If Day Three was a doubleheader, with one field trip in the morning and one in the afternoon, Day Four was a marathon – a single trip that started at 5:30am and ended at 5:15pm. It was tiring enough to keep me from caring that I’m mixing my sports metaphors. It was also my last hurrah, for though the festival was to rage on for another day, I’d planned to peel off and spend that day with family. So this was it for me.

I tried to get to HQ a little early, but the old-timers still beat me, and I was again relegated to the back of the bus. Fortunately, I struck up a conversation with the woman sitting in front of me, a nice lady from Delaware. We compared smartphone birding apps and swapped stories about some of the cooler birds and weirder people from our previous trips. It made the time pass. After as quick a bathroom stop as a bus full of senior citizens can make, we got to our destination, the Lake Apopka Restoration Area. 

It was foggy and cold, but we ambled along in high spirits, led by a typically sharp and good-natured bunch of fellows: Gian Basili of the Saint Johns River Water Management District, and Wes Biggs and Dave Goodwin, both of Florida Nature Tours. After a quick stop at the marsh, they took us to see a Great Horned Owl nest.

We all ooh’d and aah’d appropriately over this rare sight, but before long, a few folks got restless and wandered off to see what else they could find. Good that they did, for they stumbled onto a hotbed of bird activity. Warblers, vireos, kinglets, woodpeckers… these birds were practically “dripping off the trees” (as exuberant birders are fond of saying). It was tough to leave that spot, but of course, the tour must go on.

Our next stop was a lake covered with waterfowl. It was here that some of the more distinctive personalities in the group became evident. We were using spotting scopes to get close-up views of the ducks, and when someone would call out a new species they’d found, reactions varied. There was one old guy, let’s call him Bob, who made it clear he was working on a trip list – in other words, his focus was entirely on checking off as many species as possible for the day. When someone called out a Wood Duck, he proclaimed that he “needed that,” marched over to that scope, cutting the line of people waiting to use it (perhaps unknowingly, but heedlessly), looked through it just long enough to register that it was a Wood Duck, and marched off contentedly to check it off and forget about it. No savoring, no real watching – just listing.

Then there was a little old lady who demanded a lot of help. Curiously, she wanted to see everything through her scope, spurning offers from others who already had their own scopes trained on the birds she was trying to find. When I’d located the flock’s lone Green-winged Teal, she wanted me to find it in her scope for her, but quickly grew impatient when I struggled to pick it out of the sea of ducks. Judging by her attitude, you’d think she had hired me as an expert guide. Great, lady. How bout you find your own damn birds?

But even those two were generally friendly, like everyone else. I also started talking with a couple ladies who were stuck in the back of the bus with me, and we sort of became buds as the day went on. So that was nice.

We took a break to eat the sack lunch provided by the festival, and while others rested, I went looking for birds. I managed to hear a Barred Owl calling in the distance – the only one anyone heard or saw that day, and thus good for a precious checkmark on the trip list. (When I told Bob about it, he offered to play a recording of the owl’s call on his portable audio device to try and lure it closer. Then he offered his racist theory of what had happened to the two portable audio devices he had previously owned and misplaced. Heh. Awkward.)

The afternoon was spent chasing specific birds, following up on recent reports of rarities in the area. First, the Florida Scrub-Jay: one turned up after a few minutes, calling loudly and coming in close. It was undoubtedly a lifer for many, though far from it for me. Still, they’re always nice to see. 

Then there was the Say’s Phoebe, which not only gave us good views, but as an added bonus, was on a farm where adorable kids were hanging out. They showed us their pony and a newborn calf! (Tragically, I seem to have forgotten that I had a camera with me at this point.) The Western Kingbird was a piece of cake, and after a few minutes of holding out, the Ash-throated Flycatcher likewise gave itself up to the greedy eyes of the group.

Finally, as we were well behind schedule, Gian declared that we would take just five minutes to look for the Red-breasted Nuthatches. So, at the prescribed location, those of us who were physically able marched into the woods, blasting a recording of a Red-breasted Nuthatch call. After a couple false alarms – Downy Woodpecker, Pine Warbler – boom! Two or three of the little buggers showed up, performing their usual acrobatics high in the pines. We cheered and got back on the bus for the long ride back to HQ.

