I am not a birder.- Birders are people who
can see just a flicker of feathers flying by, and tell you what
it is.- Often they don't even need to see the bird, but can
identify it by hearing just a few notes of its song.- Birders
keep long lists of birds they know, and birds they have
seen.
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MATHER |
I would like to be a birder, but I find it
too hard to match them to the pictures in the book. They just
won't hold still.- I catch a glimpse of brown feathers, and
they're gone.- This is probably why I collect mushrooms
instead.- I can spend hours flipping through the books, as the
mushroom patiently waits on the table.
Still, there are quite a few birds that I
know pretty well.- These are the little guys that come to the
bird feeder every day.- They give me lots of time to check the
references, and they pose in many different angles so I can be
sure of the shape of their tail, and the little spot of yellow
on their eyebrows.
And of course I know a lot of the big birds
that live around here - loons, mergansers, herons, turkey
vultures, ravens, and even bald eagles!- Canada geese and
sandhill cranes fly over as they migrate spring and fall.
The big birds are easier to distinguish than
the little ones.- First of all, there aren't as many of them.-
Secondly, their distinguishing characteristics are
more distinct than a little spot of grey on
the breast, or a bar of black above the brow.
That's why it didn't take long to identify
the great grey owl that showed up in our backyard last week.-
It came in to land on a dead tree on the edge of the garden.-
It perched there for five minutes, then swooped down in to the
grass, and back up to the tree.-
We phoned our friend who is a birder, to tell
her the news!- She told us it was a bit early for great greys
to be this far south, were we sure it wasn't a great horned?-
Yes, we're sure.- We saw it up close, not from a distance.- It
matched exactly the picture and description in The ROM Field
Guide to Birds of Ontario.
The very first sentence confirmed, "Unlike
many owls, the principally nocturnal Great Grey Owl will hunt
during daylight hours on overcast days."- The day was indeed as
grey as the owl.- It had the distinctive very large round face
and the touch of white at the chin.- It hunts in open bogs,
meadows, fens and muskeg -- which aptly describes the land
around our garden.-
The owl came back two days later.- We
marvelled for 20 minutes while it moved from one high perch to
another.- It looked all around, as owls are famous for doing,
giving me several opportunities to photograph it.- The owl
noted my presence, but was more concerned about whatever was
rustling in the grass below.- It swooped down to the ground,
then slowly flew off to the other side of the boggy
meadow.
Viki Mather lives by a lake near Sudbury.
