PHOTOGRAPH : GETTY IMAGES / PILIPENKOD .
Greg is passionate about introducing new and younger ( by which I mean anywhere south of sixty-five ) people to birding and graciously agreed to be the Virgil to my Dante as we descended the circles of avian obsession . The pandemic interrupted our journey early in the season and , combined with some unusually wintry weather in early May , largely clipped the wings on local participation in the Global Big Day , typically the high point of spring migration . But as the weather warmed and the state reopened , unusual visitors began arriving and some new names emerged among the leaderboard of Rhode Island ’ s competitive birding circuit . At the same time , birding was getting some surprising national press .
Yes , it was a fortuitous season for a casual observer like me to track some rare specimens in the field and observe their behavior — and see some birds , too .
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N THE MIDST OF A VERY STRANGE YEAR FOR EVERY aspect of modern life , birding is having a bit of a moment . The quiet , normally solitary hobby that for many evokes images of retirees with binoculars and sensible footwear ( except for Carlos Pedro , who usually wears flip-flops ), was affected by the same twin upheavals that have
According to the American Birding Association , the Terek sandpiper is rarely spotted in the Americas . A recorded sighting in Rhode Island was a first for local birders . redefined nearly every aspect of American society : racism and the coronavirus .
It unexpectedly vaulted into national headlines for all the wrong reasons in late May , when Christian Cooper , a black man birding in Central Park , was accosted by a white woman in a racially charged encounter that went viral . Days later , a group of STEM professionals and students launched the first nationwide Black Birders Week in response .
Even before that , birding was making headlines in the seemingly endless stream of magazine and newspaper trend pieces on old-fashioned activities that are experiencing a renaissance amid the pandemic . ( Sourdough bread-baking , anyone ?) In May alone , the Los Angeles Times , Washington Post and New York Times all spilled ink over the surge of interest in birds and birding . Downloads of Merlin Bird ID , the bird-identifying mobile app developed by the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology , more than doubled compared to the same time period the year before and uploads of photos to eBird , the Cornell Lab ’ s massive global crowd-sourcing platform , shot up by 45 percent . On May 9 , the Global Big Day set a record for the most sightings reported to eBird in a single day with more than two million . ( Apparently the rather sparse activity in Rhode Island that day didn ’ t throw off the curve for the rest of the globe .)
Birding — and news about birds — also entered my life in a very persistent way around the same time . One of the first things Greg did to help was add me to a text thread with a group of local birders who share sightings of rare and unusual species . It took only a couple of days to realize I was going to need to turn off notifications for that thread .
The alerts usually start around sunrise . Dozens of cell phones throughout Rhode Island , mine included , ping with reports of Mississippi kites and American bitterns and — wait , are you sure it was a Baird ’ s sandpiper ? ( More on that later , too .) Through text chains and messaging apps like GroupMe , updates are issued throughout the day , often continuing well into the evening .
Reports are shared in private Facebook groups , too ; lists of sightings dutifully logged on eBird ; photos , if possible , circulated and analyzed ; printed field guides and Merlin referenced ; IDs made and verified . If necessary , experts at the Audubon Society , ABA or eBird are consulted . It ’ s an intelligence network that would be the envy of any back-room political operative on Smith Hill .
54 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l NOVEMBER 2020