Upon counting the checkmarks, someone realized our total was seven species less than that of the previous day’s group. So naturally it became our mission to see eight more species before arriving back at HQ. A bit silly, IMHO, but it did give us something to do during the ride. (I would’ve rather slept, but it was once again way too cold for that, thanks to the ridiculous air conditioning that was now blasting me.)

We became absurdly interested in seeing boring city birds like pigeons and starlings, as we needed them for our list. We saw a House Sparrow, and a pigeon, and a Loggerhead Shrike, and it was looking like we might get it done. Then there was a roar from the front of the bus – a rare Crested Caracara was flying over the road! That was actually awesome – maybe the fourth or fifth time I’d ever seen this crazy-looking bird. And as we rolled into Titusville, we finally saw our starling, bird of the day #108. Hallelujah, we had done it. Victory was ours.

And that was pretty much a wrap on yours truly. I took a quick look into the trade hall to see if I’d be inspired to talk to anyone or shop for anything, but I wasn’t. Back in the lobby, I snagged a festival t-shirt for my special lady and another for me. I felt good; I had an extra bounce in my step. I’d gained a new appreciation for the area I grew up in, improved my birding skills, and sort of re-affirmed my love for birding. I was excited to take my new knowledge and perspective back into the world, as it were.

Walking out toward my car, I saw what I thought was an adult Bald Eagle circling in the warm late-afternoon light. After a few seconds of staring, though, I realized it was some sort of motorized toy, like a remote-control airplane. It must’ve been deliberately painted in the colors of an eagle, though I’m not sure why, or who was operating it. Oh well. I shrugged and kept walking, as I still had an hour’s drive to my sister’s place ahead of me. Driving out, I saw the friendly ladies from the back of the bus, and we exchanged warm smiles and well-wishes through my open window. 

The way out took me past the front of the building, and my very last experience of the festival was the two old men that I braked for as they crossed the road to go inside. They looked up at the “eagle” and smiled. The older one was so taken that he stopped in his tracks, still in front of my car, and pointed at the fake bird, saying “Isn’t that nice!” His companion replied, “You gotta walk, Artie!”, but as I pulled into the opposite lane to go around him, he just stood there smiling, looking right at me, as if to clue me in – as if expecting – and we were all birders there, after all – that I’d want to stop and see what he was looking at, to share in the wonder of a wild bird’s presence.

I returned his smile, but I didn’t look back. I knew he would soon suffer the same small disappointment that I had suffered. And I drove off into that old, familiar sunset and felt glad anyway, and I figured that Artie probably would too.

Another early start today, as I went on the morning trip to Charles H. Bronson State Forest. This time, instead of meeting at festival HQ to pile onto a bus or carpool, we were in charge of getting ourselves there. So I slept a little later (til 5:30), and then charged off into the pre-dawn fog in my rented Ford Fusion.

It was a winding route through a very rural area, and the fog got really thick at times, so it would’ve been easy to get lost. In fact, when I arrived, many of the retirees were complaining loudly about just that. But I made it on time, and met our expert guides for the day, Mitchell Harris from the Florida Ornithological Society and John Puschock (who was also a guide on my trip to Marl Bed Flats yesterday). These two guys are among the sharpest birding guides I’ve encountered. Over and over they would identify a bird based on a single call note or a super-distant glimpse, and get everyone in the group to see it. We also had two escorts from the Florida Forest Service, Paul Hartsfield and Steve Stipkovits, who graciously drove us beyond the “no vehicles allowed” signs and shared a lot of intimate knowledge about the management of the land out there, a big tract of ranchland on the west side of the Saint Johns River. Very cool.

The place was vast and birdy, and this was the first field trip of the festival that I kinda wished could last longer – it seemed like we were still turning up new and interesting birds at the end. But I do not have any complaints. What I do have, I’m happy to report, is that rare and precious prize: a lifer. (That is, a new species to put on my life list.) And I also have a measure of redemption, since the lifer I got was a close relative of the stubborn LeConte’s Sparrow that I missed yesterday. Today’s gem was a Grasshopper Sparrow.

