Birds in Nature; Birdwatching Pictures & Sounds

Strange as it might seem to the non-birdwatchers among us, I think few hobbies exceed bird watching in its ability to exercise your brain.

It's like Kathleen says, as you look up into a tree, you will often see just a brown bird. But if you look a little closer, the bird will show its true personality and colors. I recognize that the initial reaction for most of us is to not see the breadth and depth of our subject.

When Daniel and I were out bird watching with the Audubon society group during the San Diego Birdwatching Festival, a family pulled its car over to see what our group was doing with fancy telescopes and cameras trained in same shared off-shore direction. The father, with great interest and young kids in tow, asked what we were looking at. Clearly, it had to be some dramatic boating accident or like catastrophe. Maybe it was just a whale. Oh, but it had to be good. When I explained that it was a bird-watching group and we were trying to see some unusual bird, his young daughter chirped up and exclaimed, "BIRDS! They're looking at birds? Dad, they're just looking at birds!" Indeed. This young girl was Daniel's age.

But we weren't just looking at birds.

It is amazing how diverse they can be--and, how that diversity plays itself out in their markings, flight patterns, size, and well … just about anything you can think of. Imagine if you went to Disneyland to people watch (and who doesn't?) and you decided to see if you could figure out what region of the country folks hail from. What would you look and listen for? Bird watching is that way. It's really interesting and it requires great observational skills. This is good brain exercise.

This is key brain skill and exercise # 1. Our brains need information. Observations are the "bird seed" for thinking, and our brains can't work without them. The more observations our we gather, the better they operate. Without detailed observations, birds look like little brown critters bouncing about in the trees of a dull and uninteresting world. But, by merely observing birds, we can enrich our perceptions way beyond that. As we see more, the colors of the world emerge.

Now, if you really want to exercise your brain, we need to move to another level of brain use and engage (thus exercise) another key brain skill -- thinking. This is key brain skill exercise # 2. Don't get alarmed; in this example, this would be called studying birds. I'm going to give you a hint here to make that effort very straight forward and systematic. In birdwatching, with just a little practice, your great observational and thinking skills can turn you into an amateur ornithologist. How about that?

Here's the key idea: all of this diversity in markings and behavior is nature's way of helping the bird (and any other critter for that matter) fit into some ecological niche. Life thrives when it finds a niche.

So here's how it works in bird watching: Assume any observation you make is not representative of an accidental or random attribute. Everything about the bird plays a critical role, helping the bird flourish in its ecological niche. In other words, your observations become clues to understanding the bird and its habitat. For example, WHY does the East Coast Oyster Catcher have black and white markings while the West Coast equivalent is simply black? Why do some birds reach maturity in a year while others take several years? Don't let others who seem to know shut you down with their own theories or answers right off the bat. Who knows, they may be right, or only partially right, or they may just be passing on the conventional wisdom they received from their own Uncle Joe. You just don't know. In any case, you haven't watched the "movie", so don't let them spoil the ending. Also, nature is always on the move. What was true a few years ago may no longer be true today.

Did you know that experienced bird watchers learn to use seasonal plumage to identify the ages of birds that belong to species that mature over multiple years? For that matter, why do birds show seasonal plumage anyway? Assume it is not accidental. But rather, that nature has a purpose for it. Study the birds, answer the question(s) to your own satisfaction, and exercise your brain. It's fun, especially when you begin to have some success assembling the parts of the puzzle. Be patient and let the color bleed through.

It takes practice. But with just a little effort, you'll soon see how smart you can become.