Nature Done Wright

Incorporating the Celery Farm and Screech Owl Companion blogs

July 7, 2011

My Latest ‘Bird Watcher’ Column

My latest "Bird Watcher" column in The Record and Herald-News is a reader participation column.

I asked readers which bird got them hooked on birding, and I got so many replies that I had to ask for twice as much space in the newspaper. The link is here.

Even with the extra, I couldn't fit all the responses, so I am posting more here, along with a big thank you to all who contributed.

F.K., Glen Rock: For Billy it was the intense plumage of the Hooded Mergansers at the Celery Farm when we first started birding and for me it was the intriguing glimpses of Great Egrets wading next to the tracks at DeKorte as my train sped by on my morning commute.

M.C., Connecticut: The very first bird I saw through binoculars (given as a thank you gift for dog sitting) was a European Goldfinch. I was totally convinced it was an escaped cage bird, it was so beautiful, but on realising it was simply a wild bird and the most prolific of British birds, I was hooked for life.

D.B., Waldwick: For me it was when I identified the Eastern Kingbird
all by myself at Montauk Point about 1972.

C.W., Allendale: The GBH was the bird that hooked me too!

I was about 10 years old and an ardent fisherman. Two cohorts and I were poaching at a private lake. In the lakeside woods I found a makeshift raft made of scrap lumber nailed together and with an orange crate as a seat.

I polled out into the early morning mist which shrouded the water's surface. In total silence, out of the mist and only 10 feet overhead, flew a HUGE, pterodactyl-like bird! Startled to the point of nearly falling overboard, I was certain "IT" had come to get me for poaching and other indiscetions!

Later, having survived, I checked to see what bird had missed its assignment and thus began a continuing passion.

M. L., Ho-Ho-Kus: A pair Wood Ducks in full breeding plumage in the Saddle River (rare) when I was a kid really got me going on birding. Also, Woodpeckers and Nuthatches at our suet feeders when I was growing up really had an influence on me.