This time, there was no drama to it. It was early in the trip, and the group was sort of spread out, looking in several different directions, when I heard Mitchell say he had a Grasshopper Sparrow in his scope. He didn’t even sound that excited, because when it comes to Ammodramus – the genus of notoriously shy sparrows to which both LeConte’s and Grasshopper belong – Grasshopper is among the more widespread and less shy. In fact, I’ve been a little embarrassed for some time that I’d never seen one, as a birder of my experience level. Only a little embarrassed, because they’re not easy to come by. But it was still sort of developing into a nemesis bird for me.

Well, no more. This little sucker sat there on the wire for minutes on end. It was a cool morning, and the bird seemed to be almost dozing, just soaking up the sun. Everyone in the group had long, leisurely looks, and I had time to grab the photos above – though I didn’t dare venture close enough to get really good ones, and risk being The Guy Who Scared Off the Grasshopper Sparrow. Anyway, it was awesome. ABA-area life bird #515!

Like I said, the whole place was pretty nice, and I grabbed a few pics of the more charismatic species that we saw. Every big open field seemed to have at least a few of these guys….

Eventually we tore ourselves away from there and went our separate ways. I grabbed a quick bite, made a few notes about the morning, called my wife, and headed back out. I had a doubleheader today, and the afternoon field trip was to Daytona Beach Shores, site of the largest known congregation of gulls on any beach in the United States. In a word, it was dope.

When I got there, there was a line of birders with spotting scopes pointed out at the sea, and a couple guys were shouting an intense play-by-play of what was happening out there. They were our two guides, Michael Brothers, director of the Marine Science Center in Ponce Inlet, and Cameron Cox of Leica. They stood a few feet apart, each with his eye buried in his scope, and the area around them was filled with excited but bewildered birders. One of the guides would be all, “Jaeger! Twelve o’clock, just below the horizon, moving left, chasing a Laughing Gull!” while the other one was all like “Jaeger! down low, moving right – there he goes up! Now back to the left, chasing a Ring-billed Gull!” It was fucking exciting. But also I didn’t have a scope, just my puny binoculars, and for a few minutes I was kinda worried I wasn’t actually going to see much.

But then I did pick up on one of those Jaegers, and I got a pretty good look. Later I would get even better looks, as we saw more of them harassing the gulls out over the water, trying to steal their dinners. These were Parasitic Jaegers, extremely gifted flyers who usually stay too far out at sea to be seen from the shore – oh and by the way, my life bird #516! Ha, two lifers in one day! RIDIC.

Well, from then on the rest was gravy. The main reason we were at this particular spot was the gulls, which blanketed the beach in both directions.

They let us walk practically right up to them for close study. It was a more deliberate, analytical style of birding than any of my other trips here, which was great in its own way. And Michael and Cameron are freakin geniuses. I learned more about ID’ing gulls in a couple hours with them than I have in years of staring at birds and books on my own. 

Oh and by the way, all this was happening on a gorgeous beach as the sun slowly set behind us.

It was a lovely, satisfying end to a great Day Three. Now, Day Four (the last day at the festival for Birding For Humans) begins with a bus ride leaving from festival HQ at 5am sharp. So… I’m gonna have to peace out now. May your dreams be filled with lifers!

Already, this morning seems like ages ago. Such is the breakneck pace of things at a birding festival. But I have to start even farther back than that. Last night, before writing my Day One post, I had to make sure I was ready for this morning’s field trip. So I re-read the description of the trip, which was going to the Marl Bed Flats along the north shore of Lake Jessup:

It can sometimes be wet in areas, so rubber boots are recommended as well as insect repellent. It is also a fairly lengthy walk so water and trail snacks are advised.

