me use a few of his photos to demonstrate the fascinating array of birds we have within several miles of our boat.  This is not his final edit – these are just the ones I picked because I really liked them.  (Photos of birds copywrite by Bill Sullivan, 2015)  All told, over the course of the 5 days we saw 44 different species of birds - most of them at Emerson Pt (aka Hulk Harbor), the pier at Regatta Pointe Marina, and Sanibel Island.

Great White Egret

Ibis and Roseate Spoonbill

Woodstork

Osprey

Hooded Merganser

Oyster Catcher