It's Bird Time!

by Jerry Freilich, Ph.D. Ecologist

The first days of warm weather make the blood surge! As the tree buds start swelling, the air becomes welcoming. It's time for the birds to arrive. And it's high time for you to go out and look for them.

In previous Frontline articles I've mentioned that 300 bird species occur in Wyoming. How

Mountain bluebird Photo by Don Getty

can there be that many? Where are they?

Obviously, many birds belong in particular habitats. If you stay in only a single habitat "type" - suburban, woods or sagebrush - you'll see few birds. If you visit a stream or pond you'll see many more. But the way to see the most bird species is to go to diverse habitats like wet meadows, streamside thickets or cliffy badlands. Even the most arid alkali pans, sand dunes and small marshes contain delightful avian surprises.

Many bird species are hard to identify. As with any new skill, there is a learning curve. I've taught birding for 30 years and have found that the trick is to divide and conquer. Those hundreds of species fall into a much smaller number of families. Gulls are a family. So are owls.

Good bird books are always organized by families. So if you know that a bird is a woodpecker, for example, all the members of the woodpecker family will be grouped in a handful of pages, so you won't need to frantically thrash through the whole book. Of course, you'll have to learn as you go along that robins and bluebirds both belong to the thrush family, that finches have conical beaks, etc. A good birder companion will help, as will simply leafing through the bird book for a few minutes each week.

How about sounds? Good birders can identify nearly any bird just by sound. How do you learn those? When people talk about bird song recordings, I just shake my head. Recordings overwhelm you too easily. Instead, find a good birder to accompany you on your walks and teach you the sounds.

But the real trick is to relentlessly pursue each new sound you hear. After you've spent

Jerry birding Photo by Keith Lenard

20 agonizing minutes trying to get a look at the bird making an unknown sound, the sight of it will be indelibly locked into your memory.

Birding has more adherents than any other outdoor pursuit. Literally millions of Americans consider themselves "birders" and their numbers continue to grow.

There are important reasons for joining this very open-door club. The pleasures of finding new species, of learning new sounds and of exploring new places are only the most obvious.

But there's a much more important reason to learn about birds. As we look around the environment, most of us have little feeling for how nature is doing. Knowing birds, noting their comings and goings, noticing when species suddenly disappear or realizing how hard it is to find a crossbill are experiences that connect us with the real world: the ecological world that sustains us, that gives us our air, our food and our water.

Here in Lander, we take spring bird walks every Tuesday morning jointly led by WOC staffers and members of the Red Desert Audubon Chapter. Other Wyoming towns offer similar opportunities. We can help you find the birders in your area, but the important thing is to get out and watch the spring arrivals!