Huh. I don’t have boots of any kind. In fact I only brought one pair of shoes with me to Florida. So I headed to the one store that I’d seen nearby, Wal-Mart, to peruse the sporting goods section for anything that might keep my feet dry. And the only thing that came close was this:

Blindingly white deck boots from the Marlin Trading Company, made out of some kind of weird foam-like stuff. I’d never heard of deck boots, and I gathered they were meant for some sort of nautical purpose. Moreover, their color was bound to attract unwanted attention. But what could I do? Risk ruining my only pair of shoes? The boots were only twenty bucks, so I sucked it up and bought them.

And lo, it was good:

Now, I managed to avoid the worst of the mud, largely through dumb luck. (A couple people got real mucky.) But even so, it was a messy place in general. Without the boots, I would have been looking down all morning, trying to tiptoe around the danger. Instead, I lumbered confidently (if clumsily) forward, and saw a lot of nice birds. People did comment on the boots – but, you know, they were just folksy birder types. We shared a laugh about it.

Once again, the tour leaders were all great guys. (And yes, all my guides have been guys.) This time it was Tom Dunkerton from Nikon Sport Optics, Chip Clouse from Opticron, and John Puschock of Zugunruhe Birding Tours. We carpooled from festival HQ, and I rode in Chip’s car, talking with him about our respective career paths, how we got into birding, what kind of binoculars I should use, and of course cool birds that we’ve seen. Very nice guy.

But there was one big disappointment on this trip. Less than an hour into the birding, we found a little sparrow darting through the thick grass. By the way it was behaving – flying very close to the ground when flushed, always disappearing into the thick stuff rather than sitting up where it could be seen – the guides knew it was Something Good. One of the rare secretive sparrows that people had come hoping to see. Henslow’s Sparrow, LeConte’s, Baird’s… these were among a small number of birds that I might actually be able to add to my life list during the festival.

So the guides sprang into action. Seriously, it was an impressive thing to behold. As the bird hid in the grass, they flanked it, directing others where to stand so as to keep it contained. When the bird flew, they repeated the process, until they were basically marching the bird back toward us, as we stood in a line, binoculars at the ready. And then it happened – the bird walked out of the grass, and people started saying they could see it. There it is, out in the open! LeConte’s Sparrow! Camera shutters were going crazy. And I was ready – but I was at the wrong end of the line. From where I stood, the bird was obscured by vegetation. After several seconds of staring in vain, I tried to make my way around to the other end, but as I did, the bird flew off in a new direction. With most of the group satisfied, we decided to spare the bird any further torment, and moved on.

Oof.

It was a stinging miss, and I went over it in my mind for a few minutes afterward. Was there any way I could’ve “gotten” that bird? Though frustrated, I had to agree with the decision to leave the bird alone when we did; we had scared it enough by that point. During the chase, I’d been alert, had tracked the bird each time as it flushed from one clump of grass to the next, and followed each instruction from the guides. Should I have known somehow what the best vantage point would be when the bird finally emerged?

I don’t think so, really. Sometimes, the breaks just don’t go your way. But with a gorgeous morning on your hands and nothing to do but bird, who can stay pissed off? I chatted a bit, saw some common but handsome birds, got my deck boots dirty, and snapped a few pics.

In the end, a nice morning. As for me and LeConte’s Sparrow, I believe we will find a way to be properly introduced someday. In the meantime, all I can do is practice - starting tomorrow, bright and early.

So much birding to talk about, so little time before I have to wake up and start birding again. Let’s get into it.

My trip this morning was to the Viera Wetlands, a place used to treat wastewater – indeed designed and built for that purpose – which is nevertheless quite scenic and birdy. It also has a road that goes right around the perimeter of the water, so it can be birded with little to no walking. Knowing it would be an easy trip, I just grabbed a couple Clif Bars, my binoculars, and my camera, and set out for the meeting point – at 5:20am.

At festival HQ, I grabbed a scrambled-egg bowl from the local yolk’l food truck… which I now see is not coming back tomorrow. Ugh. Guess I have a Clif Bar breakfast to look forward to. Anyway, when I stepped onto the bus at five minutes to six, I found it practically full. Turns out I was the last one to show up, and as I made my way to the empty seats at the back, row after row of smiling, silver-haired heads looked up to greet me. Yeah, I’d say the median age of that group was in the upper 60s. Well, who cares? It’s not like I’m here to meet girls. (For anyone who may be considering it, I would not recommend coming here to meet girls.)

