ON BIRDERS

I’ve spent some time before with birders: my own dear parents have been known to yelp if certain birds flutter themselves along towards our bird feeder. Eliza, Marina and I joke about the intense dubiousness we felt about this lodge in the Osa Peninsula, in Costa Rica, when we saw a mound of Tevas and the door and a flock of binocular-clad aging bird-watchers inside. But now I’ve gotten the chance to conduct a more in-depth study of the species; although hardly the first of its kind, I thought I’d share some of its findings.

To begin with a basic fact (which will kick off a series of overgeneralizations…), birders get most excited about the least exciting bird—they even admit this, because it’s the “LBJs” (Little Brown Jobs) that allow them to display their masterful skills of identification. The large birds whose names I might have a chance of remembering might as well be pigeons: when out on a boat trip with an elderly British-Argentine avian connoisseur, I made the mistake of asking the name of a large, very visible, black-and-white bird—and was told, “We don’t like those.” Oh. I see.

Second of all, birders feel no compunction in ordering a whole car/ boat/ line of people to stop, so they can inspect the spied object. Never mind that on the drive home from the aforementioned boat trip, we were all utterly drenched and somewhat ready to get back—when the darling Sporophelia (or something like that) alighted itself on a power line on the side of the road, the van screeched to a stop. And then stayed there until the bird—bless its little heart! —flew off.

On top of that, while stopped to allow the birder to examine the cherished species, everyone must focus their attention on this object. If you might dare to look around at other things, or space out for a bit, you will be directed, with much pointing and gesticulation, to what you “should” be looking at. Then, you will look at it, muttering things like, “¡Qué impresionante!” for the entire duration of the watching moment.

Yet despite noting all these particularities, I have to say that I came away with a certain fondness for the birding species. When I went out on another boat trip, accompanying a couple that had no particular interest in birds, I realized how unfocused and passive wildlife tours become when no one knows or cares that much about the particularities of what they’re seeing. Sure, checking species off a list strikes me as a silly way to keep score. The enthusiasm expressed at times borders on heart-attack-inducing. Nonetheless, if you really believe that biodiversity is a central value and measure, you’ve got to look around with enough rigor to have a sense of what’s out there and how it’s doing. I might not be picking up the bird books any time soon, but there are worse things than being in a birder’s boat.