I bought a Bird book yesterday, “Backyard Birds,” or something like that, which I saw at the checkout at Borders and have been looking for, occasionally, for some time. A flip through showed that it had nice pictures of the types of birds that I get in my backyard and nice write-ups about them all, exactly what I’ve been looking for. I’ve more than once gone straight to the wildlife section in the bookstore but never quite found the book I was looking for.
At home, I went through it a little more, there are some introductions and articles in the front, the one that caught my eye was titled “Hook Birds.” Just grazing through the first paragraph, I learned that “Hook Birds,” is the term for those birds that bring people to birds, watching them, feeding them, learning what they are and making them something besides winged scavengers.
And I tried to think of what “hooked,” me on birds, and was instantly drawn into sentiment, because it wasn’t a bird that has me watching birds, feeding birds, wanting to know their names, it was a couple of people, my grandparents.
At this time, there is no separating my grandparents from everything I have ever known about birds. And if I try to put my finger on any specific memory, it is of my Grandma stopping me from playing with my fishing pole and listen for the bird in the trees on the shore, a Whippoorwhill , and saying in her baby type voice, “Can’t you hear him? Whip-poor-will, WHIP-poor-WILL.”
It’s like she’s right here.
In front of their picture window, at the house that Grandpa built after his retirement, we used to watch every kind of bird they had in the Ozarks come in to feed, and looking out that window is one of the peacful places I go to in my memories, day in day out, at dawn or at nightfall, something was happening out there if you just took the time to watch.
Now, at my feeders in the backyard, it was amazing how quickly the birds of so many different types started coming to feed, and I didn’t know their names that well anymore. So I bought a bird book, and through our picture window, my daughter and I will learn the names of our visitors.
Maybe she will do the same.
I too, got hooked on birds by another person. She pointed out the hawks and falcons to my untrained eye. Now I see them wherever I go. But that brought on a fascination for all feathered creatures. I live in an apartment complex, but have a patio where I sit and watch all the little birds gather at feeders and on trees. I would never have thought of myself as a bird-watcher, but that is exactly what I have become.
Elizabeth
Posted by 1sojournal | November 28, 2008, 8:46 pm