The Mast-Head: Watching the Birds

Looking at three sparrows the other day at the water’s edge of Northwest Creek, I got to wondering about why exactly it was that anyone spends any time at all watching birds. 

Casual birdwatchers like me are plentiful, however, so there must be something to it. The Fish and Wildlife Service in 2012 estimated that about 47 million Americans consider themselves at least to have a passing interest. Its 2011 survey found that we spent about $900 million a year on binoculars and almost $1 billion a year on nest boxes, birdhouses, feeders, and bird baths. Those numbers don’t seem like much when compared to the more than $60 billion Americans drop each year on their pets, but still.

Knowing what a particular bird is has its attraction, I suppose, but then again it may be more of a statistical obsession than anything else. For me, it is less about recognizing the species than trying to grasp what it is doing, why it’s there, to get inside that tiny bird brain for a moment. 

As I watched, I noticed that the sparrows at the creek were picking along the wrack line, perhaps seeds, perhaps small insects attracted by the decaying seaweed and reeds. To think they might have migrated thousands of miles to be there at that moment, to find food among the leavings of a high storm tide. Did they know something to feed on would be there somehow or was it just chance?

Birds’ seemingly infinite adaptations are, for me, where the main interest is found. The Cooper’s hawk figured it out, evolutionarily, a long time ago. Unlike the birds of prey that soar, a Cooper’s will sit quietly under the forest canopy, blending in with tree bark, suddenly taking flight when it spots a potential meal, in its case, other birds. 

It was only after losing several of our chickens to them that I began to understand just how magnificently the hawks take advantage of their prey’s misplaced belief in the security of natural cover. Now, unless we are around to keep an eye on them, we keep our chickens inside a locked pen. Though we have not seen it again, the Cooper’s hawk, you can be sure, is watching us or at least watching our chickens.