Twitching

We all have our firsts that we record and hold close to our hearts: the first time I rode a bike, the first book I fell in love with, the first rock climb. Love is usually involved in these firsts, whether they involve kisses or not. But it appears to me that birders care more than others about firsts. The first time Peter sees a bird, he remembers that, makes note, place and date. Peter can’t remember all sorts of things, like what he did for Christmas last year, or what he ate for dinner the day before. But as we walk East Kingston he tells me, “this is where I got my life snow bunting.” Or at Croton Point is where he saw his first long eared owl, American coot, and rough legged hawk. I too have started to keep these firsts as part of my life story, remembering my first plummeting gannet, shown to me by a friend on Cape Cod. Or the vermilion flycatcher, seen on my first ever bird walk in the desert southwest. Or the greater sage grouse that walked out of the grasses in Wyoming and then soon enough disappeared into those grasses.

There is something special about being shown a new bird, as if Peter is offering me a gift: here, a Goldeneye. Here, a bufflehead. “There, a fox sparrow. It’s a pretty bird.” In their own way, they are all pretty birds, even the most common of them.

This, though, is the story of a different sort of birding first: the first time I have taken a trip just to see a bird. Not several birds, but one bird, a rare bird. The British call this twitching. Peter and I went twitching for a fork-tailed flycatcher.

The fork-tailed flycatcher is a bird that belongs in Central or South America and for some reason turned north instead of south in its journeys. He—or rather she--is mistaking our fall for spring. It’s a common bird in its own territory, but here in the northern United States has been seen about one hundred times. This bird was reported on Wednesday, spotted by a woman on her morning walk, at a nature preserve near Stamford, CT. For several days, Peter reports that the bird is still there. He reads the email lists that keep birders informed about what is happening out there. “Why don’t we go?” I ask. I am not one to chase birds—there are enough birds out the front door to keep me both happy and busy and even, in the coming years when the excitement over a tree sparrow vanishes, I can’t imagine I will be one to journey for rarities. There are so many birds—common birds—I have not seen that twitching is ridiculous. Figuring out that I am looking at a purple finch still pleases me enormously. But there is something about the odd, small culture of birding I find fascinating. I’ve read a few books about big years, and know that central to these lists are the rarities, which real birders will spend thousands in air or helicopter fare to see. This trip won’t cost us much at all—gas down to Connecticut and back.

Traveling to see the flycatcher seemed like the sort of adventure that would appeal to Peter. Peter has been birding for six years and in that time has gathered an enormous amount of information on birds, and has travelled enthusiastically to create an impressive life list. And, he’s taken astonishing photographs along the way. So new birds for him are few and far between. Seeing a new bird is fun.

Peter, however, is noncommittal about chasing the flycatcher, perhaps because his dedication to local birds is so intense he would rather bird near home, to keep the pulse of what is happening here rather than chase a rarity. He likes to note the first tree sparrow of the fall or the last gasp of warblers. So we spend a morning with the local John Burroughs Nature Society (we are both trustees) at Kingston Point where it is windy and cold and no self respecting bird would be out. But soon the sun wins out over the clouds and warmth comes to us. We drive River road in the town of Esopus and get a long-distance view of a red-breasted merganser. And a canvasback, a new bird for me. These are dots on a wide, turbulent river, made clear by looking through the scope. Without trip leader Mark DeDea and Peter to guide me I would never figure out what I was looking at. Mark pulls out his worn guidebook. “Look at the difference in the forehead of this bird,” he explains. To him, the difference is painfully obvious. Yes, the red-breasted merg does have a steep forehead, so different from the lower forehead of the common merg. Of course! But really, from our distance I am impressed he can tell it is a merganser. “I’ve done this for twenty five years,” Mark explains. I am filled with envy.

After our morning birding, the day spreads before us. We eat breakfast, then get in the car, knowing that we won’t be in CT until 3:30, as the sun is going down. It won’t be good for pictures. But it seems the thing to do, an adventure of sorts. But, in fact, though there is the feel of adventure, there is no adventure whatsoever in finding this bird.