Our trip was led by three super-knowledgeable, super-nice guys: Dan Click, of the Merritt Island Wildlife Association; Jeff Gordon, president of the American Birding Association; and Nate Swick, of both the ABA and 10,000 Birds. Nate, consummate pro that he is, has already blogged about the trip, including much better photos than you will find on Birding for Humans. However, if you are my close friend or relative (and you probably are), you are still obliged to read my post.

We arrived before first light, and it was mad cold, considering we were dressed for Florida Winter, not Real Winter. But it was a clear day, and the birds were plentiful. Aside from that, there’s not too much to say. Allow me to drop some photographic knowledge on you instead:

Basically, it was a gorgeous morning, and everyone seemed pleased. We even drew the attention of a local news crew! I guess they were there to cover the festival? In any case, Jeff stepped up and gave a strong interview.

Another pleasant bus ride put us back at HQ just before noon, and the rest of the day stretched out before me, completely free of any obligations or structure. It occurred to me what a rare and wonderful moment this is, where I have the maturity and means to come here, without the health- and parenting-related concerns that inevitably muck everything up later in life. Nice. But I didn’t dwell on it for long. Another fast-food lunch, a call to the Mrs., and a quick nap – then back out for more birding.

I went out to Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, my Dad’s and my favorite birding spot when I was growing up. I’ve been there so many times over the years – as a middle-schooler, a high-schooler, a college student, a… well you know just a regular working dude… and I’ve seen more species of birds there than at any other place. I was excited to get back. And though it was late afternoon, the birding didn’t disappoint. I saw a bunch of cool stuff I hadn’t seen in a while – American Avocets, Reddish Egrets, hundreds of gorgeous Northern Pintails…

… but the highlight was my close personal encounter with a group of Florida Scrub-Jays. This species is prized by birders as a Florida specialty (though its close cousin, the Western Scrub-Jay, is common in much of the Western U.S., including my yard). But My Dad and I had a go-to spot for them – we would drive slowly down this one road, watching and listening, and usually one would pop up where we could see it. So I decided to spend the last bit of daylight doing just that. They made me sweat it out, but as I neared the end of the road, two of them appeared in the bushes nearby. 

And when I got out of the car to take some pics, three more showed up to investigate.

When I say investigate, I mean they were trying to figure out whether I was something from which food could be extracted. I’m pretty sure of that, because they all came super close to me – and at least one of them tried repeatedly to land on my head. Alas there are no photos of that, since it was too close to focus my camera on, and besides it’s really hard to take pictures when you’re ducking and shrieking. But it was awesome.

Sigh. I gotta wrap this up. I drove off into the sunset, stopping to check out the trade show at festival HQ – basically a gymnasium full of bird books, astoundingly expensive binoculars, and a vaguely unsettling display of live birds of prey, apparently trained to perform for crowds, but being mostly ignored by a group of people that would’ve ooh’d and aah’d extensively over them if they were flying free. Then, some prep for tomorrow’s trip. I wanted to tell you about that tonight, but it’ll have to wait. All writing and no sleep would make my morning a lot less awesome. And this is a birding festival. Mornings are for awesome.

So here I am on Central Florida’s eastern coast, where millions of birds gather to watch America not launch space shuttles. I’m going to try something different while I’m here – posting about things the same day they happen. Possibly the next day. We’ll see how it goes.

Before I start on the trip though, there’s other big news: I got a camera. And it’s awesome. I finally felt bad enough about my iPhone-held-up-to-binoculars setup to do some research and plunk down some cash. I settled on the Canon EOS 60D, with a 70-300mm zoom lens. It may not be the rig of a serious wildlife photographer, but it’s a hell of a lot of camera for a stooge like me. And I’m stoked.

The festival hasn’t officially started, but since it starts for me at 6 AM sharp tomorrow, I figured I ought to make ready. Not wanting to spend an extra vacation day traveling, I took a red-eye from L.A. to Orlando last night, then spent most of today working from my sister’s place in nearby Winter Springs. (Yes, I’m tired.) Mid-afternoon, I headed to Titusville to check in at Festival HQ.

