Why Birds?
/I am obsessed with birds. I like learning about them, searching for them, listening to them, watching them and photographing them. My vacations are based on where I've never looked for them. Why? Why do I like birds so much? That's easy! They're ubiquitous, beautiful, identifiable to species and do cool things.
Ubiquity
I consider myself a mammal watcher just as much as a bird watcher but mammals can be scarce. You can't see many species of wild mammals on a walk through downtown Toronto. On the other hand, birds live in almost every habitat on earth, from the centre of the largest city to the driest prairie. Unless you're an astronaut in deep space or a diver in the deep ocean, birds are nearby.
Birds can show up anywhere! This dunlin is one of many species I’ve found on the breakwater at Waupoos in Prince Edward County, Ontario
This Cape May Warbler oddly showed up at a feeder over Christmas in Belleville, Ontario
One of my birding goals is to identify (either by sight or sound) at least 50 bird species in every eBird region of Canada. That's an ambitious goal but I'm well on my way. By the end of 2020, I expect to have reached that goal in British Columbia and intend to gradually work my way east in the years to come. No matter where I go, I use eBird and Birdseye apps on my smartphone to help me find birds I have never seen in that region. Business trip to Waterloo? Stop at the Grand River on the way home for that rare Curlew Sandpiper! Family event in Gatineau? Drive around looking for birds I've never seen in Quebec!
Beauty
Birds are downright beautiful. Even common species like American Robin and Ring-billed Gull are very pretty if you really stop and take a look. Therein lies another reason I like birds – they make me stop and appreciate the immense beauty I am lucky to be surrounded by.
American Robin - Watson Lake, Yukon
Ring-billed Gull - Belleville, Ontario
Beyond the common, other species are beautiful almost beyond description, like the Great Egret and its wispy plumes or the Blackburnian Warbler and its blazing orange throat.
Great Egret - High Island, Texas
Blackburnian Warbler - Prince Edward Point National Wildlife Area, Ontario
Identifiability
Birds fall in the Goldilocks zone of identifiability - just enough species but not too many. Damselflies and beetles are cool but you may not be able to identify them to species without killing them. There are an overwhelming number of beetle species - over 350,000! Birds are just right, with about 1,000 species ever recorded in Canada and 10,000 in the world.
Behaviour
Birds do so many cool things. For starters, they fly! Owls fly silently and can spin their head like an Exorcist doll. Hummingbirds can hover and flap their wings up to 70 times per second. Birds migrate. Arctic Terns fly from their Arctic breeding grounds to live in Antarctica during its summer, travelling about 25,000 miles per year. Superb Lyrebirds imitate the sounds other birds make and incorporate human sounds like a camera shutter, chainsaw and car alarm in their audio repertoire.
They're Living Dinosaurs!
If you’ve ever seen a great blue heron up close, you’ll appreciate this one.
Great Blue Heron - Prince Edward Point National Wildlife Area, Ontario