You know how people are fascinated by their own bizarre dreams, but no one else cares to hear them? I fear the same may be true for birdwatching.
Alas, I couldn’t help but throw a few pictures up from my birding adventure. It was simply gorgeous outside.
I haven’t lost interest in birding, it’s just hard to fit in. Originally I imagined I would be able to bring my binoculars along when walking with my neighbor or riding my bike — but you’re either focused on the birds or you aren’t. It’s difficult to half-ass.
Some targets are easy to spot, such as the Bearded Two-Wheeler…
…or Northeastern Dogwalkers (my neighbors Dave, Laurie and Bodie).
Smaller targets — such as, say, birds — can be tougher, especially with an inordinate amount of shrieking toddlers in the park. I did manage to positively ID a red-winged blackbird and quite a few nuthatches. The nuthatches climb down the tree head-first while pecking for bugs, which helps.
I spent an hour roaming North Shields Ponds before earning a blistering headache from the binoculars.
I had one more lucky sighting on my walk back to the car.
Seconds after I snapped this, a small herd of 9 deer flipped up their tails and bounded away.