On a shelf above her desk, Paula displays a decorative, plaster paperweight, shaped like a layer cake, a fake frosting rose on top. Alongside, is a plump creature with antennae, having taken several bites of cake, yet hardly making a dent. A small sign reads, “Always take on more than you can possibly handle, or you’ll never do all you can do.”
This was a gift to Paula, a keepsake from high school days. Ironically, these same words were on a poster in my room during high school, several years before I knew Paula, a decade before we married. This adage resonated with us both, maybe still does, but “still does” may require a separate column. In Paula’s case, this quote suggests action and motion, energy and initiative (all accurate), which is why I scoffed, actually laughed, when she declared 25 years ago, “I’m going to become a birdwatcher.”
You think you know someone, ha. By then, we’d been married for several decades, with three young children. Paula had a demanding, consumptive career, and a husband making weekly, out-of-town business trips. “And you’re going to watch the birds, dear?” If I knew then what I know now, I might have asked, “Do you mean ‘birding’ rather than ‘birdwatching?’”but I didn’t yet know this semantic difference.
As an insightful New Yorker story notes, “Crudely put, birdwatchers look AT birds; birders look FOR them.” Indeed, Paula meant birdwatching… and she’s maintained this somewhat passive pursuit for the last quarter century. I say somewhat passive because we’ve invested in multiple bird-feeding stations – basically, four feeders hanging from a pole – plus twenty-five years of feeders, birdseed, suet, and such.
Periodically, we’ve sought out birds (birding). Three decades ago, even before Paula’s declaration, we were grand prize winners in a charity raffle: an all-expense trip to Belize, a relatively undiscovered destination in the early 1990s. Belize is a bird paradise, boasting 600 species; tourism sites brag “even amateur bird-watchers have little trouble checking off 100 species in a week.” (Note, North America totals approximately 700 bird species.) Our prize package included a river boat cruise, billed as “a birdwatching excursion.” For three hours, we were in a twelve-person vessel with ten ardent British birders in search of birds.
Suffice to say, our afternoon companions fit the stereotypical image: pale, puffy 60-year-olds with floppy hats, worn guidebooks, durable binoculars, and cameras with massive lenses (we had a disposable cardboard camera). They traveled five-thousand miles to watch our feathered friends; we purchased a lucky ticket. We rolled our eyes at their mannerisms, smirked at their expressions, were amused by their accents. Within a half-hour, however, we were enthralled by their graciousness, their patience, and their knowledge. Their infectious passion made for an unforgettable experience.
More recently, we’ve savored brief birding “safaris” in Kenya during the heat of the day, when four-legged wildlife is rarely visible. We motored across game preserves in open-air jeeps, looking for birds ranging in size from finches to ostriches. Once in view, we’d bark out qualities – “orange beak,” “yellow breast,” “long tailfeathers” – just like pro birders teasing out an identification.
Our house is located between a creek and its tributary, a restored prairie remnant on one side, a small woodlot on the other. And we have birds! Ducks and geese, eagles and owls, herons and hawks. Plus, almost every breed of songbird found in North Iowa, common and uncommon. Our trusty Sibley guide is readily available, with almost two decades of scribblings, primarily dates of early spring sightings. Paula was right, we’ve finally become full-fledged birdwatchers (yeah, I slipped that in), joining 70 million Americans, fully one-third of U.S. residents sixteen or older, headed outdoors to watch birds one or more times annually.
Given the number and variety of birds we hope to identify, with our eyes or with our ears, reminds me of a proverb about taking on more than we should in hopes of achieving all that we might.
Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Columnists
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Julie Gammack: Julie Gammack’s Iowa Potluck, Des Moines and Okoboji
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Fern Kupfer: Fern and Joe, Ames
Robert Leonard: Deep Midwest: Politics and Culture, Bussey
Tar Macias: Hola Iowa, Iowa
Kurt Meyer, Showing Up, St. Ansgar
Kyle Munson, Kyle Munson’s Main Street, Des Moines
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John Naughton: My Life, in Color, Des Moines
Chuck Offenburger: Iowa Boy Chuck Offenburger, Jefferson and Des Moines
Barry Piatt: Piatt on Politics Behind the Curtain, Washington, D.C.
Macy Spensley, The Midwestern Creative, Davenport/Des Moines
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Buggy Land, Kalona
Mary Swander: Mary Swander’s Emerging Voices, Kalona
Cheryl Tevis: Unfinished Business, Boone County
Ed Tibbetts: Along the Mississippi, Davenport
Teresa Zilk: Talking Good, Des Moines
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