The scene was sorta subdued. A few older folks waited behind tables to give attendees their ID badges and welcome bags, while a few other older folks worked on setting up the exhibition hall. The woman who greeted me was all smiles, but wasn’t inclined to linger over our conversation. Perhaps it was fatigue, or a general concern for efficiency, that hastened our parting. Moments later, when one of the staffers remarked that things were quiet, the responses were “Thank God!” and “Don’t jinx it!” It seemed the ladies were still reeling from some earlier deluge of birders demanding speedy service. It’s hard to imagine, but anything’s possible.

Regardless, I was on cloud nine. I rushed to my hotel, tied up some loose ends for work, and headed out for a quick taste of the outdoors just before sunset. I didn’t find a lot of birds, but it felt good to be out there, and I know the next few days will bring an obscene plenty. As the sun set, I conducted a quick survey of the nearby dining options: McD’s, Wendy’s, BK, Waffle House, IHOP, Denny’s...... one gas station included a KFC, another a DQ. I went with Quizno’s. If I ever want to indulge myself after a grueling day in the field, I’ll head to Cracker Barrel (conveniently located within waddling distance of my hotel). Anyway, you don’t fly from L.A. to Titusville for the food. Even a bird wouldn’t do that.

Alright then. Tomorrow morning is my first field trip of the festival, to the Viera Wetlands. I’m excited to meet the experts who are leading the trip, to play with my new camera some more, and just to see Florida birds, which in this birder’s cholesterol-drenched heart will always be the best birds. Bus leaves at 6am, which means I’ll be up by 5am, which is really 2am for me, and I only slept three hours on the plane, so… I’ll catch you later.

Just to whet your appetite (maybe?) for things to come, here are a few bird pics I took at my sis's place: 

When I was a kid, my dad and I spent weekend mornings wandering the woods and marshes of Central Florida, cheap binoculars hanging from our necks. We started our life lists, went on cross-country birding trips, and learned a lot about birding together. Because I enjoyed his company and couldn’t drive a car, it made sense to do pretty much all of my birding with him.

Since I became a Grown Up, we haven’t lived in the same place (unless you count the awkward months of unemployment after college), so I’ve mostly birded alone. I just wasn’t really motivated to seek out new companions. One of the many ways in which I enjoy birding is as an escape, both from the sensory bombardment of urban life and from the pressure of trying to seem normal while interacting with strangers. So while I didn’t shun other birders, I didn’t go out of my way to spend time with them, either.

Now that I’m in a new town, experiencing a birding renaissance of sorts, I’m re-evaluating the idea of birding as a social activity. And by re-evaluating, I mean taking reckless, extreme action. For example:  Next week, I’m attending my first ever birding festival.

That’s right – like comic-book fans, pornographers, ravenous gun hoarders… pretty much every group there is, I guess – birders come together to geek out. They talk shop, collect swag, and descend in swarms on the local parks. My destination is one of the largest such events in the country, maybe the largest:  The 16th Annual Space Coast Birding and Wildlife Festival, back on my old stomping grounds. Apparently, they expect over 5,000 attendees.

I’m excited about this for a lot of reasons. For one thing, going back to Central Florida means I get to see people I don’t see often enough, like my sister, who lives in our hometown. I expect her to roll out the red carpet – backyard barbecues, courtside seats for the Magic, helicopter rides to Disney World, and more. (This is a test to see if she reads my blog.) For another thing, there’s that sweet feeling that comes from laying eyes on home soil after a long time away. I haven’t exactly been out sacking Troy, but I haven’t been back in years, and part of me has missed the landscape of Central Florida – not the culture, the politics, the meager public transportation or the bland suburban sprawl – but the landscape. (The natural landscape.) And the birds.

