People often ask me why I’m interested in birds. 

My husband insists it was meant to be after I had a part in a French play at the age of six.  My costume was blue from head to toe and I had one line: “Je suis un oiseau bleu.”   “I am a bluebird.”

But really, it’s because they fly.  They’re beautiful, and they fly, and they fly beautifully.  This rules out insects – but I never did like bugs.

I remember the first bird that fascinated me:  the common nighthawk.  When I was in grade school we lived in Mt. Lebanon, a suburb of Pittsburgh, near an apartment building with a gravel roof.  Every summer I sat on our front steps and watched the nighthawks’ courtship, the flapping flight, the peenting, dive and boom. 

When I was twelve we moved to an area that had recently been a farm.  I spent my first summer there walking the remnant woods in the creek bottom.  One day I literally came face to face with a red-eyed, olive-green bird.  At home I searched my field guide.  It was a red-eyed vireo.

Over the years I’ve gotten better at identifying birds.  Each spring, after my ears get back in tune, I can identify many of them by voice. 

True confessions of a birder:  I can’t be at an outdoor party without silently identifying all the birds nearby.  I keep this ability under wraps (imagine not paying attention at an outdoor wedding!) but it is practically impossible for me not to see and hear them.  

I love the flash of wings. The red-eyed vireo looked me in the eye and I’ve been looking back ever since.

That’s me on an outing to Conneaut Marsh, photo by Z Taylor.