The crowded roads through southern New York and into CT gets us to the Cove Island Wildlife Sanctuary (website under construction), a few dozen acres of former landfill situated at the southern end of a vast parking lot (Peter, who lives near and daily birds the former Woodstock dump, thinks of this trip as “from one dump to another dump.”). A groomed park in the distance encourages dog walkers and joggers. An ice rink flanks the western end of the lot. A bunch of cars with birding stickers and people with bins and scopes leads us to the right spot. We walk quickly toward the trailhead, all excitement, only to be told to calm down, the bird is there, on the other end of a dirt path, though parts of the path are cordoned off. We loop around on the flat, wide trail and join a group of people who are standing with scopes looking into the bushes. And there the bird is—pretty simple to see. No chasing, no walking through the woods. We just got out of the car and that it is. Easy twitching.

I put my bins to my eyes and take a long look. I can see the bird’s white, compact body, its long dark tail. It’s an unmistakable bird with that long tail. If you cut off its tail the bird would look remarkably like an Eastern Kingbird, a bird that exists in the same Tyrannus genus as the flycatcher.

To get a clear look, I peer through the scope of a woman named Gayle who works for the girl scouts and has been there, witness to the bird for three days. She stands next to her husband Tom, “one of the best birders in New York,” Peter whispers to me. She is tanned, with a disheveled, warm smile. He is clean cut, serious about his birds but there’s a faint smile of pleasure as he looks at the bird and talks with us. I like them, the way I like people who are good at what they do and know it.

Late in the day the crowd is casual, having fun, chatting. I ask aloud to everyone and no one: what is going to happen to this bird? It seems oblivious, both to all of us admirers and to the fact it is in the wrong place. It is busy living its bird life, eating, pooping, perching. But soon enough there won’t be any flies for it to catch. I am worried about this bird. Tom shrugs, “It doesn’t look good.” It doesn’t. “But I hope it sticks around for a few weeks. This is my Christmas Bird Count sector,” Tom says with a grin. “That would be a good bird for a Christmas Bird Count,” I agree.

Gayle is generous with her scope, letting me look as Peter and I left ours in the car. There are perhaps twenty of us there on the flat, dirt path rimmed by a range of browned fall shrubs and grasses, all native plantings on this covered landfill.  A cooper’s hawk wings through, drawing our attention away from the princess that is the flycatcher.

The little group of volunteers who have made this park hand out flyers, and try to keep the crowds controlled (over one hundred people were there at once the previous day) by roping off certain parts of the trail. They have made it so that the bird can fly from the southern end of their park—all trees—to the northern end, passing a set of feeders where finches, chickadees and other birds come and go, oblivious of their resident celebrity. The bird stays perched in a barren tree and from time to time drops to snag a bug—this mid-air bug snatching is called hawking or sallying. It has a broad beak, made to be able to snatch bugs mid-air. And then, in a loop, the bird returns to its perch where it chucks up the tough bits—the carapace--opening its beak wide. It has dark eyes set in a dark head so it’s hard to see its eye. The bird this evening sticks to the southern end, out of reach of good photos and in bad light. Peter takes some photos nonetheless, but they won’t turn out well—even I can see that. So we decide to stick around and photograph and look in the morning. As we leave the man in charge—a very friendly landscaper who has selected all of the native plants in this nature preserve—tells us that people have come from Las Vegas to see this bird. Must be someone on a big year. Many are from NYC, lots from CT, of course. Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire. People are willing to spend a lot—both in time and money—to see this bird.

We check into a hotel, making this bird cost more than just the gas of our drive down.

The next morning the bird is still there, waiting in the tree. In fact, the exact spot where we left him the night before. A group has already gathered, including a large woman in a huge parka who has flown in from somewhere. “I’ve got to stop the listing,” she announces to everyone. She has 660 birds on her list (though I’m not paying much attention so that number could be off). That the listing is taking away from the fun of birding. Indeed. I step away from her to watch the bird, warming in the early sun, the white of its chest brilliant. The bird preens, nonchalant, the dives for a bug.