Which brings me to my most topical reason for being excited. Florida hosts a dazzling array of wintering waterfowl, shorebirds, gulls, sparrows, warblers, hawks, etc. etc. Not only that, but thanks to the omnipresence of expert guides, I should have much better success than usual at finding and identifying all those gems. While I saw 265 species of birds in all of 2012 (actually a pretty good year for me), I expect to end January 2013 already pushing 200, thanks in large part to this trip.

It should be great. Still, I have to say my excitement is tinged with trepidation. I’m throwing myself headlong into the mysterious world of Birding with People. We’re talking four straight days of long hours in the field with strangers. Sure, these strangers are older, whiter, and more awkwardly friendly than the general population... sort of like Canadians. But I won’t know anyone. Who will I sit with at lunch? What will I talk about? It’s like middle school all over again.

And on the other hand, what if this whole experiment goes too well? Will I start hanging out with birders so much that I lose the grounding influence of my normal friends? Will I start to walk around town in a safari helmet and fanny pack? What will become of my street cred, accumulated over the course of decades of social binge-drinking, awkward dancing at parties and genuine interest in professional sports? The mind reels.

Well, if the internet has taught me one thing about how to succeed in life (aside from the power of the homemade sex video), it’s that sometimes, you just have to take a chance. It’s a new year, sort of, and maybe my thing this year is just to go balls-to-the-wall and see what happens. Maybe by dropping my guard, I’ll let something wonderful into my life, as suggested by noted philosopher and medicine woman Jane Semour.

Or maybe I’ll just be uncomfortable. Well, I’ll let you know.

As you know, my hummingbird feeder has been a huge success. But there’s a whole world of non-humming birds out there, and they too need to be lured in where I can see them while working. To that end, I dug up my old seed feeder, bought a bag of seed mix, and hung the feeder in the backyard. Once again, the waiting game began.

This time there was less waiting. Here’s how it went:

Day 1:  No birds.

Day 2:  One House Finch.

Day 3:  Two House Finches.

Day 4 and every day since:  A shitstorm of House Finches.

I now awake every day to the shrieking of two dozen House Finches. The little red and brown bastards coat the concrete patio like the stubble in the sink when I shave. This is a good thing, sure; I've proven eminently capable of convincing wild birds to eat stuff that I paid for. But variety is the spice of life. Fortunately, other characters drop in from time to time:

A pair of California Towhees used to chase the House Finches away when there were just one or two of them. Nowadays, overwhelmed by the finches’ swelling ranks, they stop in for a bite or two and go quietly on their way.

This young sparrow will don its white crown in the spring. I hadn’t seen these guys in the neighborhood until my seeds went out, so I’m giving myself mad props for this one.

This bird is uncommon in the entire L.A. area, and here I have one stopping in my yard every day. #WINNING

… and of course a squirrel. Meh.

Anyway, what’s amazing to me is how deeply intertwined the birds’ lives and mine have become, and how quickly. A few weeks ago, I was not someone who fed birds. For years, I was content to see whatever happened by my window, never intervening in the natural order of things. (Unless you count the space my home was taking up, the electricity and gas I was using, the waste I was generating, etc. etc. etc. DETAILS.)

Cut to today: I’m basically the Sam Malone of an avian Cheers. Every day the regulars roll in like clockwork, chatting amongst themselves as they gulp down their “usual” (seeds). Every evening, as they retire to their separate roosting places, their parting is made easier by the knowledge that they’ll see each other tomorrow at The Feeder. It’s heartwarming, really.

As for me, though my initial curiosity has been sated, I’m happy to keep footing the bill. Bird feeding, like birding, is subject to a sort of momentum that eventually frees it from the need of any reason. I just keep on doing it, even when – and yes, I am aware – I find myself doing things that would appear increasingly strange to a normal human observer.

A couple days ago I had a newcomer – a Western Scrub-Jay dropped in to have a look around.

Vexingly, I had run out of seeds, and there was nothing but husks littering the patio. Dammit! This was my chance to let him know my establishment was worth visiting again. I took a desperate look through my kitchen, which seldom contains anything edible even for humans – and seized upon a box of cereal. Then there was the matter of getting the food out to him. I couldn’t walk outside or I’d surely scare him off – I needed a window. But the windows in the kitchen had screens that were not easily removed. My mind continued to race, in full-on bird-feeding MacGyver mode. Must… feed… bird….

