How a hunter became a birdwatcher. Sort of | Ian Nance
Recently, I’ve played a dangerous game of chicken and am now at real risk of becoming a bona fide birdwatcher.
This realization started, as these things often do, through a group chat with hunting buddies. After slow duck and turkey hunts, the “You’re a Bad Hunter” insinuations were propped up by accusations of birdwatching in the woods.
Instead of flicking each other the bird, these texts evolved from heavily sarcastic responses about Northern flickers, to semi-genuine excitement over a yellow-crested night heron nest. Birding life lists are underway, I assure you.
Shudder! I accepted I’d been inadvertently sucked in during a recent flight from Dallas to Tucson. I sat next to a lady who’d traveled the world as a wildlife photographer but called Central Florida home. We were both flying to Mexico for very different bird-related pursuits – me to hunt Gould’s wild turkey and her to photograph a crested caracara nest.
Living on polar opposites of the consumptive wildlife-use spectrum, we found common ground when I reminded her caracaras also live in Florida. While enjoying the beverage cart, she flash-carded pictures off her iPhone to quiz me about various bird species from jungles and watering holes from around the globe.
I don't know if birdwatching, like pickleball and ear hair, is merely symptomatic of men of a certain age, but I'd like to believe this is a natural, continuing education in the outdoors. After all, a hunter who chases turkey, bobwhite, ducks, dove and other fowl is routinely exposed to and instinctively develops an appreciation for these animals and non-game species encountered along the way. I let my new friend on the flight know this. And, really, while birdwatchers don't need to hunt, the opposite isn't true.
For example, the average U.S. citizen probably has little consciousness of the variety of ducks, geese and swans that inhabit North America. Positively ID-ing these birds, and often doing so in low-light conditions, is absolutely paramount for waterfowlers on order to follow the rules and avoid federal fines since bag limits differ between species.
(I confess, I do follow the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge Birding Facebook page, but as a fox in the hen house. It's an excellent online scouting resource for the area.)
Then there are snipe. Wilson’s snipe are near-identical to other species of long-legged shore birds. Come to think of it, few folks believe Wilson’s snipe are real animals. I had one mounted to show people, but they still look at it like a Jackalope or Big Mouth Billy Bass. Simply having a taxidermied snipe should've been a blaring clue birding was inevitable.
Yes, future deer seasons are destined when one day all those little generic tweety birds hopping around dead oak leaves in the fall become orange-crowned warblers, blue-headed vireos, chipping sparrows, ovenbirds and Eastern Phoebes.
Freshwater fishing: Big bass are elusive in Polk County right now. But quantity is high
Don't laugh. This could happen to you, too. Sure, this all started as a lark, but there is no turning back. By the way, my Gould's turkey hunt was a success, but I was also able to record Mexican and Steller's jays on my life list.
Couldn't wait to share with the guys.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: It was only a matter of time: A hunter finds pleasure in birdwatching