There is a lot of lens power along the path, and Peter lets one woman look through his bins so she can see what she is missing. (If he were a Zeiss rep he’d be making some money; I bought my bins after looking through his.) At the end of the path is a fortress of tall photographers with their tripods spread wide. They all have cameras like Peter’s with 500 mm lenses. I say, “You guys are taking up some real estate here,” and not one of them laughs or says anything to me. They are very involved in themselves and their cameras. I am glad that Peter is roving on the edges of this group, flexible without a tripod, getting around and down to get some good shots. But the atmosphere this morning is different from the evening before. It’s tense, a bit competitive in an odd way—what exactly might we be competing for? It’s all about the bird, and less about anything else—the area, the plants, which are getting trampled. One of the volunteers, a sincere middle-aged woman, asks people to stay on the paths. For a while everyone listens and then some photographer just can’t help himself—he wanders out, tromping through the grasses.

After a while of watching, of hoping the bird will come near—it does, briefly and the snap of camera lenses resembles the click and whir of a quiet machine gun—Peter and I decide to explore what might be floating on the water.  As we walk out we hear a cackling overhead and see a flash of green-yellow. Monk parakeets. Another new bird for Peter and for me.

“Let’s see if we can’t get to the northern side of this park,” Peter suggests, and we stumble onto an empty nature trail that leads into the park. And thirty feet in front of us in a tree is the bird. We stop in our tracks, aware we are onto something special. We don’t want to bother the bird, who is going about its morning feeding. So Peter steps to the side, near a tree, and starts to take photos as the bird lights up into the air, plummets down then, as if creating a full acrobatic circle, returns to its perch. It’s magical to watch, the flurry of such long tail feathers, the arc of the long wings, then the return to a pint sized bird on a tree, almost dazzled by herself.

I keep thinking how thrilling it would be to be the one who discovered this lost or wandering bird from South America. During this moment of crowd-quiet I have a sense of what that person might have felt. In our secluded spot there are no jokes, no swapping information about bins, or life lists. We are there alone with the bird for some time—perhaps 25 minutes, and I capture the feeling of discovery, of adventure.

For me, one of the great pleasures of birding is thinking of the miracle of seeing any bird. I have to be out in the world. The bird has to be nearby. Our paths must cross. It seems improbable, each bird a gift. And in that improbable moment I often think: I might be the only person who has ever seen this bird, who will ever admire its wings or beak, its boldness or cunning. In this case, with the flycatcher, I was so far from that special feeling. But in that quiet place, for a few minutes, I feel like we are alone with the bird. It is our bird.

Soon enough an older woman wanders down the trail and sees us. She too is delighted by this secret look but needs her husband to share it with her. We anticipate there will be a rush into our secret spot and in fact Peter’s arm is tired from hoisting the over ten pound camera to his eye, focusing and shooting. So we head out before others arrive, delighted by our time in the quiet, away from the mob.

We walk out toward Long Island Sound. The sun glints off the water, though in the distance we can see four tall cooling towers on the far side, on Long Island. Out on the water we see a range of gulls and some ducks as well--bufflehead and the long-tailed duck, which indeed does have a long-tail, and a marvelous white neck. A new bird for me. Three new birds in one trip. If I amortized the trip, it would come out to about 70-80 dollars per bird. Is it possible to calculate the cost of seeing a bird? I doubt it. Because I know that years down the road I’ll remember not just the first—probably only—fork-tailed flycatcher of this short, sweet life. I’ll remember this as the first time I chased a rare bird, the first time I twitched. But above all, that moment, the private viewing when Peter and I stood quiet on the grassy path and for a while had the bird to ourselves. What does the ad say? Priceless.

 All photos by Peter Schoenberger