And that, gracious readers, is how I found myself, a grown-ass man at home in the middle of the day, sprinting upstairs to my office, opening the window, lifting the screen, and showering a bewildered, three-ounce bird with a fistful of Honey Nut Cheerios.

Life is crazy, amirite?

The scrub-jay did take a few of those Cheerios, but soon wandered off to the neighbor’s yard, and then beyond. I haven’t seen him since, and I can't predict the tenor of his forthcoming review on Bird Yelp. But those birds that do drop in will find me eager to please. I guess at the end of the day – and the beginning and the middle – you might as well have some familiar faces around.

Regular readers of BFH, if they exist, may have noticed I took the holidays off from blogging. You see, producing blog posts of the caliber expected by my fans (parents) requires a solemn communion with my laptop, as undesirable as it is infeasible during family gatherings. But whatever distractions may present themselves, I never, ever, ever take a vacation from birding – like, not for a second. With a hat-tip to the grammar-bending new movie Not Fade Away, I present an illustration of what it means to be never not birding.

A few weeks ago, the bird-blogging gurus at 10,000 Birds called on readers to submit their “Bird of the Year” – basically, the coolest bird sighting you had in 2012. I failed to get a response in by the deadline, but I did not fail to ruminate extensively. I had never chosen a Bird of the Year before, but the idea appealed to me, as it prompted a happy stroll down Birding Memory Lane.

While there were lots of nice moments, there was no one sighting that really stood out. The rarest bird I had seen was probably the White Wagtail in L.A., but how excited can you get about a bird that someone else found and told you exactly how to find for yourself? Hundreds of people saw that bird. Meh. I thought about choosing Allen’s Hummingbird, not so much for a single sighting as for its overall contribution to my year in birding. One morning in March, I woke up, sat up in bed, and saw one out the window – my first Allen’s Hummingbird ever. (Note well: Groggy and indecent, but not not birding.) Cut to the end of the year, when they’re buzzing around my new home all the time and even eating at my feeder. Nice bird, that Allen’s Hummingbird. Still, it didn’t seem to fit the bill.

So I missed the Christmas Eve deadline for submitting to 10,000 Birds, and having made myself fat and merry over many a holiday dinner, I was more or less content to give up on picking a Bird of the Year. On Christmas Day, the roads were quiet and dusted with snow as I set out with my bride, heading from one family gathering in Vermont to another in Connecticut. As we stood in the cramped office of Thrifty Car Rental, answering the four hundred questions they ask before they will let you pay them to borrow a well-worn Chevy Aveo, I was only mildly irritated – so lulled was I by the Holiday Spirit.

But like that of a caged lion, my outward calm belied the instincts of a born hunter. Somewhere between declining something and declining something else, I became aware of the presence of birds just outside the office window. Medium-sized, almost silhouetted in the late-afternoon light… I figured they were Blue Jays maybe, something mundane. Then it dawned on me, and my jaw dropped: Holy crap. Pine Grosbeaks.

These are birds of the remote wild north, birds I had only ever seen once, years before, and was not expecting to see here. I said out loud, “Holy crap,” and walked straight out the door, right in the middle of dealing with the car. When I glanced back in through the window, I saw one very concerned wife and one totally nonplussed Rental Sales Agent staring back at me. I tried to reassure them by laughing – Ha ha, I know this is crazy, I’ll explain later – but the looks on their faces didn’t change. Too bad, but I wasn’t stopping. This was the kind of moment that doesn’t come along very often. Genuine shock. Like when the roller coaster dips and your stomach tingles. Your blood surges. Without thinking, you drop what you’re doing, because your conscious mind is not in control anymore – you’re in the thrall of the bird.

The birds were cooperative, hanging out close enough for me to get a few pics. I took a break to run inside and explain to my wife, who was understanding enough to let me run right back out and keep watching, God bless her. I texted my dad, the only contact in my phone who would be jealous. And I watched them gorge themselves on berries, those four fat Pine Grosbeaks – my Birds of the Year.